Our COVID-19 Pandemic Response Looks Like What Korea Did to American POWs
It is easy to quibble about where each element of the pandemic response fits, but they all belong in one of the boxes. This chart hit a significant chord with me because almost every response to the pandemic has turned all conventional public health teaching on its head. Many of us lived through H1N1. The uncertainty about that virus was every bit as high as it was around COVID-19, and it was more lethal for children.
During that time, I was responsible for workplace health and safety. I received no communications from my local department of health regarding any increased precautions. I traveled for work as usual with no masking requirement. My kids went to school and all of their activities. And the one person who suggested any modifications to normal behavior at all, Vice President Joe Biden, immediately put out a clarifying statement reversing himself. There was no quarantine for the healthy and certainly no masking or social distancing.
The obvious difference between H1N1 and COVID-19 is President Donald Trump. I believed it was all political because the economy was Trump’s best argument for reelection. Take that away, and it became more about style than substance. The Democrats’ only plausible candidate for a national election was Joe Biden. Of course, limiting his exposure to voters was also necessary to conceal the apparent cognitive decline that everyone on the world stage sees now.
It is easy to quibble about where each element of the pandemic response fits, but they all belong in one of the boxes. This chart hit a significant chord with me because almost every response to the pandemic has turned all conventional public health teaching on its head. Many of us lived through H1N1. The uncertainty about that virus was every bit as high as it was around COVID-19, and it was more lethal for children.
During that time, I was responsible for workplace health and safety. I received no communications from my local department of health regarding any increased precautions. I traveled for work as usual with no masking requirement. My kids went to school and all of their activities. And the one person who suggested any modifications to normal behavior at all, Vice President Joe Biden, immediately put out a clarifying statement reversing himself. There was no quarantine for the healthy and certainly no masking or social distancing.
The obvious difference between H1N1 and COVID-19 is President Donald Trump. I believed it was all political because the economy was Trump’s best argument for reelection. Take that away, and it became more about style than substance. The Democrats’ only plausible candidate for a national election was Joe Biden. Of course, limiting his exposure to voters was also necessary to conceal the apparent cognitive decline that everyone on the world stage sees now.
