Maybe the health experts are wrong and the latest coronavirus threat will disappear with springtime. Unlikely, but even if true, there are a couple of important lessons to learn already.
The president assures us we’re fine and minimizes the threat by saying no Americans have died from the new corona virus (yet) and compares it with the flu. But let’s be realistic. The administration response to viral pandemics is anodyne platitude: cover your coughs and sneezes, stay home if you’re sick to avoid spreading disease, and see your doctor. And that’s basically their advice against the new virus which the CDC director says is coming — “not if, but when.”
The problem with this advice is that millions of Americans (about half) opt not to have flu vaccinations, a few because of misguided opposition to vaccinations in general but many because of the $40 cost to people without insurance. As for staying home when you don’t feel well, millions of Americans will have their pay docked (or be fired) for missing work so will drag themselves out of bed to the office, school, factory or shop and spread the viruses because they cannot afford to lose a day’s pay.
Neither Bernie Sanders nor Elizabeth Warren are my personal first choice for the Democratic Party nomination, but unless and until this country makes vaccinations free to all, pays for a doctor’s visits or hospitalization for uninsured people with viral infections, and finds a way to compensate people for lost time from work due to a virus, we will not only have 62,000 Americans dying from the flu (last year’s total) but will be very vulnerable to each new virus as it spreads. And this doesn’t even consider the impact on our economy with a stock market that dropped 10% just on the threat the virus might arrive.
The “Trump-Pence Epidemic,” as it just might be known in a dystopian near-future, may force us to some more realistic public health decisions.
Arne Werchick is a resident of Kailua-Kona.