Look, let's get something straight. No one is enjoying this. I don't know of a single person - myself included - who is having a ball being cooped up in their home separated from their relatives, friends, co-workers, etc. The prospect of not being able to go out to dinner or see a movie or attend a sporting event, or shop at a store or even go for a walk in a park or on a beach for the next several months is frustrating beyond belief. Apart from the economic impact this virus is having on the nation - which is incalculable - the psychological trauma could take months, if not years, to recover from.
We are indeed in unchartered waters. 330 million people are, for all intents and purposes, under house arrest. And, as in all incarcerations, the inmates are growing restless. Soon the warm weather will be upon us, and all those April showers will turn to May flowers. Cabin fever is all but guaranteed. We have already seen evidence of it in some parts of the country as demonstrations against stay at home orders are occurring in Michigan and Ohio.
In the White House, we have a president who, against the advice and warnings of the scientific community, is considering reopening the country. States like New York - the epicenter of this pandemic - are challenging his authority to do so, and in typical fashion, he has threatened the governors of those states that do not bend to his will with the withholding of vital supplies. This will no doubt lead to yet another constitutional crisis that will tear at the fabric of society, just the sort of thing he revels in.
The lives of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people are literally hanging in the balance while this idiot plays God. Even now, he's holding up badly-needed stimulus checks so that he can have his name printed on them. There are no words that can adequately describe just how tone deaf and juvenile that is. Make no mistake about it. If Trump forces this country back open for business as usual at the beginning of May, those very same exponential growth rates that we saw only a couple of weeks ago will come back. Our hospitals will once again be swamped and our healthcare workers will be needlessly put at risk. Only in the last few days have any of them been able to catch their breath, that's how overwhelmed they've been.
And here's the irony. Opening everything up won't work. As I've stated before, letting this virus burn through the population will not only lead to a million or more people potentially dying, it will cripple virtually every sector of the very economy Trump seems to care so much about. And so far as a partial reopening, here's my question: which part do you think you can open up safely? I've heard some "experts" say with a straight face that we can let young people go back to work since the risk to them is small, forgetting that young people sometimes live with their older parents and grandparents. When a multi-billion dollar industry like professional sports can't come up with a way to safely resume play, that should tell you all you need to know about the logistical nightmare all of us are in.
We now know that almost a third of the people who contract COVID-19 are asymptomatic, meaning they don't show any signs of the virus. Allowing these people to circulate among those with pre-existing conditions who are medically most at risk would be tantamount to genocide on a national level. Without the kinds of testing and tracing that are being done in countries like Singapore and South Korea - where they've not only flattened the curve, they've all but driven it into the ground - it is irresponsible to even discuss a reopening.
Under the most optimistic projections, it will be a very long time before this country goes back to anything even resembling normal. And even then, there will likely be some fundamental changes. Until a vaccine is developed and distributed, people will still have to wear gloves and stay six feet apart from each other, which will make going out to dinner an adventure. Parishioners who go to their places of worship will have to be spaced appropriately apart to ensure their safety. Ditto for every employee who doesn't have the option to work from home. Something as innocuous as the shaking of hands may end up going the way of the dinosaur. Every time you see someone cough or sneeze you'll wonder if they're infected and whether they've infected you. The word normal will become an oxymoron in the American lexicon.
Hope is the most important thing we possess. It gives us the strength to carry on, even under the most arduous of circumstances. And in times like these, we can certainly use all the hope we can get. But false hope is inherently dangerous. It leads to unrealistic expectations that cannot be met, and that ultimately leads to disillusionment. And disillusionment can make an already disconsolate population that much more frustrated. If you think people are inpatient and restless now, try building up their hopes only to dash them later on. That's a powder keg I wouldn't want to be anywhere near when it blows.
There are better ways of mitigating the crisis the country is going through than to serve up its citizens as a smorgasbord. Congress has already passed one massive stimulus. It can and should pass another. With interest rates practically at zero, it can borrow whatever it needs to in order to ensure the solvency of the economy. In Europe, the governments have gone so far as to guarantee every able-bodied worker as much as 80 percent of their salary, while footing the bill for the companies that are forced to shutter during this pandemic. Don't tell me the same can't be done here.
The American people need to be leveled with. They need to be told the truth about this pandemic. And the truth is that for the foreseeable future this is going to be the new normal. We don't have to like it, but our very lives depend upon accepting it.
Our economy will recover; our dead won't.
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