{"id":28118,"date":"2020-09-20T08:58:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T12:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=28118"},"modified":"2020-09-20T08:58:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T12:58:39","slug":"the-fact-challenged-whiners-are-winning-on-covid-and-were-all-going-to-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=28118","title":{"rendered":"The fact-challenged whiners are winning on COVID, and we’re all going to lose"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Well, ready or not, we\u2019re reopening.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, restaurants will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity, it looks like the college football leagues that initially cancelled will now try to play and there is increasing pressure for local school districts to resume in-person instruction.<\/p>\n

Now, understand, these moves aren\u2019t based on science or that things are improving locally. They\u2019re not, arguably, they’re getting worse again.<\/p>\n

Mostly they seem to be happening because a segment of the population \u2014 led by legislative Republicans and various local GOP front groups \u2014 using fiction and greed to argue for a reopening, even when the science says it\u2019s a really, really<\/em> bad idea.<\/p>\n

If we, collectively, had half a brain we\u2019d be more shut down than we are right now. Despite this, these fact-challenged angels of death constantly attack Gov. Tom Wolf for rudely trying to keep us all alive. He\u2019s a \u201cTyrant,\u201d \u201cKing Tom\u201d and other asinine catch phrases for a governor who has been widely praised by science experts (and most of us with triple-digit IQs).<\/p>\n

In fact, based on a new study (https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/health\/coronavirus\/covid19-tom-wolf-rachel-levine-shutdown-saved-lives-unconstitutional-pitt-20200916.html<\/span><\/a>) from the University of Pittsburgh, the shutdown measures instituted by Wolf saved a lot of lives in Pennsylvania, as many as 10,000. More than 20 other studies (https:\/\/www.cochranelibrary.com\/cdsr\/doi\/10.1002\/14651858.CD013574.pub2\/full<\/span><\/a>) show that early, aggressive lockdowns halted the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n

All of which we\u2019re undoing, because we\u2019re tired of the pandemic and some political leaders want to pretend its over \u2014 mostly to help the flailing presidential campaign of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not over, it\u2019s not going to be over until maybe next summer. How we respond is going to decide how many of us live to see next summer. One can only hope Wolf locks down hard again when \u2014 not if \u2014 the virus spikes hard in October and November. Already, we\u2019re seeing Israel under a three-week hard lock down \u2014 after locking down in the spring and then easing restrictions exactly as many advocate in the US.<\/p>\n

Imagine if the US had responded like our neighbor to the north, Canada. They\u2019ve had less than 10,000 deaths \u2014 on a per capita basis, the U.S. would have had to have just 90K deaths to do as well \u2014 we have 200K right now. Canada paid everyone \u2014 about $2K a month, subsidized businesses, created no-interest loans and basically spent money to keep everyone afloat during the crisis.<\/p>\n

The US? Everyone got $1,200. A few small businesses got PPP loans (most seem to have been gobbled up by big companies and those politically connected).<\/p>\n

The lack of any federal response \u2013 and now we know that Trump knew how dangerous COVID-19 was as early as February \u2014 killed a lot of people. Worse, is the failure to assist \u2014 heck, the federal government often hindered it \u2014 states in finding personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing kits. Estimates suggest anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 lives would have been saved by a coherent federal response.<\/p>\n

But local critics scream and moan about the minimal Pennsylvania restrictions like teens who had their car keys taken away for reckless driving \u2014 as of Monday, 50% capacity in restaurants and \u201clast call\u201d at 11pm (Wolf compromised from his earlier plan for it to be 10pm). Honestly, the science doesn\u2019t support either move, actual expert Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out this week how dangerous indoor dining is \u2014 but Wolf is trying to help restaurant and bar owners as much as possible without putting too much of the population at risk.<\/p>\n

And still\u2026the whining.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you no compassion?\u201d I was asked on social media this week by whomever runs the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry Twitter account, suggesting also that because I was getting \u201cpaid\u201d that I didn\u2019t care about small businesses.<\/p>\n

As a small business owner entirely dependent on other small businesses to advertise \u2014 of course my revenue is in the toilet, which means so is my paycheck. It stinks. I have two kids in college, forced, despite having very \u201chands on\u201d majors, to take most or all of their classes via Zoom, and are left isolated and deprived of a normal college experience. I\u2019ve had to live as a virtual shut in \u2014 were I to get COVID-19 and give it to my health care provider wife, her whole practice, employees and patients would suffer.<\/p>\n

Yes, we all have to make sacrifices to fight this thing. Apparently, my willingness to do so means I have no compassion for the corporate types who won\u2019t make their numbers this quarter. What about the restaurants \u2014 those poor owners \u2014 they say?<\/p>\n

What about them? The restaurant business is one of the few worse than the media business. Some 60% of new restaurants close in the first year \u2013 80% within five years. They also spring up like weeds \u2014 so whatever number of eateries close in the coming weeks and months, they and the jobs they supplied will return when the economy gets better. I get that what is happening now is tough \u2014 but not nearly as tough as hundreds of thousands of people dying.<\/p>\n

Restaurants and bars \u2014and there\u2019s no other way to say this \u2013 are deadly places right now for indoor service. There is no safe way to operate them unless building owners replace and rebuild their HVAC systems to rapidly pull air up and out of the building \u2014 adding HEPA filters and UVC light to the system is even better. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be happening \u2014 so basically, these places are kill zones. Rough way to put it, but true.<\/p>\n

It stinks \u2014 it stinks for them, for concert venues, for movie theaters and the like. And yes, maybe the federal government should have come up with a way to bail the owners out \u2014 but if Trump and the GOP in Congress don\u2019t have that level of compassion for these owners, why should I?<\/p>\n

You know who I have compassion for? The single mom working as a restaurant server making all of $2.83 an hour before tips, working in enclosed spaces, often dealing with unmasked patrons (you can\u2019t wear a mask while eating or drinking). I have compassion for an elementary school teacher with 30 years in, still passionate enough about her job to bring inspiration every day, who has to reckon with the idea that teaching her fourth grade class in-person might cost her life. I have compassion for hospital workers who keep dying from COVID-19 because they risked it all to treat patients, some of whom refused to wear masks.<\/p>\n

We should be more closed than we are. But because of the temper tantrums of a few and a bald attempt to reelect Trump, we\u2019re going to do things we shouldn\u2019t \u2014 like reopen schools and lift restrictions.<\/p>\n

In case you were wondering, we\u2019re not doing great right now with COVID-19 \u2014 just as the cold weather is coming, when spreading will be at a maximum. We\u2019re just slightly down from a peak in early September.<\/p>\n

Opening up fully is going to make it much, much worse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bad idea. Don\u2019t take it from me, take it from a medical expert, someone on the front lines in Pennsylvania:<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Pennsylvanian has a right to be healthy and stay alive during the COVID-19 pandemic, and attacks against science-based public health measures will only put people at risk,\u201d said Dr. Max Cooper, Pennsylvania State Lead of the Committee to Protect Medicare and an emergency physician in Chester. \u201cAs physicians, we are extremely concerned that blind, unquestioning loyalty to President Trump is getting in the way of good public health policies and endangering people\u2019s lives. Physicians have a responsibility to speak out when we see harm being done, and harm is being done right now to the people of Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not ready to reopen fully. Period. Full stop.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have a vaccine. We\u2019re not going to have a useful vaccine until the middle of next year \u2014 even if an effective, safe vaccine became available today, the infrastructure \u2014 needles, distribution and professionals to administer the shots \u2014 just isn\u2019t going to be in place and won\u2019t be for months. Even then, the early versions of the vaccine aren\u2019t expected to be much more than 50% effective.<\/p>\n

Yes, pro and college sports might be safer now to resume with the advent of \u201cinstant\u201d testing (really 15 minutes, but close enough from Abbott\u2019s BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card), allowing for frequent and rapid testing of athletes.<\/p>\n

The Federal Government apparently bought up most of the tests from Abbott \u2014 150 million \u2014 and it remains unclear how, or if, they will be used. Maybe they\u2019re going to schools, maybe they\u2019re sitting in a warehouse because Trump has made it clear he wants to limit the number of tests being done, claiming, bizarrely, there will be less cases if there is less testing.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re blaming the fireman \u2014 Wolf \u2014 and not the arsonist, Trump. Wolf may have done an imperfect job, he admits as much, but the science shows he saved lives. Trump lied, repeatedly, stymied the best efforts of governors in both parties, and took a bad situation and made it horrific. If some of the clearly partisan whiners had a shred of integrity, they\u2019d point that out.<\/p>\n

But they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Interesting data coming out on where voters are requesting Vote By Mail, and it might be bad news for state Sen. Tom Killian (R-9) and GOP state house 160th District nominee Craig Williams.<\/p>\n

Two of the top five districts for VBM requests in the commonwealth are in the 9th Senate\/160th House district \u2014 with Kennett Township 3 being the top precinct in the entire state at this writing. Pennsbury North 1 is also in the top five. Additionally, Concord 3 in Delaware County, is in the top 10.<\/p>\n

So far, VBM is skewing heavily toward Democrats \u2014 which means in those precincts Republicans will be in deep trouble.<\/p>\n

Combined with polling I\u2019ve seen showing both Killian and Williams down by double digits, it looks tough. Sources in Harrisburg tell me that Democrat groups have stopped working to fund Democrat Senate candidate John Kane \u2014 A: because he has a ton of money already and B: He\u2019s way ahead. For what it is worth, I\u2019m hearing similar things about the state Senate race in the 19th District, where State Rep. Carolyn Comitta appears to also have a commanding lead.<\/p>\n

Of course, the numbers we see on election night and those we see about a week later will be vastly different unless counties are allowed to pre-tabulate mail in votes during the week before the election. I\u2019m not counting, so to speak, on that.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a terrible loss for our country. Her legacy will live on for generations \u2014 both in terms of the law and her inspiration for generations of people of all genders and sexual orientations.<\/p>\n

She will be missed.<\/p>\n

I will take a deep breath and mourn her loss before taking a hard look at the political implications of her death both in the coming weeks and the years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa Well, ready or not, we\u2019re reopening. Tomorrow, restaurants will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity, it looks like the college football leagues that initially cancelled will now try to play and there is increasing pressure for local school districts to resume in-person instruction. Now, understand, these moves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2653,9585,10099,4515,3912,565,3616,10100,9369],"class_list":["post-28118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-chester-county-chamber-of-business-and-industry","tag-covid-19","tag-craig-williams","tag-donald-trump","tag-featured","tag-gop","tag-gov-tom-wolf","tag-ruth-bader-ginsburg","tag-tom-killian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28119,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28118\/revisions\/28119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}