President Trump’s tweets are far too often boneheaded, unhelpful and immediately forgettable. However, what he wrote following his discharge from Walter Reed was notable:
It may have been better to have also said, “Take COVID-19 seriously”, but “Don’t let it dominate your life” is the same sort of argument many others, myself included, have been making for months. It reminds me of the case made by Tacoma pediatrician Dr. Lisa Friesema for kids to return to school in Washington in the fall, something that sadly has still not transpired:
Every day at work I face the risk of COVID-19 exposure. I meet with parents who are essential workers. I treat kids with symptoms of COVID-19. I spend a day each week working at Community Health Care’s drive-thru COVID testing site.
And I do all of this without fear because I understand the evidenced-based protection offered by appropriate PPE, good hand hygiene and social distancing.
From what I can tell, the White House relied far too heavily on a testing strategy, but for those of us who protect ourselves using Dr. Friesema’s approach, COVID-19 doesn’t have to dominate our lives and we can make decisions for our families based on our individual risk levels. In the case of my family, we’ve kept ourselves safe and continued living our lives by prioritizing outdoor activities, social distancing and wearing masks when appropriate. This included a COVID-19 safe, 5,000 mile, 13 state road trip through national parks in the summer.
We’ve also moved to a place where schools are open in-person so our kids can get the socialization and in-person education that is so critical at their ages. The evidence-based measures the school has in place have impressed not only us, but also the small number of parents of kids who elected to start the year remotely, so much so that they’re asking the principal to let their kids return to class. Unfortunately, for now they’re being told they can’t in order to maintain smaller class sizes and distancing protocols.
Of course, moving your family is simply not an option for most people, which means in states where government has been taking the most extreme measures, the choice as to whether or not COVID-19 dominates your life is no longer yours, but your governor’s. What’s even more tragic about this loss of autonomy is the increasing evidence here and abroad that lockdowns, especially extended ones, have had little impact on the spread of this coronavirus. For too many politicians, the risk of COVID-19, is their only consideration, and all the other myriad risks in life (including those from being locked down) are not even part of the equation.
We elect our leaders to make decisions that are often tough. No national or local government leaders have been perfect during this crisis, including Donald Trump. But it is concerning that on more than one occasion Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has indicated he’d defer to ‘experts’ and would lock the entire country down if advised to (something he almost certainly wouldn’t have the power to do as president). That’s not a leader making tough decisions and it raises the concerning question of actions he’d take elsewhere as president.
Say what you will about Trump (and I have), but he’s steadfastly refused to get the United States involved in any wars and reduced our net involvement in them, the complete opposite of what happened under President Obama. This instinct to defer to others suggests that, as with Obama, rather than evaluating what’s in the overall national interest on policies, he’ll take the narrower view of ‘experts’ in specific areas, including whether to lead us in to war.
For now, however, our ability to decide whether or not COVID-19 dominates our lives is most dependent on how heavy-handed our local politicians are. If you’re still firmly locked down and want to regain your ability to determine how this pandemic impacts your life, you should choose different leaders in November.
Related posts
The Private Sector’s COVID-Era Triumph
Pandemic learning gaps make clear the need for public school reform
Reopen schools for the sake of our children
Seattle exemplifies the fast-growing private-public school pandemic gap
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.