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The thing people miss about why the sporadic spring shutdowns failed is that the purpose of the shutdowns was not to completely end the spread of COVID, but to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed while programs to mitigate and control spread were implemented.
There was no consistent federal shutdown. Every state had their own approach to COVID, and for some states, that was no approach.
The federal government should have implemented a federal test-trace-isolate policy and did not. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air
The federal government should have implemented a federal test-trace-isolate policy and did not. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air
States were left to devise these programs for themselves. These programs were wildly inconsistent in terms of how they were implemented and how effective they were. States faced multiple uphill battles the US government needed to fix and did not. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21345590/covid-19-coronavirus-us-testing-contact-tracing-jobs
In some places, community spread was simply too widespread to conduct contact tracing. Things had already gone too far, and there was simply not the political will in those states (largely due to politicization of the virus by GOP leadership) to slow things down.
Shutdowns were never intended to be THE solution. They were a stopgap measure to slow the spread of the pandemic and buy the federal government time to DEVELOP solutions.
The federal government never did.
The federal government never did.
Putting the onus on individuals to stay home and to keep their children home without support or resources to enable them to do so or to wrestle alone with the ethics of getting tested and quarantining when doing so could mean losing your paycheck and job, is not reasonable.
Even people who are diligent and trying to do their best are going to have to take risks and make sacrifices, because there is simply no support or means to do otherwise.
When you add into the equation that numerous government officials have downplayed the severity of the virus, encouraged people to engage in risky behavior to boost the economy, and promoted resistance to any state or local measures to mitigate the spread...
...it is impossible that shut downs will be able to achieve any of their desired results, from slowing the spread to giving governments time to figure out solutions. Right now, the latter isn't on the table at all, because Trump and the GOP refuse to implement solutions.
We need UI through the pandemic. We need rent and mortgage relief. We need a federal test-trace-isolate program. We need mandatory paid sick leave and universal healthcare. We need a public-ed-first approach to "reopening."
Shutdowns right now are a bandaid to keep our healthcare system from completely collapsing and to prevent a mass death scenario that would dwarf the mass death scenario we're already living through.
It's not sustainable, and shutdowns won't solve the problems long-term.
It's not sustainable, and shutdowns won't solve the problems long-term.
The federal government MUST act. Donald Trump should be leading on this, but he's crying about the election. Republicans should be leading on this, but they are more concerned with people getting used to pandemic benefits than they are with saving lives.
We cannot "bootstrap" and "make good choices" our way through this. Hundreds of thousands of more people will die if something major doesn't change.
