Policymakers debate the need to shut down society as Trump says he wants “country opened” by Easter.
Trump wants‘ country opened’ by Easter, but scientists say it’s too soon
With President Donald Trump saying he wants “the country opened” by Easter to salvage the U.S. economy, a fierce debate now is raging among policymakers over the necessity to shut down vast swaths of American society to combat the novel coronavirus.
Health experts point to overwhelming evidence from around the world that closing businesses and schools and minimizing social contact are crucial to avoid exponentially mounting infections. Ending the shutdown now in America would be disastrous, many say, because the country has barely given those restrictions time to work, and because U.S. leaders have not pursued alternative strategies used in other countries to avert the potential deaths of hundreds of thousands.
But in recent days an increasing number of political conservatives have argued the economic cost is too high. At a town hall broadcast Tuesday, Trump suggested dire consequences if at least some economic sectors aren’t restored.
“We’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression,” Trump said. “You’re going to have all sorts of things happen, you’re going to have instability. You can’t just come in and say let’s close up the United States of America, the biggest, the most successful country in the world by far.”
At the event, Trump amplified a message that has been bubbling among conservative pundits in recent days. “Our people are full of vim and vigor and energy. They don’t want to be locked into a house or an apartment or some space,” Trump said. Speaking of the economy, he added, “The faster we go back, the better it’s going to be.”
The stance has many worried, including in his own party.
“There will be no normally functioning economy if our hospitals are overwhelmed and thousands of Americans of all ages, including our doctors and nurses, lay dying because we have failed to do what’s necessary to stop the virus,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the House’s highest ranking Republican woman, wrote in a Tuesday tweet.
But the greatest alarm has come from scientists, epidemiologists and health experts who have spent the past three months studying the new coronavirus and witnessed the destructive, contagious swath it has cut through other countries.
“To be a week into these restrictions and already be talking about abandoning them is irresponsible and dangerous,” said Tom Inglesby, director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Removing restrictions now would allow the virus, he said, to “spread widely, rapidly, terribly, and could kill potentially millions in the year ahead with huge social and economic impact.”
The simplistic debate — pitting the health of America’s economy against the health of its citizens — state leaders say, also has laid bare the pressing need for a long-term national strategy from the federal government, which by all public indications does not yet exist.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said Monday that Trump’s framing of the situation as a choice between saving businesses or lives was unhelpful. “You have to walk and chew gum in life,” Cuomo said. No executive “has the luxury of being one-dimensional.”
While not mentioning the president by name, Bill Gates — who co-founded Microsoft and now leads a global health foundation — rebuked Trump’s proposal in a Tuesday interview: “There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts.’”
To ease current restrictions even slightly without a massive increase in the U.S. death toll, some epidemiological models show, the country must first put in place other strategies — like the large-scale contact tracing of infections being done in South Korea, which local health departments simply do not yet have the manpower to do.
You would also first need widespread testing, which remains limited, to understand the scope of the problem and to give economists and epidemiologists data they currently don’t have to analyze the cost-benefit of such decisions.
Novel alternatives also could prove essential, like blood tests to identify people who already have recovered from infection and gained immunity because they could provide a workforce needed to restart the economy and quarantines could be applied surgically rather than to every American.
“We don’t have the strategy or tools we need to be talking about relax restrictions,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“There will be no normally functioning economy if our hospitals are overwhelmed and thousands of Americans of all ages, including our doctors and nurses, lay dying because we have failed to do what’s necessary to stop the virus.” REP. LIZ CHENEY, R-WYO.