Clear communication from leadership is never more important than during times of uncertainty. But from the very beginning of the coronavirus crisis, our politicians have systematically failed in this realm — and now, it’s coming to a breaking point.
Agencies that should be reliable sources of information such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent people mixed messages on key issues such as the effectiveness of masks and other protective wear. Too, our political leaders have profoundly failed when it comes to the lack of coronavirus testing capacity, not to mention the general confusion over how and when to obtain a test. Meanwhile, medical matters aren’t looking much clearer, with ongoing confusion over antibodies and herd immunity.
In short, the lack of clarity and information has left us all paralyzed during this pandemic. Most people want to do the right thing for themselves and for their communities, but the lack of leadership and clear guidance has left even the most well-intentioned people grasping at straws. Our leaders have yet to provide an adequate road map out of this mess, and without one, people will begin to rebel.
Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis memorably said, “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” Many of our governors have fallen far short of this simple goal by implementing authoritarian, petty policies that have little to nothing to do with protecting their constituents from the coronavirus and much more to do with exercising or expanding their own power. Now, they’re failing again by neglecting to provide direction on our next steps.
Take Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s excessive orders that banned residents from traveling between their own homes and even forbade family members who didn’t share a home from seeing each other. Her draconian stances (since partially walked back) led to the country’s biggest protest to date, but it certainly won’t be the last.
Across the country, concerned citizens are beginning to take to the streets. The majority of the public still supports strict coronavirus containment measures, but there’s little doubt people’s patience will soon wear thin. As we face economic collapse, supply chain shortages, job loss, and societal upheaval, it is time to demand the next steps and that a phased plan for reopening be unveiled soon.
In the beginning, the “flatten the curve” message was successful because it was clear both in its goals and in its requests of citizens. It was necessary to take extreme steps to give our healthcare workers a fighting chance of combating this disease and to prevent mass deaths, and most of us readily complied. But this goal has largely been achieved.
A month ago, we were told to expect hundreds of thousands of deaths by this point, but to date we are still under 60,000 in the United States. Even in the epicenter of the fight, New York City, the daily death toll has fallen to half of what it was at the peak. Most of the country has still yet to see anywhere close to a thousand deaths in total. And, while we are still unclear about the ways this disease spreads and how exactly it functions, what has become clear is that most people who get it will recover.
Instead of flattening the curve, there are now suggestions that citizens should remain in this state of near-total lockdown until a vaccine is developed, which could take two years or more. That is asinine. It is an unobtainable and absurd goal to prevent anyone at all from getting this disease, or even from dying. Even when a vaccine becomes available, some people will still die, as they do from other illnesses that have been inoculated.
Every day, we face threats of disease, accidents, or other health issues. That is a sad but inevitable fact of life. And these other threats continue to grow in their likelihood even as the threat of the coronavirus diminishes for most people. Domestic violence incidents are reportedly increasing, suicides rates are expected to rise, and bread lines are forming. It is time to start reopening the country.
People will not respect these shutdowns for much longer because they no longer make sense. We need clear communication from our leaders on how we are going to get back to some semblance of normal life with safety protocols that are easy to follow and clear in their goals.
Hannah Cox (@HannahCox7) is a libertarian-conservative activist and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
