To all those in Sedona who demand that we stay indoors, that tourists be forbidden entry and that no one return to workplaces, businesses, restaurants, parks and trails, exactly what is your idea of the end game?
Seriously, how does this pandemic crisis pan out?
Back in February and March, when the number of infected individuals began increasing on U.S. soil, the arguments for social distancing, closing businesses and travel limitations was to “flatten the curve.” According to Google Analytics, the phrase “flatten the curve” peaked in March and has since wholly disappeared from the conversation falling to 6%, fading like a sneeze into the air or into an N95 facemask.
This reasonable concept of staying home until the crisis peaks to avoid a crush at hospitals has instead been escalated — as Americans tend to do — into a hardcore and over-the-top push to imprison the healthy in their homes regardless of the local threat.
Nationally, gubernatorial demands to “shut down” the country or “continue the lock down” and “keep everyone home” have varied by degree and intensity. Some, like Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey merely suggested people stay home, while other governors have threatened fines or arrests but with plenty of loopholes to avoid constitutional violations. However, a few governors have imposed orders with dubious legal authority, ignoring constitutional protections, refusing to ask their legislators for consent and now face armed protesters at their statehouses or lawsuits that they will certainly lose in court.
Looking at websites that ping cell phones to measure travel, even on Arizona’s best day for self-quarantine, April 9, the maximum number of Arizonans who stayed home was only 15.9%.
Even in hard-hit California, those who stayed at home at the peak was only 25%, with the highest percentage in the San Francisco Bay Area, barely topping over 30% for only a few days in mid-April. That meant at least 70% of Californians were still leaving home to shop, work, play, etc.
Americans are overwhelmingly ignoring lock downs. Sure, we talk about staying home because it’s good politics, or looks responsible on social media, or because we don’t want to be shamed by our neighbors, but cognitively dissonant Americans are mostly still mobile. We just don’t want other people to do the same, instead overestimating our own personal healthy precautions over our “dirty disease-ridden” neighbors who clearly must be wiping their noses on everything and spreading the disease intentionally — the Lake Wobegon effect in practice.
Contrary to this opinion, the rest of us are trying to stay safe, excluding the misguided people who spend too much time watching YouTube nonsense and falsely believe COVID-19 is a government or corporate hoax. COVID-19 is here and is real. The response is debatable, not the disease.
But again, for those who want us to stay home and never leave the house, what is the end game?
Do we simply stay inside until COVID-19 goes extinct in the outside world? That’s clearly not happening. In early May, 66% of all new cases in New York City were in people who are self-quarantined.
Infected people don’t suddenly turn blue. Some can carry it for days, many with no or few symptoms and can spread it without their knowledge. A person can test negative, then catch it 10 minutes later in the waiting room. The virus is here to stay as an perpetual threat to our health, like HIV/AIDS, seasonal flu or malaria, until we develop herd immunity.
Some want us to wait until there is a vaccine which could take six months to two years at best. Don’t hold your breath; there still is no vaccine nor cure for SARS nor MERS, two COVID-19-like diseases that emerged more than 15 years ago. Although less contagious, they are still with us.
Should we remain at home, locked inside, only venturing out with a mask? Should we rename the planet COVID- 19 and pretend that we are a space colony where the air is toxic? We can survive, sure, but we can’t live that way.
Some 36.4 million Americans have filed for unemployment — nearly the population of Canada. They would be the 40th largest country if they all moved to an island.
Staying home until it’s “safe,” surviving on government support sounds great, but is an unreachable utopia.
The vast majority of Americans have to work to pay rent, bills or buy groceries; we have no savings. The U.S. government does not have the money to pay everyone to stay home.
Eventually printing money devalues currency meaning payments are worth less and less. Elected officials can’t agree on funding: The $2 trillion “fix” was abused from the start, leaving millions of small businesses abandoned.
Millions of Americans still haven’t gotten federal stimulus checks. Arizona’s unemployment system underfunded payments this week — whoops.
Our flawed health care system leaves us on our own without government aid if we get sick.
We have flattened the curve and are acting far safer than we did two months ago.
The only real endgame is to reopen and do our best to stay safe in a vastly changed world.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
