In “Coronavirus: The Worldwide Shutdown” on March 14, I warned that self-fulfilling prophecies and creeping authoritarianism were governing efforts to combat this virus.
From panic buying to manic closings, social distancing to self-isolation, and social-media scammers to Truman-Show hammers, life is imitating the art that played out in dystopian films like the Hunger Games, Idiocracy, and The Age of Stupid.
But two sets of tweedledees and tweedledums bother me above all others: politicians-cum-dictators rushing to play wartime leaders and citizens-cum-lemmings blithely subjecting themselves to martial law-like restrictions, respectively. Frankly, our reality today is making the dystopian fiction in George Orwell’s 1984 look like 1950s American utopia.
Hell, just yesterday, the governor of Virginia shocked the living daylights out of residents when he commandeered our phones to transmit an “Emergency Alert!” Except that he only wanted to make a show of becoming the first politician in the world to extend his stay-at-home order to mid-June.
Why? Just because … Yet I seem to be the only one complaining about it.
But his move only reinforces my abiding concern about setting an untenable precedent. Indeed, politicians and experts alike seem so fixated on fulfilling their own doomsday prophecies, they seem oblivious to the obvious question: What happens next time?
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s virus tsar, is already sounding alarm about the seasonal nature of this pandemic, warning of a second wave as early as this fall.
And the BBC report “Covid-19: The history of pandemics,” March 25, 2020, warned that it’s only a matter of time before the recent history that brought us the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, HIV, Swine Flu, Ebola, Zika, and Covid-19 repeats itself.
(Don’t get me started on the looming spectre of terrorists or rogue states unleashing man-made contagions.)
The question is, are we dimwittingly committing ourselves henceforth to fighting pandemics the way we’re fighting this one – with all of the opportunity costs and collateral damage that would entail each time? After all, we managed to defeat every other pandemic without shutting down the global economy and turning countries into hybrids of ghost cities and police states.
Speaking of which, MedStar Health sent letters to all physical therapy clients in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., declaring their services essential under state law. It advised us to carry those letters whenever we travel to appointments in case we get stopped by the police. Now how is that any different from being prepared for the gestapo in Nazi Germany to demand
Your papers, please!
No doubt you’ve seen the aforementioned politicians on TV waxing militaristic about preventing more people from dying in this “war” than the number of Americans who died on 9/11 or in every war since Vietnam. But God save us from the dystopian vainglory and influence of Donald Trump. For I fear he already has half of the country convinced he’s displaying greater commander-in-chief leadership during this pandemic than Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War.
Incidentally, in “Medics Complain about the Lack of Supplies to Fight Coronavirus. Trump Passes the Buck…Again.” March 20, 2020, I delineated the most effective four-point plan to fight this virus. Singapore, South Korea, and Sweden are executing it to great effect.
In any case, you should chastise any leader who spouts misleading and wholly inappropriate comparisons to terrorism or real wars. Then, with previous pandemics in mind, you should challenge them to explain why they’re subjecting you to de-facto martial law in this case. After all, every life is precious, no?
Dr. Fauci (of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) is renowned for advising six US presidents. But even he would be hard-pressed to explain why he never advised any previous president to declare war against any previous pandemic.
This coronavirus might end up killing the 200,000 his task force estimates. But even so, it will still prove far less deadly than the over 600,000 who die each year from heart disease, the over 500,000 who die each year from cancer, and the over 400,000 who die each year from smoking.
But just imagine the panic if the nation reacted to those pandemics (or even to the seasonal flu, which kills over 50,000) the way it’s reacting to this one – complete with the media fetishistically tolling bells for every death. And, if you’ll forgive this growing pet peeve, am I the only one who wonders why celebrities aren’t sharing positive tests for HIV and other STDs in the interest of public health; you know, the way they are (over)sharing for this virus. Friggin’ narcissistic hypocrites!
In any event (and with apologies to T.S. Eliot), I feel moved to share:
Corona Spread
April brings the deadliest phase, spreading
This virus like wildfire, crossing
Public health and private love, teasing
Good times with more pain.
Stay safe, exercise, and try not to go too stir-crazy.
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