The entire Washington area is nearing a shutdown, with both Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announcing mandatory stay-at-home orders in light of the coronavirus crisis. As the nation tries to flatten the curve before our medical facilities face fatal overcapacity, it makes perfect sense that state health departments would use their authority to authorize specific and limited shutdowns of businesses and congregations. But Virginia has exemplified how to take it too far.
Like other governors, Northam has far surpassed the mandate that states forcibly shut down businesses. Prior to Monday’s announcement, Virginia’s state parks were already severely restricted, one of the remaining open spaces for the state’s residents to get exercise and fresh air. Now, Northam has not only issued a stay-at-home order punishable by law but also extended it until June 10, about a month and a half longer the Trump administration has extended national social distancing guidelines.
If state and federal governments fail to acquire adequate testing, treatment, and ventilators and the private sector cannot secure enough masks for medical and civilian use, it’s possible that our healthcare resources, both for coronavirus patients and those with other immediate issues, will justify the trade-offs even into June. But is it likely? There’s certainly no definitive answer, and Northam’s insistence to act as such is reckless.
Although Virginia’s executive order stipulates that Northam can change the end date if further data emerges, Northam isn’t exactly known for rejecting his authoritarian instincts, and a 10-week, legally enforced quarantine doesn’t inspire much hope in Virginians. And it’s especially rash considering how variable our projections still are.
The potential for lives lost from the coronavirus was apocalyptic, but by all indications, social distancing and the government closure of businesses and travel are in the process of working. We cannot reopen businesses in weeks, and we will likely not return wholly to life as we knew it for months. But as we see Italy’s daily rate of increase decline and New York’s set to peak in the coming weeks, it’s not impossible to imagine the right combination of stringent stay-at-home directives, increased testing and treatment, and mass mask proliferation enabling us to gradually reopen some of society. Sure, schools are certainly closed for the year, and it’ll be a while before sports begin again, but could department stores and some supply chains reopen with coronavirus carriers successfully siphoned off and the rest of us using masks? Probably, and it’s possible that it comes before June 10.
We’ve made a resounding decision as a society to accept the dire economic trade-offs in the hopes of saving as many lives as possible. The math and science behind the coronavirus death toll projection are still subject to change to such an extent that we cannot say at what point the trade-offs will even out, but declarations such as Northam’s that prematurely doom an entire state to a possibly unnecessary month of poverty do not help. If anything, they only further stir unnecessary panic.
