A couple more perspectives on how to manage the
coronavirus crisis nationally and regionally, and the impacts on individuals
who may be less affected so far.
Ezekiel J. Emmanuel, a provost at the University of
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) writes in the New York Times March 23, “FourteenDays: That’s the Most Time We Have to Defeat Coronavirus” with the byline “These
decisive measures can prevent a decade of dislocations and extraordinary levels
of deaths”.
He wants a complete lockdown and shelter-in-place for
the entire nation, because regional variations will undermine local efforts
(although that’s not completely the case in Europe; some countries still have low death rates).
Some of his detailed suggestions are good (such as
closing neighborhood streets to reduce activity to an absolute minimum).
At age 76, I am asked to stay home (in a high rise) as
much as possible. I can say I probably
haven’t been within 6 feet of anyone for an extended period since maybe March
8. But I have gone out on limited errands
in low-crowd spaces and bought takeout food.
The last part of his essay would seem to try to get
people ready for occupation change and joining unusual national volunteer efforts,
which couldn’t really be done under social distancing.
The video above discusses volunteering for phone banks
from home, and says food banks badly need healthy people to make
deliveries. They also need blood
donations. I made my first donation in
30 years (MSM) in early February, but at my age I don’t know if the Red Cross
would want me now.
There are even calls
for people with sewing machines to make masks at home. Companies with 3-d printers, that makes sense. Retooling manufacturers to make ventilators
makes sense.
The second piece by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post
describes the ideas of a 56-year old attorney in California Scott McMillan, who
wants to get healthy people back to work and stop helping the “non productive”
so much – the elderly. OK it sounds like
Nazism, or maybe the same thing Communist China really does in secret. It sounds
offensive. But I don’t expect anyone to
give up their lives to protect me. But
that’s off the target. First, we’re find out younger people are more vulnerable
than we had thought. Second, the idea is to protect the health care system,
whose collapse is itself a national security threat from foreign enemies (think
about North Korea and remember this started in China). So I am not offended personally, but I just
think his idea is dangerous pragmatically.
I won’t get into my own plans and how they would be
affected right here. I would like to stay
the course as much as possible and most of my work is at “home alone”. But it’s more complicated than this. Infrastructure around me needs to function
indefinitely.
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