SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIAL
Unprecedented action needed
to curb spread of coronavirus
Taking
stock
We’re less than a week into one of the more note-
worthy periods in American history, and although
only the passage of time will allow us to refl ect on the
coronavirus crisis with true perspective, we can at
least attempt to take stock of where we are.
For many of us where we are, most of the time, is
home.
Schools are closed. So are some businesses. And
many people, as they should, are heeding the advice
of medical professionals and avoiding close contact
with others to deprive the virus its straightest av-
enues of infection.
But we needn’t become hermits to protect our-
selves and our friends and neighbors, and we’re not
doing that, either.
People are still going outside to get exercise in the
March sunshine. Social distancing recommenda-
tions notwithstanding, this, too, is important. Staying
healthy is a boon for our immune system. And exer-
cise releases endorphins, the hormones that improve
our moods.
Baker City residents have responded in heart-
warming fashion to the potentially disastrous restric-
tions that have been imposed on businesses owned
by our friends, family and neighbors — especially
restaurants and bars. We’re taking advantage of the
carryout meals, showing our support with our appe-
tites and, more importantly, with our wallets.
There is, of course, nothing routine about the situ-
ation.
And yet many parts of life remain ordinary even
amid this unprecedented situation. With a few excep-
tions (the sad, and silly, obsession with toilet paper,
for instance) most of us have about the same access
to necessities that we had last week, last month, last
year — shelter and food and water. It appears this
will continue.
Even social media, which is more apt to fray than
strengthen the social fabric, has contributed some-
thing important during this crisis that’s so frighten-
ing to some of us.
Laughter.
Coronavirus is deadly serious. But the pandemic
has also spurred a latent talent for online humor
— social media is rich in virus-related memes that
should provoke guffaws even from those who are
determined not to crack a smile until the crisis eases.
And laughter, like exercise, is good for the body and
for the soul.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
President Trump compared the
coronavirus pandemic to war. Imagine
sending half our soldiers to war with no
rifl es or helmets. That’s overly simplis-
tic but refl ects what we are asking of
hospitals and medical providers facing
this crisis.
The war analogy refl ects our nation’s
primary problem. When non-profession-
als call the shots in war, it’s a disaster.
An untrained, non-professional English
commander who had bought his com-
mission sent the Light Brigade to its
demise 165 years ago.
The Lancet, a global medical journal,
had an editorial Friday stressing that
“... health-care workers are on the front-
line and their safety must be ensured.”
Twelve of its 15 featured articles are
on this pandemic. Our elected leaders
must defer to trained professionals.
Oregon Health Sciences University
recently determined COVID-19 will re-
quire an additional 1,400 hospital beds
in a matter of weeks in Oregon, a more
than 20% increase. The chief medical of-
fi cer at OHSU said the number of new
cases may double every 6.2 days.
It took 3 months to reach 100,000
coronavirus cases worldwide. The sec-
ond 100,000 only took 12 days.
We need bold leadership over political
expediency. The White House spent
weeks playing down this issue, as the
White House did for the Spanish Flu
epidemic in 1918, instead of listening to
experts, creating trickle-down decision-
avoidance at every level. We are weeks
behind. Coronavirus is apolitical; parti-
sanship must go away.
On Monday, the US was about where
Italy was 2 weeks earlier. On Thursday,
Italy experienced 427 deaths. That
speaks volumes about the need for
hard, fast decisions and an end to politi-
cal expediency.
It would behoove our leaders to err on
the side of health and safety.
Vo, Italy, between Venice and Milan,
tested everyone and found that half
of those showing no symptoms tested
positive, and were isolated. By test-
ing everyone, and acting accordingly,
they were able to hold the outbreak
to a minimum because of the national
lockdown.
Imperial College professor Andrea
Crisanti, who participated in the
Vo effort, noted that the small-scale
containment program in the Italian city
should serve as a model for addressing
this pandemic. On Monday, Imperial
College released a report that includes
modeling that display estimated results
of different actions. Due to our severe
shortage of ventilators, which are
required, the death toll could be over
4 million deaths in the U.S. if drastic
RICK MEIS
action isn’t taken. No amount of money
can buy equipment that isn’t available.
Elected offi cials must do as Dr. An-
thony Fauci, the director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases recommended on Sunday:
a two-week near-total shutdown of
the country to dramatically slow the
spread.
Elected offi cials say we are doing
everything we can. That’s false. This
week we’ve seen how unprepared we
are. A Tuesday article noted that a very
ill Oregonian waited 6 days for coro-
navirus test results. Another hospital
tested a person who died; it was over 3
days before the results showed she had
COVID-19.
Discussing crowded bars, restaurants
and airports, Dr Fauci said “I would
like to see a dramatic diminution of the
personal interaction we see” now. He
proposed a 14-day national shutdown
and told President Trump he wants
an “overly aggressive” response that
includes “whatever it takes” to slow the
spread of the coronavirus.
Dr. Fauci understands the human
health ramifi cations. Elected offi cials
focus on economics, not health and
safety.
Necessary services can’t stop. The
majority of travel — air, train, car —
is unnecessary and must be halted.
Elected leaders must defer to experts
who understand the levity of our pre-
dicament.
Coronavirus is spreading exponen-
tially. To not take signifi cant actions
now increases problems of COVID-19
to beyond manageable levels as well
as making the impact of an inevitable
shutdown infi nitely worse.
“The shutdown is inevitable as it
is already happening, but not in a
controlled fashion which is extending
the economic pain and amplifying the
spread of the virus,” Bill Ackman, CEO
of Pershing Square Capital Manage-
ment, wrote Wednesday morning.
Money is being allocated to address
this issue, as is necessary. However,
this is a public health crisis and that’s
where the primary focus must be.
Worrying about commerce should be
the last concern of our leaders. Sena-
tor Merkley’s Thursday newsletter
displays this problem by focusing on
getting money allocated and distrib-
uted. Only in the last paragraph does
he address what should be the primary
focus: stopping the spread.
Think triage; this is a health emer-
gency.
Money can’t buy time. Critical sup-
plies have very limited availability, like
ventilators and test kits. The country
is running out of protective gear for
healthcare personnel and infected
people. Money can’t buy hospital beds
and test facilities anywhere near fast
enough. We are already running out of
trained medical staff. We must dra-
matically slow the spread.
We’ve all seen that graphic on fl at-
tening the curve. Money can’t fl atten
that curve from exceeding our country’s
capability to handle the exponential
spread of coronavirus. That means
the most aggressive possible actions
must be taken to dramatically slow the
movement and interactions of people.
Coronavirus infections double each
week. The economic hit to Main Street
America will likely double each week
we don’t see aggressive decisions to
slow the spread immediately.
By the time you read this, things will
have changed dramatically from when
this was written.
Rick Meis lives in Halfway.
Living history, and pondering books to be written
As we live through historic
events that arrive not every day
but every hour, I’m thinking of the
future as well as the present.
It is ever fascinating to me to
wonder what I might remember,
years and decades from now, about
changes which in their immediacy
and sheer volume seem so monu-
mental that their vibrancy can’t be
tarnished by time.
Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, was
a milestone — one of a handful of
epochal days in American history
and probably the most notable in
my lifetime (I was born in 1970).
Yet my recollections of that
sunny September day lack the clar-
ity I would have predicted, even at
the span of nearly two decades.
I think the coronavirus might
well be different — dramatically so.
Indeed I think it’s plausible to be-
lieve that for Americans old enough
to form lasting memories of these
days in the winter and spring of
2020, the coronavirus crisis will at-
tain a prominence not so dissimilar
to that of World War II among the
generations that lived through that
confl ict.
I don’t mean to suggest the two
events are comparable on certain
levels, to be sure.
JAYSON
JACOBY
America was directly involved in
the Second World War for close to
four years, and nearly half a mil-
lion service members died.
There is good reason to believe
that coronavirus in our country will
not approach the war’s longevity or
death toll.
But no single event since that
war has caused such upheaval to
our society, at the most fundamen-
tal levels, as coronavirus has done.
The repercussions arrived so
rapidly that I’ve felt a trifl e over-
whelmed, as though I were caught
in one of those terrible dreams in
which the tasks accumulate but
I seem helpless to deal with even
one.
(And like as not, while clad only
in my underwear.)
In the span of a few days, all
manner of traditions that seemed
as reliable as the passage of the
seasons became casualties.
Sports all but ended.
March Madness, a symbol of
spring as certain as the chilly north
wind buffeting Baker Valley (but
much less annoying), was canceled.
Schools closed.
Sit-down meals at restaurants
are banned, and theaters dark and
silent.
Terms such as “social distancing”
have entered the vernacular, and I
suspect they will be more diffi cult
to dislodge than the slogans of past
crises — gas lines, for instance.
It is natural, and reasonable, to
compare these precautions, some
of them unprecedented in our life-
times, with the level of the threat
and decide for ourselves whether
we think the scales are balanced.
I understand why some people
say they are not — indeed, that the
response is grossly exaggerated.
Doctors agree that the corona-
virus, though quite infectious, has
a relatively low fatality rate of
roughly 2% — and much lower yet
for young, otherwise healthy people.
I suspect many people, includ-
ing those who dismiss the more
dramatic precautions as hysteria,
assumed — if they ever thought
about the subject — that only a
disease that was both easily spread
and widely fatal would prompt this
level of response.
There is, I’ll concede, a certain
comfort in the statistics. The same
is true for our individual risks of,
say, dying in a car crash. Most of us,
after all, probably will not contract
coronavirus. And most of those who
do will survive, quite likely without
even knowing the virus breached
our defenses.
Yet despite this relatively remote
risk of any one of us suffering
severe illness, much less dying, I
don’t believe America’s response to
coronavirus is unreasonable.
This is partly because of the
uncertainty.
We know much more about how
dangerous coronavirus is now than
we did even a few weeks ago. But I
am not comfortable making broad
assumptions about a virus that, un-
til around the turn of the year, few
people who don’t work in virology
likely had heard of.
Moreover, the restrictions we
have either taken voluntarily, or
that have been imposed by the
government, are indisputably effec-
tive at reducing the spread of the
disease.
And although the short-term ef-
fects can be serious — most notably
the economic harm — absent these
precautions the coronavirus would
infect far more people, and the blow
to business likely would be even
more persistent and dire.
None of this, obviously, can be
proved now.
Which returns me to my original
point about pondering the future.
It seems to me that budding
sociologists and other observers of
human society will have plenty of
topics to keep them academically
occupied for years, if not decades.
By 2040 bookshelves will sag, I
suspect, with the work of historians
who have examined every aspect of
the great coronavirus crisis of 2020
(ideally, of course, it will be confi ned
to a single year).
I like to think I’ll pass enjoyable
hours in my dotage reading some
of these.
But I wonder how much I’ll
remember of what it was really like.
How vividly will I be able to recall
when the closures were arriving in
my inbox with stunning rapidity,
when toilet paper jokes were the
epitome of humor, and when the
issue of airborne droplets was sud-
denly, shockingly, more important
than the Final Four.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.