The dilatory and incompetent federal approach to the coronavirus pandemic means that individual states and the public at large have been left playing catch-up in understanding and implementing the necessary responses to this outbreak. Simply the basic question of whether it’s safe to go to the office, or whether working from home (if possible) will help arrest the spread of the disease, is confounding millions of people. My partner and I have both experienced this confusion firsthand, as both our places of work have acknowledged the threat posed by the virus over the past few weeks, but been slow to act beyond offering suggestions for avoiding and preventing the illness (washing hands, staying home if sick), while refraining from implementing plans to keep everyone at home. By Friday, individual managers at my business were deciding whether to send employees home, essentially leaving the fates of employees up to the epidemiological savvy of whoever they happen to work for. Meanwhile, one group of employees was literally cordoned off from the rest of us on our open-plan floor, as they are considered essential personnel; this may have superficially protected those lucky few, but the arrangement meant that office foot traffic doubled in other areas, unfortunately sending a message that some employees are more expendable than others, and blowing our sense of solidarity to smithereens.
I do worry that too many people are taking too much guidance from employers whose grasp of the situation is no better than their employees, and who don’t necessarily have employee health as their absolute first priority. At the risk of sounding overly cynical, we need to bear in mind that companies, despite their official line of caring about their employees, also have a contradictory interest in protecting the running of their business. I fear that many Americans are relying on guidance from employers that aren’t treating employee health as their primary priority — if there were, I think it’s safe to say, all American businesses would have already closed and told their workers to remain at home. Count this over-reliance on compromised sources of information as yet another cost of the federal government’s failure to talk truthfully about this crisis.
At any rate, the most pressing question for all of us right now is what can be done to slow the spread of this epidemic. I wanted to flag this article from the Center for American Progress, which lays out some frightening but essential data, beginning with its opening line: “The United States is at a tipping point: If transmission of COVID-19 is not slowed within the next week, the hospital system will be overwhelmed.” Crucially, it acknowledges the compromised federal response, and points to the critical role state and local governments need to play.
It also contains some good basic information, including numbers around worst-case transmission scenarios and the potential for getting those rates down. The idea of “flattening the curve” is something people may have heard about, and refers to slowing the rate of infection, with the goal of ensuring that our medical system is not overwhelmed by critical cases. I found this paragraph particularly helpful:
According to current estimates, 5 percent of those infected will require intensive care beds. There are approximately 98,000 intensive care beds in the United States. On the current track, these estimates indicate that 470,000 people will require intensive care beds—far more than are available. In reality, this massive shortage will be even worse because these beds will also be needed for other conditions, including seasonal influenza. If state and local governments begin aggressive measures today, however, the number of intensive care beds required could be reduced to 26,650.
With the goal of slowing the coronavirus spread front and center, the authors make several common-sense recommendations, including banning gatherings of more than 50 people, closing gyms, bars, and movie theaters, and “strongly encouraging employers to require employees to work remotely.” The specific measures are a useful baseline for our societal needs at the moment, providing a reality check in the face of contradictory information floating around.
And even as they present their recommendations as what state and local governments need to do, we can also read them as an urgent call for individual action as well — even if that action is mostly the inaction of staying home as much as possible. The fact that the single largest contribution we can individually make is to remain home means we have an incredibly low bar to clear — the critical thing is that enough of us are aware of it.