I watch the battles over public opinion on the news. Should the bans be lifted? Are the governors taking the correct steps? Are the protestors correct for standing up for their Constitutional rights or is it okay for those rights to be limited in extreme cases? And if so, for how long?
The range of extremism is crazy, founded on fear, hyped up by the media. (Yes, I said it.) On the one side there is the “this virus will take months, possibly a year or more to resolve.” On the other side there is “the rate of death from this disease is still only one percent of those infected.” (Some sources say 3%. An accurate count has been difficult to obtain.)
We face an economy that, if not started soon, could face consequences that make the 2008 recession seem like a walk in the park. But people don’t understand what it means when the oil price bottoms out below zero or what rampant deflation can do. They don’t understand what industries will collapse if oil production is halted and a crisis comes. And after hurricanes, floods, and wars, despite living in a pandemic, many still feel a crisis won’t occur. Wars are started for less. Depressions are sparked by less. And yet, when those that know economics and history speak up, urging us to open whatever we can, they are attacked viciously, with words that accuse them of neglect and even murder. But read and research for yourselves! Read about the impact of deflation!
Social media viewing is like a roller coaster ride after eating hot dogs and nachos and cotton candy. It makes you nauseous. It’s a snapshot, I believe, of the varied opinions that are freely shared without repercussions or accountability. One person I know only shares negative Covid-19 articles about doom and death. Another only shares conspiracy theories. It makes me wonder if the calamities that have befallen before in our history we’re forgotten or just didn’t impact them like this one. Perhaps, on 9/11, it seemed remote because they didn’t know someone that died and didn’t experience the terror and destruction except through a TV screen. Perhaps in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it wasn’t a loved one of theirs that served. For many, this is truly the most life altering event that has ever occurred to them. What blessed lives they must have lived up to this point!
History teaches us many lessons, but nearly four in ten Americans can’t name one right guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. So when those rights are trampled, they think it okay and can’t understand the outrage in others. The term “inalienable” is not one they truly understand. History lessons that happened during the Spanish Flu or The Great Depression are not ones that seem applicable to them. One daughter of mine always used to say, “it’s a bunch of dead people,” until she began to read and learn about the struggles and determination in those people. How many of us understand that those times could be repeated?
Life for many of us may has stopped or has been contained in our dwellings, but that won’t stop the bills that come due. There may be a temporary suspension on certain things like evictions, foreclosures, and cutting off of utilities. There may have been a stimulus to help, for which many are still waiting, but it won’t cover everything for long. All of these measures are merely band-aids on what is slowly becoming a gushing stab wound. The economy isn’t just “livelihood;” It is the future. Just because you can’t see the calamity happening from your living room doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
We won’t just pick up where we left off back in the beginning of March with no penalties. The unpaid bills will come due. Unemployment, as many learned in the 2008 recession, only lasts for so long before it runs out, leaving millions with no income to feed their families and pay the bills. As the artist Eminem stated, “... these *%#* food stamps don’t buy diapers.” They also don’t pay the bills.
Recovery from the 2008 recession didn’t end suddenly. It took years for many to get back on their feet. The domino effect was felt for a long time as people ran out of unemployment benefits and had to take jobs that paid significantly less than their previous income. The banks wanted to be repaid in full. Defaulting on mortgages, bankruptcies, and the economic downfall impacted many families for several years after the 2008 recession.
If you haven’t lost everything you spent years building, it is hard to understand the toll it takes. It isn’t just the lost houses, but the degradation of failing, even when it isn’t your fault. A working class family may scrape for years to save a few thousand dollars, only to see it disappear within weeks of an economic downturn. It impacts marriages. It impacts families. It impacts, like ripples in a pond, every area of life. Unemployment leads to higher rates of depression, spousal and childhood abuse, and even suicide. So no, it isn’t “livelihood.” It’s lives... pure and simple.
Covid-19 could cost the lives of my daughters, but so could losing the jobs that provide insurance for quality health care. Anyone that believes “Medicaid” and other state-sponsored insurance programs give the same quality of care as job-sponsored or premium-paid health insurances has never been told they had a six-month wait to see a dentist because the one office locally that accepts the government insurance only sees “Medicaid” patients one day a week. They have never been denied needed treatment or access to treatment programs because their government insurance isn’t accepted. They haven’t had to drive for an hour one-way to see a doctor that accepts their insurance, only to be told that their appointment had been cancelled or wait for hours in a crowded waiting room because this doctor or dentist is always full.
The lives lost may not come immediately, but a severe economic downturn does cost lives.
And let’s talk about the lock-down of the economy and normal life. Those “out-patient” surgeries that were delayed aren’t all little procedures. My church is praying for a man in extreme pain due to a back injury. The surgery to repair the damage was delayed. His pain is unbearable. And another man had a meeting postponed indefinitely about being placed on the kidney donor list. He needs a transplant. How long before dialysis stops working and he is deemed too ill for a transplant? Again... lives.
The quarantine was put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19 and to protect the most vulnerable. It was never meant to be a long-term situation. We are still learning about this disease and don’t have all the answers. It is called “novel” for the Italian word “novella,” meaning new. The quarantine was meant to give time... time for doctors and hospitals to prepare, time for medications and treatments to be developed and tried. It was to give time to make sure ventilators and beds were set up and ready should they be needed. The quarantine was never meant to last until a cure was found. It was meant to buy some time. But time becomes a game of Russian Roulette as we stay shut down, with the lives of those that might be most at risk are balanced with the lives of those where waiting also has an extreme cost. That is what is meant by “the cure can’t be more costly than the disease.”
It’s not a decision I would like to be responsible to make.
Are you going to tell the kidney transplant candidate that his life is unimportant? What about the man contemplating suicide six months from now when he and his family are homeless as unemployment rates soar and deflation overtakes the country? And, if the economic downturn turns into a depression that lasts years, do you think we can just continue to print money to throw at the problems? Basic economics tell us that leads to worse issues.
I agree that we won’t emerge from this crisis the same. I think many believe that the only repercussions will be they will be more careful of their health. The truth is that we won’t be the same because we had to make choices that weren’t comfortable or easy or fair.
What I hope is that fear stops ruling and wisdom makes an appearance. It isn’t fair to ask me to risk my daughters’ lives... or my parents’ lives or my friend with cancer to open the economy prematurely. It is also not fair to dismiss the consequences of keeping it closed. But I can try to protect my family members by all of us taking precautions and maintaining distance if possible. There is nothing I can do to protect my family from the impact of long-term unemployment and an economy that collapses. Fear is ruling, and the proof is that I still struggle to find toilet paper or hand soap or disinfectant. I read yesterday that frozen pizzas are now being hoarded. Frozen pizzas!
So, if we stay locked down, will getting food be a challenge the entire time? The price increases we’ve seen in groceries and staples sure don’t match with the gas prices. We’ve set up strict standards, are being tracked on our cell phones to grade citizens on their compliance, and have decided what is and isn’t essential. Some states even have hotlines to report people not in compliance with social distancing measures. Could there be anything more Nazi-like? Most are gladly willing to comply to save lives for a time, but how long is long enough? Do we wait until no one is dying? Because we already know a reoccurrence could happen in the fall. Do we wait for a vaccine that might take a year or more to develop and certainly poses risks? Do we wait until a couple weeks after the peak, as is what is being encouraged, and slowly open things back up in phases while continuing to protect the most vulnerable? Do we continue measures in the hardest hit places for a longer period of time, but lessen them in the places that haven’t been impacted to the same degree?
Do we wait until there are no small businesses left because they have disappeared due to the weight of not being “essential?” Do we watch our big stores that have already been struggling in the age of Amazon completely disappear from our landscape because they were closed for so long? Do we keep our parks, our restaurants, our schools as abandoned for another few months or a year? Do we continue to hope parents can pay for their internet with so many having been laid-off; or for them to maintain the car payments to take their child to a WiFi hotspot so they can “do school” online, in the back seat? What’s the limit and what qualifies you to make it?
Again, I am grateful it is not me having to make the tough decisions.
I am blessed because we still have an income. I am blessed because my faith has never been stronger. I am blessed because my county has a .07% rate of infection. I am blessed because we have been homeschooling for over a decade and this hasn’t completely altered my daughter’s life.
I’m also aware and alert. History is happening, and I don’t want to miss the lessons.
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