Missouri is facing a once in a lifetime threat. It has been 100 years since the nation was assaulted by a killer viral enemy as dangerous as COVID-19. The appropriate response is not to panic but to shelter in place until we can, as a nation and state, set the conditions for a slow and safe restart of some reduced form of our previous “normal.” The original denials, then lack of action, at the federal and state levels have ensured that the virus is now and will continue to rapidly spread throughout the country, placing us all in significant danger.
Just as hope is never a solution, neither is wishful thinking. We must use the stone-cold facts that face us as we decide what to do, such as:
- The mortality rate for COVID is approximately 3-4 percent, meaning it kills 30-40 times more infected people than does the flu. COVID-19 also spreads twice as easily as the flu. It is extremely dangerous.
- People with COVID can be highly contagious and spread it to hundreds of people without feeling sick or showing symptoms. COVID can even be spread through breathing and talking.
- Despite advanced medical technology, we do not have a vaccine, a cure, or even a significantly effective treatment, and we may not have any of these for over a year. In many instances, our medical professionals are almost as helpless in treating COVID as their predecessors from the days of the Black Death. Unfortunately, rigorous social distancing is the most important weapon we have right now against COVID.
- There are 6.2 million people in Missouri. Many have conditions that make COVID more dangerous. Even if only 30 percent of Missourians become infected with COVID, that is 74,000 dead men, women, and children. That is about 10,000 more deaths in Missouri from COVID than the combined national total of combat deaths in our nearly 40 years of wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
- If implemented, the reckless, immature, and highly dangerous Republican calls for reopening before conditions are properly set will kill many thousands of people, including some of you and/or your loved ones.
No sane person sees the senseless sacrifice of thousands of our spouses, children, and parents as acceptable, yet Republicans are even now pushing us this way, some very strongly.
The unchecked invasion of this virus has turned the nation into a combat zone, and COVID-19 is the viral version of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED). This threat is now potentially everywhere, from grocery stores to malls to clubs to bars to stadiums to the workplace, and what makes COVID different is that this viral bomb can actually be carried home to our families before it blows up, injuring them as well as the carrier.
Responsible leaders in the military equip their troops with the supplies, equipment, and training they need to deal with the IEDs they will encounter in combat zones, before sending them into battle. It would be a criminal dereliction of duty if they did not.
Responsible leaders in the Missouri and federal governments must equip their citizens with the supplies, equipment, and training they need to deal with the viral COVID threat they will encounter literally everywhere, before sending them into battle. It would be a criminal dereliction of duty if they did not.
The viral enemy is already here in Missouri, and it will spread to and through every district and city in the state at a rate largely controllable by what we do and what we do not do. The image shows the current cases of COVID by state and indicates how the virus was allowed in at our airports and how infected people are carrying it inward to the rest of the U.S. Missouri is not in the main battle yet, and we can avoid large-scale combat and losses to the virus if we are smart about it now and for the near future.
We must not be stupid about how we get back on our feet. Our national centers of expertise such as the CDC and others are working on a fact-based, phased plan to get the country moving again, including specific steps to move from sheltering in place to a functioning nation. It will not be fast or easy, it may have to be done multiple times, but it must be done carefully or we will land in a COVID minefield.
For all those Republicans calling for an inappropriately fast “reopening,” the deaths of tens of thousands of Missourians are much less of a concern to them than the overemotional compulsion to wish the danger away. Bill Hardwick, a Republican candidate for the Missouri HD 122, recently wrote an op-ed on this, filled with glaring omissions and errors.
He seems not to have bothered to consult the CDC or any other relevant professionals before writing his appeal to place people in needless danger. He said: “Only an individual can decide what is essential for her own family on a given day,” which completely misses the point unless he is deliberately trying to obfuscate and mislead. Yes, every day people do decide what their families need, based on what they know and can do. But no human alive has ever faced a COVID-19 pandemic before, and few people in the country or state have training and experience in the areas necessary to make decisions in this situation, much less dogmatic partisans. When even medical professionals are dying at the rate they are, this should be all one needs to know that a rush to reopen will be a mad dash to failure.
Apparently Mr. Hardwick believes that every Missourian is at the same time an experienced virologist, immunologist, pathologist, economist, physician, and combat veteran, able to apply the multidisciplinary skills and mindset necessary to operate in an environment filled with deadly hazards. He apparently also believes that all Missourians have the proper supplies and equipment to deal with this invisible threat and the training to properly use them. That a military servicemember can be so cavalier with the life, health, and safety of the persons he is sworn to defend against all enemies, foreign, and domestic is astounding.
The best way to meet a person’s needs is not to recklessly throw them, untrained and unequipped, into a war zone. The best way to meet our needs in a COVID world is to ensure we don’t contract a killer virus and die. I ask those Republicans calling for our citizens to be sent into this COVID war zone to name the people they feel should be made human sacrifices in their crusade. I also ask them to publicly volunteer and work in grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, clinics, morgues, food service, meatpacking, food processing, USPS, close-quarters manufacturing, and other positions they want other people and other people’s families to work in. Missouri is the Show-Me state, and it’s time for those in or seeking public office who share Mr. Hardwick’s reckless perspective to show us they are prepared to put themselves on the line, not just the people they apparently consider to be acceptable collateral damage in their ideological wars.
And at least, even if only just this once, heed the advice of science and do the right thing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For up-to-date information on coronavirus, check with the CDC and DHSS.
Chris Kramer is a retired military officer residing in Missouri’s HD 121. His perspectives are his and do not imply endorsement by any person or organization within the U.S. Government.
