CommentsLEANING RIGHT-We live in a pandemic world that is vastly, ever-more-complicated (beyond words, really) by competing perspectives of the right approach to getting through this health/economic crisis, and anyone who tries to address it either "has to say the right things" or ignores the obvious, two-faced reality of it all:
We are BOTH underestimating and overreacting to the COVID-19 virus, all at the same time.
So...enter the jack-in-the-box people who "get in your face" and try to reframe the narrative from a very complicated, nuanced issue into a very simple but inaccurate narrative of how something is either good or bad, easy or hard...as if life works that way.
(Kind of like the abortion issue...most of us are BOTH pro-life and pro-choice, but with different nuances yet with an overall consensus...and labelling the other side as pejorative makes the labeler the biggest part of the problem...but I digress...)
Are people dismissing the virus as a garbage hoax, and leading to the suffering of others? Yes.
(BOING! Most of those who get it survive! The flu we get every year is worse! Kids and young people overwhelmingly do just fine!)
Have federal, state, and local governments used the virus as a weapon to thrash civil liberties and behave in ways that are entirely unconstitutional, even with respect to the actual use of appropriate governmental powers to respond to emergency situations? Also, Yes.
(BOING! I don't want me or my Aunt Velma/Thelma/Gertrude and Grandpa Joe/Shmoe/Moe to get sick and die!)
Did Trump get the virus wrong? Yes.
(BOING! He wanted everyone to die, and he's incompetent, and he knew and allowed this all to happen!)
Did governors in heavily populated states get the virus wrong? Yes.
(BOING! They are OK with old people dying, and they just want to take our rights away, and they hate religion!)
Did the Democratic and Republican leaderships get it wrong? Yes.
(BOING! Nancy Pelosi and Bill DeBlasio got people to go to Chinatown and cram in trains and made everything worse, and THEY are the ones with blood on their hands, knowingly!)
(Governor Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida cared only about opening the economy and were willing to let people die just for money, especially people of color!)
Did Dr. Fauci get the virus wrong, and change tactics when he learned more as the pandemic progressed? Yes.
(BOING! He and Bill Gates have financial conflicts of interest and want to be part of a globalist-dominated economic empire that shows that they even caused this pandemic to occur!)
Are some of us too pessimistic about the formation of an effective vaccine? Yes.
(BOING! Damn that Trump--he's lying about hydroxychloroquine, bleaching our blood, and he's supposed to expect us to believe that the Moderna vaccine will work?)
Are some of us too optimistic about the formation of a vaccine and/or herd immunity? Yes.
(BOING! Damn those globalist, big-government liars! Sweden got through their pandemic with very few cases, and they did it through herd immunity! The trials with the Moderna vaccine are going just fine, and even Fauci says we'll have a vaccine soon!)
Well, behind all of this is a mutating virus (and mutating pandemic) that appears to be doing a combination of being less virulent (more virulent viruses kill off their hosts and prevent their own spread and survival), and being more treatable (thank you, medical science and creators of personal protective gear).
Which does mean that it's time for any of who can to GET BACK TO WORK AND FIGHT TO OPEN UP BUSINESSES AND DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO RESTORE YOUR LIFE!
As in, we can stay cautious and not need a change of underwear just thinking about going to the market, the doctor, or to get our hair done.
Most of us DO recover if we get the virus, but the impacts and side effects can be devastating to many--virtually 9 out of 10-- and can be significantly long-lasting.
Kids normally get off the easiest, but are we really doing what it takes to protect the teachers so that they can reliably go to work and not get "taken out"?
Even MORE interesting is that masks of all kinds can be protective...even if you GET the virus , which might a gigantic reason why the cases of COVID-19 go up but the death rate is going down.
The analogy: if you shot by a .22 pistol, you'll probably live. If you get shot 20 times by a .22 pistol, you probably won't. Hence the horrible deaths we saw in the initial outbreaks, and when nursing home patients were clustered, because both more virulent and highly-concentrated inoculums were being forced on human beings who could not ever hope to overcome such an infection.
Don't believe me and Forbes? Well, perhaps Drs. Gandhi and Rutherford of UC San Francisco who just wrote an article in the New England Journal of Medicine might be more credible sources.
There are all sorts of nuances and considerations when evaluating the Sweden model, but does their successful herd immunity approach work for other nations and circumstances in the world?
In short, as I write this to you in early October 2020, the suggestion that ANYONE got this right, and/or that ANYONE could have prevented the deaths and devastation caused by this virus, and the suggestion that ANYONE could have fixed this all with little to no economic impacts (did we WANT two million people to die in the U.S.?) is a childish approach ...
... and is probably part of the problem.
I suspect that there is by far more herd immunity than what we realize, and that incidental virus transmission is both very small and infinitely more survival and will be part of the immediate answer to reducing deaths and disablement.
So, there's optimism among the chaos.
But that doesn't excuse schools and workplaces (and governments who are supposed to lead, both at the federal and the state/local level) from having remained unprepared to adapt so that schools and workplaces COULD have opened, and with the vulnerable separated and safe.
So, if you can, put on your mask and/or face shield, do the distancing, wash your hands like crazy, and get your rear end to school, work, your errands, etc. SO LONG AS YOU DO IT RIGHT AND IF IT'S SAFE.
And shame, shame, shame on any of you so-called leaders who sat on your hands when you really needed to adapt and enforce all schools and businesses over the summer to be OPEN and SAFE.
The vaccine will come, sooner or later, and we will survive this if we use our hearts and heads alike.
(CityWatch Columnist, Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father to two cherished children and a wonderful wife. He was termed out of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) twice after two stints as a Board member for 8-9 years and is also a Board member of the Westside Village Homeowners Association. He previously co-chaired the MVCC Outreach and Planning Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of the MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He was previously co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, the grassroots Friends of the Green Line (which focused on a Green Line/LAX connection), and the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
-cw
