The governor of NJ has just laid out his recovery from the pandemic plan. Of course, when that plan starts depends on what happens with the number of new Covid-19 cases. If they decrease enough for a 14-day period, then certain business can start to reopen.
The governor presented a 2-d grid where jobs that risk communicating the virus was represented by the X-axis while Y-axis represented how essential the business was to preserve life. When reopening begins, the most essential jobs that have the lowest risk of catching and spreading the virus which are still closed would be the first ones to be opened.
But I have a question. Currently, only the most essential jobs are allowed to be open regardless of the risk. But with the economy taking such a hit, why not allow the businesses whose operations pose the least risk of spreading the virus to open now?
The point I would like to make is this: there is more than one reality that is pressing in on us at the current time. And so far the response to the pandemic from both the nation and most of the states is to respond to only one of those realities while ignoring the others until the current reality becomes much less of a threat. The problem is if we picture each reality with its own set of icebergs to avoid. To address only one reality to avoid its icebergs might be causing us to, inadvertently sail in a collision course with the icebergs from the other realities.
Another reality that is pressing in on us is the economic reality. That economic reality carries with it both personal and group bankruptcies. The icebergs that come with the economic reality includes the effects that those bankruptcies, poverty, and all of the problems that the economic carries as well as limited potential for recovery. State debts could, if some Republicans have their way, cause states to declare bankruptcy allowing judges to determine what debts each state involved will pay back as well as increase unemployment.
Certainly the federal government has not entirely avoided the economic reality with the stimulus package. But the question is, how many stimulus packages can the federal government afford since it was already causing the deficit to spike more than it has been with the combination of its spending on goodies from corporations and tax cuts to reduce taxes for the wealthiest? As one magazine article noted, when economic times were good was the time to focus on our decaying infrastructure. But instead, our government was pursuing an Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, rescue of the wealthiest from having insufficient obscene wealth. And who knows how long we can continue to allow the national debt to grow before we experience serious damaging results?
We need to include, in our response to the pandemic, a concern for the economy on all levels: nation, regional, state, city, local, and personal along with our need to drastically reduce new cases of the virus. For we don't know how much we can reduce new instances of the virus. How much damage will be done to the economy and people's lives while attempting to reach medical goals, which might be unreachable, for too long a period of time?
And none of that includes the social concerns of the effects that the loss of jobs, incomes, and a social life can have on people's lives. Those effects make up just another set of icebergs that we should strive to avoid.
By paying too much attention to the icebergs that come with the medical issues involved with the pandemic, and those issues are extremely important, we might still find ourselves on a collision course with other icebergs. They just won't be the icebergs that were on our radar because of our selective focus. Here we should remember that Covid-19 is not the only thing that can sink our nation.
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