Caronavirus….The Cure Might Be No Cure at All for some…

A very different  point of view…

That question’s the overall response to the Caronavirus from ALL parties…

And how the response may play out in the short and long run as the economic squeeze on the country intensifies and hard choice have to be made…

Holman Jenkins: “In our coronavirus quandary, the cure may not only be worse than the disease. The cure is likely no cure at all. We might hold off an expected surge in coronavirus cases for two or three weeks with the kind of extraordinarily destructive economic lockdowns seen in California, New York and elsewhere. But unless warmer weather is coming to our rescue, Americans probably won’t accept the social devastation that would be inflicted by a five-month or 18-month campaign of virus suppression of the sort promoted, variously, by the U.K.’s Imperial College London, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute and other public-health think tanks.”

“Mandatory social distancing might well break down. (Look for speakeasies to re-emerge in New York and other shut-in cities.) The government might well face a choice of coercion or seeing its authority collapse. I’m not being alarmist.”

“This is a lesson the World Health Organization’s Bruce Aylward brought back from Wuhan. People with flu-like symptoms had to be isolated in dormitories, hospitals and stadiums. Asking them to self-isolate voluntarily didn’t work.”

Polirticalwire…

Forbes…

State and local governments are at the front lines of the current crisis. Many people in their communities will have to quickly rely on public services. And, local businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and event venues are shuttered for the time being, reducing employment, jobs and tax revenues. And, many of these effects will vary from state to state, from city to city, and even from neighborhood to neighborhood. Finally, states and localities often do not have the wherewithal to commit to supporting their local businesses and families to any meaningful degree. The current crisis puts state and local governments in an untenable position, where they may be forced to choose which parts of their communities will get help and which ones won’t….

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The fallout from the pandemic highlights the problems of massive economic inequality

Income and wealth inequality are at or near record highs. Generally, lower-wage workers, Black or Latinx families, those with less education and rural households have fewer economic resources – incomes and wealth – than higher-income workers, whites, those with college degrees and families in urban areas.

These inequities now create untenable vicious cycles for many families. Lower-income workers tend to not only have lower pay, but also fewer benefits such as health insurance and paid sick leave. Many lower-income workers now face a heightened chance of getting infected, losing their jobs and incomes, and getting stuck with large health care bills. But those same families have few savings to fall back on, are already mire in costly consumer debt thus could quickly fall further behind in paying their bills. Worse, many of these families need to actually rely more on their own savings than higher-income, more financially secure families, because they have less access to public benefits such as unemployment insurance…

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