Watching the U.S. economy collapse under the weight of the coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19, 73-year-old President Donald Trump has some tough choices, letting the virus run its course by reopening commerce or continuing the current path to the next Great Depression. Letting infectious disease doctors, like 80-year-old Anthony Fauci, shut down the entire U.S. economy to slow the virus from spreading has sent Wall Street and the U.S. economy into a death spiral. If Trump lets Fauci wreck the U.S. economy to contain the SARS CoV-2 epidemic it’s like performing a “successful operation but letting the patient die.” Telling American workers, small-and-large businesses to “shelter in place” has hit the economy with a wrecking ball, driving economically vulnerable citizens into homelessness, crime and anarchy. Trading gang shootings for Covid-19 deaths is not the answer.
Failing to appear by Trump’s side today, Fauci let his plan for the country be known, to “shelter in place,” “social isolation,” “distancing” and frequent “hand-washing.” While there’s nothing wrong with Fauci’s advice, there’s something very wrong letting 80-year-old infectious disease doctor dictate what happens to the U.S. economy. Fauci’s plan to idle American workers, stop gatherings of more than 10 people, including close every dine-in restaurant or bar in the country, has destroyed families, left ordinary workers in bankruptcy. Not everyone enjoys an economic cushion to stop businesses for weeks or months at a time without dire consequences. Following Fauci’s plan, members of the White House questioned whether the “cure was worse than the disease.” Seven days in to the 14-day “shelter in place” order, Trump wonders whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamnot (D-Conn.) wants Trump to issue a nationwide “shelter in place order,” to force residents in all states to stop going out except for essential provisions like food-and-medicine. “I’d like the federal government to set a clear direction to adequately contain coronavirus, or Covid-19,” Lamont said. “Having everybody stat at home for the next few weeks, when the thing is raging, when it’s most contagious, make very good sense,” not realizing the economic damage to Connecticut and every state in the Union. “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” Trump tweeted in all caps. “At the end of the 15-day period, we will make a decision as to which direction we want to go!” Trump tweeted. Reports from Baltimore’s Mayor Bernard Young tells the real story about coronavirus, begging Baltimore residents to stop shooting at each other.
Letting the economy fall apart doesn’t take into account the damage to the most vulnerable U.S. citizens. If people can’t work or feed their families, they’re going to resort to crime to make ends meet. Elected officials could witnesses a slowing of Covd-19 deaths while more people die of poverty and anarchy. While Lamont wants Trump to continue the “shelter-in-place” order, Trump’s leans toward reopening business and industry. Even if things reopened this next week, the damage to Wall Street and the economy would take months if not years to fix. “Extreme measures to flatten the virus curve is sensible—for a time—to stretch out the strain on health care infrastructure,” tweeted former Goldman Sachs CEO Andrew Blankfein. “But crushing the economy, jobs and moral is also a health issue-and beyond. Within a very few weeks, let those with lower risk to the disease return to work,”
Unlike infectious disease experts, Trump must look at the big picture and decide whether wrecking the economy is worse than letting more people get the disease. With shelter in place orders in New York, the virus continues to spread, whether people go to work or not. New York recorded 20,875 coronavirus cases with a 0.75% death rate. If more citizens are cast into unemployment or homelessness, there’s no guarantee that more deaths wouldn’t result from poverty and anarchy. Blankfein has a point about what happens when you “crush the economy, jobs and morale” of ordinary workers, let alone let small and large businesses fail. Whatever rescue plans the Federal Reserve Board has, it’s going to take time before any of the Fed’s plans can help ordinary workers. Shuttering small-and-large businesses with “shelter in place” orders could create lasting economic damage.
Trump faces a tough choice what to do when the 15-day economic hiatus period ends next week. If Trump listens to epidemiologists he’d shut down the country indefinitely to slow the spread of the virus. Balancing the virus spread against wrecking the economy is a major task for Trump, whose Democrat critics hammered him asking where’s Fauci? Fauci preached shutting down the economy, like other infectious disease experts, to slow the virus from spreading. While there’s no evidence yet that shutting down the economy slows the spread, there’s plenty of evidence that it’s killing the economy. While everyone wants to contain the virus, they also don’t want to kill the golden hen by forcefully shutting down U.S. businesses. If Trump decides enough-is enough and wants to reopen the government, he’ll face an avalanche of criticism for ignoring doctors’ orders.
