To Open Or Not To Open

This week I was determined to write about something other than the virus, but couldn’t make myself do so. More than two decades ago — way back in the 20th century as a matter of fact — I promised myself  I would write columns only about what was most on my mind any given week. I’d write only about what I wanted to write about, not what various editors wanted. That isn’t conducive to furthering a career as a columnist, but it s good for my equilibrium.

Often I start writing about something and as my fingers move around the keyboard, I’ll end up somewhere else and I think, “Where did that come from?” Writing is a way of thinking things through. What starts as a vague idea turns into something coherent as one constructs logical sentences with subject, verb, and direct object, then sequence them into paragraphs. So, what’s on my mind this week? The same thing that’s on everyone’s mind: the virus, but more specifically our individual and collective reactions to it. We’re all wondering when our lives will return to what they were, if they ever do.

Social distancing is easier for my wife and I as we spend most of our time with people to whom we’re closely related. I have a big family: six siblings, three children, six grandchildren, in-laws, as well as nieces and nephews too numerous to count. Several are in the health care professions and some of them are working directly with the virus. I worry about them and pray too. We exchange information I use to hone the working hypothesis to understand event around me. This is a new thing we’re dealing with, hence the moniker “novel” corona virus. Leaders from all over the political spectrum thought at first that this was just another flu. They made statements they now wish they didn’t. We all thought it killed only the elderly and weak, but have since learned that is not always true.

My daughter sent me this

Only three months ago, the World Health Organization said virus didn’t spread human-to-human. Now there are calls to defund the WHO and demands that its director resign. Only weeks ago someone at Oxford University projected over two million dead in the United States. According to the March 16 New York Times, that lead to the near-total shutdown of our lives and economy. Now we hear that projection was way overblown, but the restrictive policies we’re still living under are all based on that. So where do we go from here? Back to how we were?

Some say not until we have a vaccine, but that’s a year out at least. When we get herd immunity? We may be closer to that than we think with so few in California being hospitalized. Were they exposed earlier? We won’t know until they’re all tested. Should we have shut down earlier or has this all been an overreaction? We don’t know without more data. Who can reopen the country? The president alone? The governors? Both together? Democrat governors have been more restrictive than Republican governors. The left wants to maintain the shutdown. The right wants to open up. We had a total economic collapse but we may have a patchwork recovery.

Almost daily I watch Coronavirus Task Force press conferences on Fox because mainstream media don’t all carry them live. President Trump dominates, ,endlessly repeating how government response is terrific and everyone is doing a great job “like nobody’s ever seen before.” That’s true in the sense that never before have the president and governors shut down the entire country. Never before have we printed so much money so quickly. Never before have the stock market, GDP, and the employment tanked further or faster.

In this election year, Trump’s ace in the hole was a strong economy virtually guaranteeing his reelection. Since 2016, stories dominating news have been Russian collusion, emoluments, the 25th Amendment, Stormy Daniels, the Ukraine phone call, impeachment — stories that had Democrats and their mainstream media allies salivating. But none of it worked. Six weeks ago, Democrat hopes rested with Bernie and Biden and it didn’t look good for them at all.

Then, as if it dropped from the sky, the novel coronavirus appeared! Trump’s economy tanked and Democrat hopes were renewed. Now Bernie is gone but Biden looks hapless. Some say Democrats and their media allies are quietly pushing Andrew Cuomo to dislodge Biden at a virtual convention this summer. Liberals and conservatives both insist their policy recommendations are solely based on what’s good for the American people and have nothing to do with partisan politics. Some seem to believe that. Others do not.

Democrat governors say they decide when to open up. Trump says he does. We’ll see.