Sensible grocery stores in the United States and Canada are protecting workers by banning the use of reusable bags. This is hardly surprising. As I wrote in National Review in 2018, research has found that the use of these grocery bags, which users almost never clean, can “cause a wide range of serious health problems and even lead to death.” Stores are instead offering plastic bags again as a sensible precaution to reduce the risk of their workers contracting COVID-19. Bans on low-density plastic bags have never been more than virtue signaling and, as my 2018 piece explained, did nothing to address the very real problem of plastic waste in oceans.
Populist politicians nevertheless have continued passing legislation forcing stores to stop offering plastic bags, including most recently Washington State. Now that they’ve been exposed for ignoring the scientific research, whether leadership here follows the lead of Georgia and considers reversing course or delaying its implementation is yet to be seen.
Also in Washington, the Northshore School District was one of the first to close due to COVID-19, on March 3. It quickly began offering online learning to students, which parents there widely praised. However, when the Seattle School District closed 10 days later and announced it wouldn’t offer a similar program, online instruction in Northshore was ended out of “equity concerns”. In other words, Washington’s leadership was saying that, because we can only offer something that is working and advancing the needs of some students, not all, then no one should receive it.
Imagine if that principle applied in an ER or to a medic on the battlefield. A doctor would be forced to say, “Well, I can only help some of you, so I won’t help any.” It doesn’t apply in those places for a reason and it shouldn’t apply here. Meanwhile parents with kids in private schools, including those of Seattle’s mayor herself, are getting excellent online learning. The end result, of course, is that this approach of not giving it to even some public school kids only exacerbates the divide between public and private, the poor and the wealthy. It’s a maddeningly idiotic approach. Moreover, anecdotally, we’re hearing that some public school teachers in Seattle are in fact offering online learning to their students, which only makes this situation even more absurd.
In many ways, the private sector has been more nimble than the public sector at responding to this pandemic. Microsoft was one of the first major companies to ask employees to work from home; others followed suit quickly, well before our state or federal government began issuing mandates. Similarly, the NBA, NCAA, MLB and other sports independently suspended or postponed their seasons.
Businesses throughout the country are also being incredibly generous to their local communities. In early March, Amazon created a $5 million relief fund to support businesses impacted by the closure of its corporate headquarters. It and countless other companies are continuing to pay contractors and vendors impacted by their work-at-home policies.
By contrast, Government at all levels has been slow to act and frequently an impediment to solving this crisis. In the case of COVID-19 tests, burdensome federal regulations created a monopoly meaning only one lab was permitted to create them. When that lab’s test proved defective, we had no other alternatives available. Fortunately, the government dropped its regulations and other labs immediately jumped in, with spectacular results.
As one article noted:
The old tests took two to seven days to process. The patient was left in limbo in the meantime. Within a matter of days of the government dropping its restriction, the Cleveland Clinic developed a test that delivered results within eight hours.
Not to be outdone, other companies have continued to innovate and a 45-minute test is now available. This remarkable progress will help prevent situations such as the Australian who traveled to New Zealand and was vacationing in Wellington before his positive test result came back.
One of the early lessons from this pandemic seems to be that countries with freer economies and a vibrant private sector are responding better and more effectively. In spite of their proximity to China, Singapore and Hong Kong, the world’s two freest economies according to the 2020 Index of Economic Freedom, have had relatively few cases and only 2 and 4 deaths respectively. Other top-ranking countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Ireland have seen no or relatively few deaths. At the other end of the spectrum, the hardest hit nation, Italy, is classified as only moderately free and ranks 74th. China, where the outbreak began, is mostly unfree and ranks 103rd.
One especially poor combination during this crisis may be a less free economy and a single-payer universal health care system. This seems to help explain the predicament Italy is in now. Its health care system is overwhelmingly dominated by government and has resulted in too few doctors and hospital beds. As the Wall Street Journal reported, government accounted for 74% of total health care spending in Italy compared with 6% in Germany and 5% in France, both of which instead rely on compulsory insurance schemes and the substantial involvement of private sector health care providers. France spends $1,338 on inpatient acute and rehabilitative care, Germany $1,506 and Italy a paltry $913. Germany offers 8 hospital beds per 1,000 residents, France 6 and Italy a mere 3.
While the initial federal government response to this pandemic was slow in the US, it has pivoted in recent weeks and is now bringing its resources and that of the private sector to bear on the problem. As Rich Lowry noted, this approach, for better or worse, is typical of America. This is was what happened in the Mexican-American War, Civil War, World War II, and the 2008 financial crisis. In each of these and other crises the US fumbled early before massive public and private mobilization took place. No other country is able to mobilize and scale the way the US can. No doubt that is why David Harsanyi has written that the US is the best place to be during COVID-19 and there’s no place he’d rather ride out this crisis.
Related posts
The Private Sector’s COVID-Era Triumph
Pandemic learning gaps make clear the need for public school reform
Don’t let COVID-19 dominate your life
Reopen schools for the sake of our children
Seattle exemplifies the fast-growing private-public school pandemic gap
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