In the final analysis, history will undoubtedly judge President Trump’s fundamentally American strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic to be far more effective than China’s heavy-handed actions.
Broadly speaking, the Trump administration’s approach was to restrict external travel from areas experiencing coronavirus outbreaks to minimize the number of initial exposures, then focus the nation’s resources on mitigation efforts — commonly called “flattening the curve.” China, in predictably repressive fashion, imposed draconian internal restrictions designed to isolate the outbreak to Hubei province, where it originated.
After forcing the 60 million residents of Hubei to live as virtual prisoners for two months, the Chinese Communist Party has finally begun to ease restrictions on public life, announcing a goal of fully reopening the province on April 8.
In the United States, there is distressingly strong support across the political spectrum for adopting the Chinese model, with sizable majorities willing to accept blatantly unconstitutional government actions such as forcibly confining people to their homes, confiscating businesses and property, and even disregarding the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Fear is a powerful force, capable of inducing even freedom-loving Americans to offer up eagerly our most cherished liberties in exchange for the uncertain promise of protection from the invisible enemy, coronavirus.
But it would literally be a fatal mistake for the U.S. (or any other country) to emulate China’s response to COVID-19. Some Westerners have hailed China’s strategy as a success, but they’re just being deceived by the Chinese government’s propaganda. In reality, the Chinese model offers the worst of both worlds — despite subjecting tens of millions of people to onerous dictates emanating from Beijing, more than a billion Chinese citizens remain just as vulnerable to the coronavirus as they did in January.
China’s stringent measures were undeniably effective at accomplishing its designed purpose of shutting down transmission of the virus in the immediate term, but that very effectiveness has put much of that enormous country in an extremely delicate predicament. As the coronavirus continues to ravage the rest of the world, Chinese medical experts are growing increasingly concerned about the possibility of a “second outbreak” erupting in previously unaffected parts of the country as a result of contact with foreigners. Authorities have already identified more than 350 imported cases of COVID-19, and while there is only one known case of secondary transmission thus far, it will be impossible for the government to contain the threat indefinitely.
Happily for us here in the U.S., Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic carries no such long-term risks. In fact, the president’s steadfast insistence on preserving civil liberties and respecting the duly elected governors of the states in keeping with our Constitution throughout this crisis has positioned our country to bounce back quickly and completely once the initial wave of domestic infections subsides.
We still don’t know everything about the novel coronavirus, but researchers believe it is likely far more widespread in this country than official statistics indicate, largely due to community spread facilitated by the high proportion of asymptomatic carriers. That’s why it took so little time for the virus to spread to all 50 states.
But if you find yourself wishing your state had been spared from COVID-19, consider what that would mean. It would mean, for starters, that millions of your fellow Americans would have to spend at least a year deprived of their God-given rights because the government would have to keep them locked down until a vaccine could be developed, tested, and administered to the rest of the country. It would also mean that you and your neighbors would have to live in constant fear of exposure because it only takes one infected individual to trigger community spread.
Let’s be grateful that our president has a healthy respect for the freedoms that have always been the cornerstone of America’s greatness. When we look back on the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, history will judge that our free and open society, and Trump’s leadership, once again prevailed handily against the forces of repression.
Mike Huckabee was the 44th governor of Arkansas and a Republican candidate for president in 2008 and 2016. He is currently the host of Huckabee on TBN.
