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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Nov. 13, 2020

What Will It Take to Shock People Out of Their Routines?

There's no political leadership as the virus spread worsens

 

Are we down to this, hoping that football can lead the way to stressing
the seriousness of the virus? (Daniel X. O'Neil/Creative Commons)

First Response

The U.S. is enjoying a nice little simulation of what life is like in a
failed state, in the midst of a national crisis. The top of the
government has been essentially rendered non-functional, if it ever was.
Donald Trump is using the White House solely as a TV room
,
and has completely disengaged

from the coronavirus outbreak. When he said that you wouldn't hear
about COVID after November 3, he must have meant from him. Beyond raging
at the "medical deep state
"
for announcing progress on a vaccine after the election, there's been
nary a word.

Trump has always been unforgivably lazy, and that's part of why
we're in the third wave of this crisis instead of the second. But the
consequences are even greater right now, given the skyrocketing numbers
of cases and hospitalizations across the country. You may see Trump as a
moron but 72.6 million people (and counting) thought he was good enough
to be president, and if the coronavirus doesn't exist for him, it
doesn't exist for them either. NPR had this heartbreaking story
yesterday

of an ICU nurse in central Michigan who said she constantly hears regret
in her patients, just before they're placed onto ventilators. "I
didn't know COVID was real, and I wish I'd worn a mask," they say,
struggling to breathe. That's the result of an utter lack of
leadership.

That leadership is urgently needed. We had 34,000 COVID hospitalizations
across the U.S. a month ago; there are 67,000 and rising now. The system
will be at capacity within a couple weeks, on that trajectory; some
regions are already there. Thanksgiving is about to "pour gasoline on
a fire
,"
as one Biden task force member puts it, with more travel than at any
point in the crisis. The medical profession has done exemplary work, and
we have strategies and treatments we didn't have in the spring. If
people can't get the medical care they need, none of that matters.

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Let's put lockdowns aside for a moment, as I'm dubious that any
elected official is willing to go there right now. In the spring, New
York and other locations set up field hospitals and called in retired
health care workers to increase capacity. Outside of mobile morgues in
El Paso

I don't see any evidence of that happening right now. There's no
federal assets or even interest in this basic function of keeping people
alive, and not much activity I can see at the state level, particularly
in parts of the Midwest that are hit the hardest.

So what can stand in for an absentee government? What's left is
personal responsibility, a lot to ask of a public that's adrift.
Really we're on our own now. And we can actually make a difference.
The public health measures are not unknowable: wear masks, avoid close
congregations to the extent possible, don't eat indoors at restaurants
or work out indoors at gyms. That would cover an overwhelming majority
of this and slow the spread, giving the sick a chance to actually get
treatment. With a vaccine in sight, it wouldn't even be an open-ended
commitment.  

At many moments of the crisis, personal behavior has actually led the
way. Restaurant demand was collapsing before any lockdowns took hold.
Mask usage has actually been decent, though obviously not good enough.
People starting to hoard food again

could actually be a positive sign. But the real moment when the public
took the lead was during that first phase of lockdowns, where everyone
actually paid heed, went inside, and engaged in a collective action, a
rare moment for this country.

That came right after the NBA reacted to one positive test from a player
by shutting down the season. Tom Hanks' positive test happened around
the same time. That was the news needed to get everyone to take things
seriously. What is the antecedent to that now? What is going to shock
people away from their normal routines?

We Can't Do This Without You

I mean, it's probably football, our secular religion in America. There
is active talk now about the college football playoff being delayed
.
The majority of the SEC schedule was postponed for this weekend
,
along with several other games
.
With quarantine and contact tracing protocols being what they are,
it's entirely possible there aren't enough bodies available to
finish the season, and at some point you'd expect players to just
start opting out. They're not being paid to risk their health, after
all.

In the NFL, at least one practice facility is closed
,
but there's so much damn money involved that you'd have to see a
league-wide outbreak before the season is derailed. The college game,
though, is probably different. And that's as important, if not more
so, to a significant portion of the population.

It's beyond sad that I'm sitting here strategizing over whether we
can see enough leadership-or really resignation-among athletic
directors and football coaches, because there isn't any in Washington
or state houses. But the prospect of 100,000 more people dying before
Inauguration Day has me grasping at straws. There's a vast leadership
desert in America right now, and I'm looking for an oasis.   

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Today I Learned

* Elon Musk has it

and is blaming the tests, which are antigen tests and admittedly not
that accurate. (Reuters)

* The oldest member of Congress has it
.
(Washington Post)

* These billionaire Trump donors have it
.
(The Guardian)

* Rand Paul, a doctor (OK an eye doctor), thinks all those people above
are lucky duckies

because they'll have immunity. (Talking Points Memo)

* The liberal wonk consensus appears to be that real fiscal relief will
only happen by giving Republicans more tax cuts

in exchange. (Vox)

* Avoiding canvassing seemed like the right public health move but may
have been wrong for winning the election
,
Democrats admit. (HuffPost)

* The mutation of the virus in minks won't be a problem for the
vaccine
,
Dr. Fauci asserts. (CNBC)

* Thoughts of rage about the third wave
.
(ProPublica)

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