Surviving the Coronavirus (# 14)

No Direction Known

Which way?

Globally there are now over 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 136,000 deaths. 

In the United States there are approaching 650,000 cases and 30,000 deaths. There may be a “flattening of the curve” in regard to the daily increases in confirmed cases but does that actually mean anything. Without more widespread testing, the actual number of cases is unknown. Talk of “normalizing” the economy seems premature.

An Interesting Week

It’s been an interesting week. The CBS News Magazine show “Sunday Morning” had a piece called “What America Needs From Its Leaders During a Crisis.” There were some definitive comments made by retired four-star General Stanley McChrystal, Dr. Penny Wheeler, the president and CEO of Allina Health, and Father Joseph McShane, the president of Fordham University.

Then, on Monday afternoon I happened to be watching the BBC America report when they went live to President Trump’s daily coronavirus briefing. Unlike other briefings of this type by the president, where we watched Dr. Anthony S. Fauci standing in the background as sort of a visual endorsement of the president’s comments (a task that Fauci didn’t excel at when he seemed not to be able to maintain the serious demeanor required), the president immediately stepped aside to allow Fauci to “clarify” his comments made during an interview the day before on a CNN news program. On that broadcast, Fauci had commented that more lives might have been saved had the country been shut down earlier.

• Fact check of President Trump's April 13th briefing

Fauci's Apology

Fauci seemed to swallow his humble pie in one enormous gulp. Then the president returned to the podium, showed a propaganda video, and ranted about his amazing performance for the next hour. Basically what happened on Monday was a fiasco with the president, digging in on his heels and turning a “briefing” into a clumsy defense of his performance over the past few months.

20/20 Hindsight?

Like anything that is critically examined in hindsight, it is easy to isolate poor judgement and find the mistakes. In the heat of any moment, we all make mistakes. Our reactions, when pushed in the moment, are corrupted by emotional and “gut” responses. Hindsight may give us the benefit of temporal perspective but suffers the bias of experienced outcome. We are unable to objectively know how any of us might act in a particular circumstance. It is for these reasons that our leaders need to be well read in all kinds of history and have a broad background experience. Furthermore, leadership requires that we acknowledge our limits and surround ourselves with well-read, knowledgeable, and experienced advisors rather than donors and bootlickers.

Trump's Leadership

Sadly, President Trump has not performed well as a leader, particularly based on the manner in which leadership had been described in CBS News’ report on “Sunday Morning.” He has danced around truth and fact as if they existed simply to be manipulated for personal gain (political, economic, or personal), not because of any principled effort on behalf of the public good. He was elected because voters have become more and more disillusioned by the antics of political behavior in this country. Both political parties have fallen into this rut and are dragging the entire population of the country down with them.

We are now under attack from a pathogen called COVID-19. This is not a political enemy like in a military battle. Pathogens are invisible. We don’t know how to react to them without some expert guidance from an agency like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The CDC is a federal agency that is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. It is supported by American taxpayers and is meant to provide protection of the public’s health with a particular focus on infectious disease.

Secretary of Health and Human Services

The leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services is a cabinet level position, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The current Secretary is Alex Azar. Has anyone seen him lately? It has been reported that Azar had urged President Trump to respond early (back in January) to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

Daily Beast: "Trump Didn't Like Azar's Warnings, So He Disappeared Him"

Lethal Consequences

Currently, we are being subjected, by our leadership, to incessant quibbling about what we coulda, woulda, and shoulda done. The consequences are lethal in more ways than one. Primarily, we have no protection from COVID-19 – no antidote, no preventative vaccine, and no universal testing. We can be confident that medical science will develop a pharmaceutical defense but, in the meantime, we need to acknowledge that it will take some time. A defense against this coronavirus is not a simple challenge. Drugs need to be extensively tested. Not only does the drug need to beat COVID-19, but it needs to do so without doing other harm. How will it interact with other drugs that we are taking? What dosage will be effective? We will not have this defense next week or even next month. Experience warns us that this sort of development will take a year or longer.

New York Times: “The Huge Cost of Waiting to Contain the Pandemic”

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We also need to acknowledge that our economy must adapt to the circumstances. This is a wartime situation that is unlike any experience that our leaders have. People need, and want, leadership that gives them confidence and we are not getting it. Leaders all over the world need to take a step back and stop their “doublespeak.” They need to get a whole lot more creative in their thinking. Put their heads together, listen to the ideas of others, and come up with a global plan for a global challenge.

Virtual Travel to Nepal will continue next . . .