Just Don't Do It

Your country needs you... to stay on the couch

Photo by Luigi Pozzoli on Unsplash

Last night, Tom Hanks, in a Twitter post, announced that he and his wife Rita Wilson had contracted the coronavirus. As people immediately pointed out, the only reason Hanks and Wilson were even able to get tested was because they were in Australia, not the US.

Last night, the NBA did something that our rally-loving Dear Leader had until that moment refused to do: It suspended the season to stop the spread of COVID-19 at large gatherings.

Last night, the American people realized that, as Rod Dreher wrote in American Conservative, we can’t hope for Trump to lead us out of this crisis:

Real leadership in this crisis is going to have to come from governors, from public health officials, and from institutional leaders.

Real leadership is also going to have to come from all of us.

COVID-19 Is Spreading Fast

Trump and his Administration have failed us. Don’t take my word for it. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told Bloomberg News:

This is an unmitigated disaster that the administration has brought upon the population, and I don’t say this lightly.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Amesh Adalja explained to MSNBC last night why travel bans won’t work, why testing for the virus and isolating those who have it is essential. Other countries have done this, but America hasn’t. Now we are at risk of becoming the next Italy.

Dr. Adalja also explained why social distancing is so essential—because COVID-19 is not only a virus to which we have zero immunity, it’s also highly contagious because of the high viral loads in nasal secretions, which means it spreads incredibly easily through runny noses and sneezes.

Cancel Everything Now

The best thing most Americans can do right now is nothing. Cancel everything. Stay indoors as much as you possibly can. Work from home. Avoid other people as much as possible. Cancel everything. Don’t visit grandma. Try not to infect older people. Cancel everything. Cruise? Forget it. Elective surgery? Postpone it. Wedding? That can wait.

The best we can do right now is slow the rate of transmission so that hospitals are not overwhelmed.

In Italy, where the country is under lockdown and hospitals are already making life-or-death decisions about who to treat and who to turn away, celebrities are taking to social media to be part of the “I Stay Home” campaign.

Not everyone can stay home. But those who can stay home should. Starting now. And for as long as possible.

In The Atlantic this week, Yascha Mounk told the story of two different responses to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic:

Wilmer Krusen, Philadelphia’s health commissioner, allowed a huge parade to take place on September 28; some 200,000 people marched. In the  following days and weeks, the bodies piled up in the city’s morgues. By the end of the season, 12,000 residents had died.

In St. Louis, a public-health commissioner named Max Starkloff decided to shut the city down…. Thanks to his bold and unpopular actions, the per capita fatality rate in St. Louis was half that of Philadelphia.

In the coming days, thousands of people across the country will face the choice between becoming a Wilmer Krusen or a Max Starkloff.

Buzzfeed News has more on social distancing here. The key point to remember:

This isn’t just about stopping you from catching the coronavirus. You may feel completely normal and be asymptomatic, but actually be carrying the COVID-19 virus and spreading it without realizing.

A guest on MSNBC last night, described Tom Hanks’ announcement as “the Rock Hudson moment” in this crisis, harkening back to the time a beloved Hollywood star put a human face to the HIV epidemic. Hanks delivered his news with the combination of truthfulness and reality-based optimism that has been sorely lacking in all of Trump’s utterances about the coronavirus. And he ended his post with advice that’s simple and true: “Take care of yourselves!”