Cost of Injustice II

Matthew 25:29 – “Matthew 25:29 – “For to every one who has, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from the one who has not, even what they have will be taken from them.”

The US response to the novel coronavirus is a real-time example of the cost of injustice. There are several ways in which people could be impacted: physically, financially, and mentally. The stock market plunge, the refusal to make testing and care free to those who test positive, and the anxiety created by a president who can only think of tax cuts as the solution to everything have combined to make a perfect storm of injustice for people who are poorest in the US.

I’d like to run through a short time-line of each injustice as it affects real people. The first mistake was actually made in 2018 when “the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it.” The Snopes article linked goes on to state that “that funding for the CDC’s global disease outbreak prevention efforts had been reduced by 80%.” These actions set the US up for disaster should a pandemic strike; and it has.

Next, when news came about the virus, the president did nothing. In fact, he has since done very little – mostly claiming it’ll go away and to be calm. That was something he said yesterday. In fact, the CDC’s original guidelines for testing focused on only those people who had been out of the country. According to the NY Times, Dr. Helen Chu, “an infectious disease expert in Seattle,” realized that time was short once the first person to be tested came back positive. She had been conducting research on the flu, and as a result, had many cheek swabs at her disposal to test for the virus. To test these for coronavirus, however, she needed state and federal permission. After many fruitless emails, she and her lab went ahead anyway. That is how, on Feb 29, they found the first person with the virus who hadn’t left the US. The disease already had a foothold here and further testing and quarantining was necessary.

That’s not what happened. In fact, Donald had put Mike Pence in charge of the response messaging just two days earlier. That meant that the CDC could no longer speak unless it was through the vice president. This lack of transparency at a time when transparency was crucial to success translated into more misinformation and more mistrust on behalf of the US public. Donald has been quoted as saying he didn’t want more testing because that would bring the numbers up and hurt his chances of election. He also thought that low testing numbers and misleading information was the way to keep the stock market from dropping, which would also lessen his chances of reelection. Clearly, he was wrong.

Now that the CDC has loosened regulations on who can be tested, the number of people testing positive is increasing rapidly. Just in the last 24 hours, Cleveland Clinic found a “handful” more cases here in Cleveland – effectively doubling Ohio’s number. There are still many cases that were mild enough to go undetected, but that were and are still contagious. Every article I read on this subject predicts a rapid rise in cases in the next week to ten days. If we had tested early and often, we could have numbers like Singapore. But the gutting of the CDC pandemic response team left the White House adrift rather than in charge of the response. Like everything else Donald has tried, the response has been a failure.

The financial crisis came to a head as it became apparent to everyone that Donald had no idea how to stop the spread. Last week he asked for about 2 billion dollars to help combat the crisis. Recognizing that that was insufficient, congress upped that figure to 8.5 billion. He offered payroll tax cuts and financial help to some businesses, but he completely ignored the plight of average Americans, who cannot afford to quarantine or to pay for the test. It was not enough to keep the market from plunging over 20% in the last two weeks. It took Nancy Pelosi passing a bill in the House to get people thinking about actual people who would be affected, especially those who cannot afford to pay for testing or have no insurance. McConnell originally stated that they would take up the bill after the break, but was shamed into working with the House to pass something before then.

The worst injustice, in my opinion, is where the detained refugees are concerned. As of Wednesday, the 11^th there was no plan to deal with coronavirus in the camps or to let the majority go.

Injustice piled upon injustice piled upon injustice piled upon incompetence and imprudence. And it will cost us financially, physically, and emotionally.

From the Cleveland Clinic: Symptoms of 2019 Novel Coronavirus appear within two to 14 days after exposure and include fever, cough, runny nose and difficulty breathing. Reported cases have ranged from mild illness (similar to a common cold) to severe pneumonia that requires hospitalization. Link to that site for information on how to keep yourself and others safe.

Please stay safe and well.

B