Hits and Misses
MISS: The response of federal officials to the coronavirus, from the president on down, is unlikely to be used as a model by any government whenever another pandemic starts wreaking havoc around the world. It’s possible, though, that Britain has done an even more lamentable job. Rather than have people avoid contact and engage in “social distancing,” the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson was instead taken with the notion that a certain number of infections should be accepted in the name of “herd immunity.” They finally dropped that idea once it became painfully clear thousands of Britons could die if more drastic measures were not taken. Now, it seems likely that Britain’s national health service will soon be overloaded with cases because the government was so tardy in stopping gatherings and urging everyone to stay at home. First Brexit, now this colossal blunder. Where is the country’s leadership?
MISS: The anxieties generated by the coronavirus outbreak are certainly not helped by people seeking to take unfair advantage of the situation and, predictably, there have been reports across the commonwealth of price gouging. Josh Shapirio, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, announced Tuesday that his office has received more than 1,000 email messages reporting undue price hikes on paper and cleaning products. So far, Shapiro’s office has sent 34 cease and desist letters and subpoenas to various businesses, including one to a Philadelphia outlet that was selling a $2 bottle of hand sanitizer for $19. Shapiro noted that such behavior “is not only outrageous, it’s illegal.”
MISS: Much of daily life has been put on hold throughout the world, but that did not stop hordes of college students from heading to Florida for a spring break bacchanal. A report on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday showed young adults heedlessly partying on the state’s sandy beaches, apparently unconcerned about whether they would catch the coronavirus or give it to their family and friends once the fun is over. One young man exclaimed, “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, it’s not going to stop me from partying.” A reporter from NBC interviewed a 93-year-old woman in Clearwater, Fla., who only wanted to talk on the other side of her door by cellphone because she was so frightened of catching coronavirus from the horde of self-centered teens and twenty-somethings invading her community. Initially, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said beaches in Florida would close on Monday, but he relented on Thursday and ordered them shut down. He waited way too long.
HIT: There’s a lot of reason to feel worried and confused about right now, but we think Garrett M. Graff, a columnist for The Atlantic and director of cyber initiatives for the Aspen Institute, put it well in a column that appeared online Thursday: In the face of the coronavirus, America is now mobilizing in a way it hasn’t since World War II or 9/11. He wrote: “We are witnessing people everywhere, acting mostly independently but all together, shutting our country down – a move that ensures millions will face a massive, incalculable economic hit – to give the weakest among us a better chance against the novel coronavirus. We are each sacrificing our daily routines – our gyms and coffee shops and offices – to keep health-care professionals from becoming overwhelmed.”