Leave Politics Out Of The Fight Against The Coronavirus

Well, THAT got everyone’s attention. Looks like Monday’s thousand-point drop in the Dow brought the threat of the coronavirus home to lots of Americans.

Hint: Never check your 401K on the day of a mini-crash.

Of course 1,000 points today isn’t the same as it was during plunges in the 1990s when the DJI average sat about 20,000 points lower.

Still. It was alarming.

Many of us have been obsessively watching the news from China for more than a month and knew that sooner or later the supply chain would be disrupted. Asian markets have been down for weeks. This was coming.

Last week The Wall Street Journal highlighted the struggle American companies were experiencing as they scrambled to stay afloat losing their sources of parts and components from China. For those without a subscription to America’s best newspaper, here are the money paragraphs:

Small U.S. businesses that sell everything from bicycles to custom software are struggling with the ripple effects of the coronavirus epidemic, which has disrupted global supply chains and left Chinese factories closed or short-staffed.

One California company said its Chinese supplier can’t reopen without face masks. Another manufacturer thought it was safe because it had moved production to Vietnam more than a year ago, but that plant is shut because it can’t get the managers back from their holiday in China.

Major corporations, such as Apple Inc. And Nike Inc., that rely on China’s factories to pump out their products and on the country’s consumers for sales already have warned the deadly virus is disrupting their business.The struggles of these smaller firms show how the disease is reaching deep into the U.S. economy, sometimes in surprising ways.

I’m an optimist when it comes to the long-term health of the  American economy.

The physical health of Americans? I want to be optimistic about that, too.

I’m not part of the so-called cancel culture but President Trump should immediately fire whomever it was at the State Department who decided it would be a good idea to evacuate both healthy and sick Americans on the same flight from that contaminated Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Trump is supposedly livid about the decision. As he should be. Advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was to keep infected individuals out of the country. Yet the experts were ignored and sick passengers were brought back to the US, with nothing but a flimsy plastic sheet separating them from healthy evacuees. 

Colossal mistake. One that more than doubled the number of infected Americans in the country.

According to yesterday’s Washington Post, “Before Friday, the United States had 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus. But that number has grown to more than 50 after the State Department and a top health official overruled the Centers for Disease Control and prevention and brought back 14 passengers from the Diamond Princess luxury liner in Japan who tested positive for the virus on the same flights as non-infected passengers…On Monday, the CDC said the number of confirmed coronavirus cases from the more than 300 Americans who were repatriated from the Diamond Princess had doubled to 36 since Friday.”

Unless my math is wrong, that means the US has 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country today.

The Trump administration is asking for $2.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the virus. Hell, Congress should allocate $3 billion. And for once, both political parties should make a show of unity.

Here’s an idea: No more finger pointing. Just a coordinated response to a serious health crisis. Because if there’s one thing both Republicans and Democrats can agree upon, it’s that we don’t want a major outbreak of this nasty virus in the U.S.

Yet right on cue, Sen. Chuck Schumer interjected politics into the situation: 

“We have a crisis of coronavirus, and President Trump has no plan, no urgency, no understanding of the facts or how to coordinate the response,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor Monday evening.

Enough, Schumer.

This is not the time to try to score cheap political points. Fact is, the Trump administration declared a “public health emergency” on January 31 and instituted “unprecedented”  travel bans and quarantines for Americans who recently visited China.

At the time, this move was criticized by many as an over-reaction. Critics said bans and quarantines don’t work and are are a symptom of xenophobia.

We have no idea how widespread this virus will become but with only 51 infected people in the US - remember, 36 were brought into the country by knotheads in the State Department - we ought to admit that bans and quarantines might actually be slowing the spread.

Either way, Republicans and Democrats should work together and show the people who voted for them that they’re capable of putting country above party.

If there’s one thing that should be immune from politics it’s a possible pandemic.