Well, the blog is back! Unexpectedly, I was laid low by a gastric
ulcer and a liver problem which although not involving Covid19, almost
finished me off. Dodging bullets at age
87 isn’t easy. With the aid of the
medical skills at Bethesda East Hospital in Boynton Beach and the Cornell Rehabilitation
facility there, I am back home getting needed rest and exercise and expect to
remain saying what I believe on the blog to those with an open mind.
I watched enough TV over the
past few weeks to learn that the American public just doesn’t understand the
problem we face. Its enormity is earth
shaking, yet people do not recognize fully recognize that. Too many people just want to get back to the
beach or the hairdressers. To combat the
virus, contact between people which is how it is spread must be limited and
controlled. This resulted in the closure
of much normal business, recreational and social activities. Consequently, jobs were lost and normal
sources of income curtailed. This is the
way it has to be! But unfortunately, an
employer without customers can’t pay his rent, and has to lay off employees who
in turn, are strapped severely to pay their rent (or mortgage) and even put
food on the table. This spreads
throughout the country’s economy like a cancer.
Unemployment insurance programs, often inadequate to start with, buckle
under the pressure of having to put a few bucks into the pockets of those
without jobs. Government subsidies to
help were hard to obtain and often directed to businesses with the idea that
helping them to survive (ever hear of a business surviving when the number of
customers it serves is cut to 25%?). Bankruptcy
proceedings may help corporations like airlines or department stores to somehow survive but not the wait staff in
a neighborhood restaurant. The way
things are set up just cannot cope with this problem.
Whether the solution rests
with individual States or the federal government is a question striking at the
heart of our Constitution. Different
approaches from different States ignore the fact that Covid19 ignores State
borders. The answer is that this is a
problem only the federal government can handle.
Period. Regardless of what the
administration says! Fifty separate
State militias could not have defeated the Japanese Imperial Army in World War
Two. A unified country, of course, did,
and that is the way Covid19 must be defeated.
It is a federal job, not to be left to States.
Some ignorant, shallow-minded
and often gullible people believe that returning the economy to its pre-Covid19
level will reverse this problem. That is
just wishful thinking, even though it is prevalent in the White House, which
can be well documented as minimizing the
challenges posed by Covid19 early in its spread. “Opening” the economy in this manner will expose
more people to infection and possible death, unless and until very carefully
done in a controlled manner, and that requires the kind of nation-wide
statistical base (how many infected Americans are there, how many are at risk
of death, how many have died and most crucially, the trail of contacts each
infected person establishes) we lack at
present. This is a federal job, not one
for individual States to carry out.
So long as the Administration
is in the hands of those who are thinking of the war against Covid19 as an
economic, and perhaps a political, challenge more than a medical one, we will wallow in this well of
indecision until the November election.
Hopefully, a vaccine will be on the horizon by then … and the forces of
good will triumph in the electoral college.
Welcome back to the blog and
make sure you are registered to vote!
That is really the only answer!
(If you don’t
want receive further copies of the blog, let me know at jacklippman18@gmail.com). This version went to a
lot of people.
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