Interesting that this actually came out of the The Washington Post.
We technically will never know since the prior structure was never put to the test since it seems it only existed between 2014 and 2018. Would we be better today if the consolidation hadn't happened. We won't really know. If COVIC-19 had happened in 2012, the same questions would be getting asked of the prior administration. It is also safe to point out that the piece put together by the "new side" isn't necessarily void of opinion.
Bottom line: human lives are worth more than money. Please, please understand this!Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown
No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.
By The Editorial Board
Updated March 19, 2020 7:40 pm ET
Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over. If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine. This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009.
The vast social-distancing project of the last 10 days or so has been necessary and has done much good. Warnings about large gatherings of more than 10 people and limiting access to nursing homes will save lives. The public has received a crucial education in hygiene and disease prevention, and even young people may get the message. With any luck, this behavior change will reduce the coronavirus spread enough that our hospitals won’t be overwhelmed with patients. Anthony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb and other disease experts are buying crucial time for government and private industry to marshal resources against the virus.
Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms.
Even cash-rich businesses operate on a thin margin and can bleed through reserves in a month. First they will lay off employees and then out of necessity they will shut down. Another month like this week and the layoffs will be measured in millions of people...
If GDP seems abstract, consider the human cost. Think about the entrepreneur who has invested his life in his Memphis ribs joint only to see his customers vanish in a week. Or the retail chain of 30 stores that employs hundreds but sees no sales and must shut its doors.
Or the recent graduate with $20,000 in student-loan debt—taken on with the encouragement of politicians—who finds herself laid off from her first job. Perhaps she can return home and live with her parents, but what if they’re laid off too? How do you measure the human cost of these crushed dreams, lives upended, or mental-health damage that result from the orders of federal and state governments?...
Read more here:
Opinion | Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown
No society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.www.wsj.com
Personally I agree.
I know you are the op and my post was not actually directed to you. You have very valid points. You are right when you say it is not so black or white. As you I am optimistic that this will not be as bad as projected, so others will view me as naive too.
Obviously, we won’t know if the projections are accurate until this is over. We’re still on the front end of this pandemic, not the back end. It is going to get worse before it gets better. So, there’s no way to know how many will die. The medical experts are doing their best to give accurate projections based on the information they have and various scenarios measuring the progress, or lack thereof, in fighting the spread of the virus. Right now, we aren’t seeing a lot of success and the projections reflect that. Hopefully, in the end, you’ll be correct, but things will have to change significantly and quickly for that to happen.
Yes an antibodies test would change the what can be done. Until that is available widely nothing has changed.
I’ve done BCP/DR plans for roughly 20 years as well, though admittedly within the IT sector since that is my career path.
The reason we need to simultaneously be focused on restorative measures is precisely because we failed to focus on preventative measures when it would have paid the biggest dividends. Our patient zero occurred at almost the exact same time as South Korea, but look at their curve compared to ours - because they reacted quickly, ramped up massive testing coupled with strict quarantine and tracing.
So, this choice for us is no longer an option. We are now left with mass social distancing as we ramp up testing capacity. Any mass quarantine will need to last for 8-10 weeks to significantly blunt the curve like South Korea has done - and we have waited long enough that even this option and length of time may not actually work well enough unfortunately. So we may need to promote mass social distancing for those most at risk for three months or more.
If we leave our economy shut down for an entire quarter - we will inevitably experience a depression, an order of magnitude greater than the Great Depression - or what is now being called the Greater Depression in the missives I’m reading on a pretty much daily basis. I’m a finance and economics geek by education. The stuff I’m reading right now is unprecedented, and the law of unintended consequences will apply more broadly than most can imagine if we stay on pause for a long period of time. This is why it is critical that we focus on both/and solutions. As I’ve said on other forums, we can do this - we have the capacity and the talent to do both.
To be 100% clear - I don’t want ANY loss of life - I’m NOT arguing that we have to choose between money and life. I believe to the core of my being that we can choose both simultaneously using a sophisticated scientifically driven approach. I think we are seeing ourselves very short by accepting anything less from our leaders and ourselves.
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Certain state leaders dismissed it too.