Armageddon is Coming with a Whimper, Not a Bang

Hemingway famously characterized bankruptcy as a condition that comes on "gradually, then suddenly." With a pandemic sweeping the world, more than 100,000 American citizens dead, and protests against the murder of George Floyd turning violent across the nation, it may well feel that we are in the acute phase of breakdown. But when all is said and done, it is all too likely that the relatively "sudden" crises facing us now will prove to have been distractions from the dangers that continue to build gradually. I fear that, in the immortal words of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "we ain't seen nothing yet."

The problem lies in the emerging "whack-a-mole" pattern of the struggle to "flatten the curve" of charted transmission of Covid-19 here in the U.S. Lockdown measures have ameliorated the surge of infections that was overwhelming the health care system in places like New York and New Jersey. But because insufficient efforts were made to map the spread of the virus through testing and contact tracing, or to time the implementation of social distancing protocols correspondingly, new hot spots of infection have begun to form in states such as Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, and Minnesota.

Though Congress has passed extraordinary legislation to deal with the acute economic impacts of the virus, thus far the federal government has not acknowledged that the very nature of a pandemic requires a national strategy, implemented simultaneously from coast to coast (and elsewhere), to hold out any hope of redress. Unless and until we implement such a comprehensive national strategy we will see rolling spikes in infection. The virus will move around the map, circling back to previous hot spots where the curve had been successfully "flattened," as social distancing protocols are indiscriminately tightened and eased from location to location.

Why the White House has refused to lead a national strategy is a question for the ages. The consequences, however, are immediate and clear. In a country of 330 million people who enjoy unlimited freedom and (relatively) ample means of travel and commerce, if only a small percentage of them are failing (or refusing) to take precautions while a virus with an estimated "R value" of 2.0-2.5 (meaning that, absent restrictions, an infected person will infect on average of between 2 and 3 other people) is active, the pandemic will continue to move through American society like a cycling prairie fire.

The solution is not simple or easy, but it is clear. A sustained national campaign is needed. On the one hand, vastly more resources and energy must be dedicated to measuring the scope and tracking the path of the pandemic. Measures to reduce the "R value" of the virus are leveraged by a knowledge of where infections are concentrated, when.

Beyond this, a persistent and forceful communication effort must be made to galvanize the public. Transmission rates for the virus in indoor spaces, for example, can be greatly reduced by the wearing of masks, but because wearing a mask protects others vastly more than it does the wearer, the measure will only be socially effective if it is embraced universally. In a country where people cherish independence and harbor mutual suspicion, convincing a critical mass of individuals to wear masks will require the ubiquitous and unrelenting broadcast of visible, authoritative, and trustworthy messaging. Behavior will only change to an effective degree through disciplined and sustained effort on the part of national leadership.

Unfortunately, no such leadership is forthcoming. The only institution in the nation with the profile and authority necessary to lead the kind of campaign that is needed is the White House, and the President has made it clear that he will not shoulder this responsibility. Indeed, it is evident that Donald Trump is utterly misguided about the current state of affairs. He believes that we face a choice between continued attention to the public health crisis or a return to economic productivity.

This is of course ridiculous. As long as we continue to experience rolling spikes in Covid-19 infection in different localities around the country, the economy will remain paralyzed. A modern industrial economy cannot function without a responsive health care system, and the health care system cannot meet the baseline needs of the economy if it is overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients. Beyond that reality, even in places that are momentarily seeing reductions in infection, economic productivity will be suppressed by fear. Unless and until we inspire people with the confidence that they may re-enter the workplace and the marketplace at very low (and discernible) risk, growth will stall and recede. Creating confidence will require that people be educated in the precautions that will mitigate risk, and be reassured that everyone else has assented to the same, which in turn will require sustained and energetic leadership from elected officials (especially the White House).

There is the rub. We need our President to take certain proactive steps to restore the economy, and he has flatly refused. Much ink has been spilled expressing understandable fear about what Donald Trump might do moving forward, but the distressing fact is that he can potentially do as much harm as any figure in our history simply by doing nothing.

The economic crisis set in motion by the pandemic is enormous in scale. Unemployment stands at 14.7%, GDP is shrinking at an accelerating rate. Congress has moved to use fiscal policy to counter the damage of these declines, but all such measures are grounded in the presumption that the crisis will be of acute duration. We are thus faced with the very stark question: how long can the system hold out? How long before curtailed revenue streams and mounting debts induce panic? How long before confidence in the bond and stock markets collapses?

Leadership could stave off such inflection points, but here in the United States, the earliest we can hope for the necessary leadership is January of 2021. Do we have until then? I would not bet my life on it, much less those of my community, friends, and family. What, then, is the answer? Gandhi's adage perhaps holds out the greatest hope: "[We] must be the change [we] want to see in the world." Fighting our way out of this crisis is going to take citizenship of unprecedented intensity and on an unprecedented scale. We must put pressure on state and local governments to coordinate with one-another in the national campaign that should have been coordinated from above. Beyond this, we must encourage and enlist one-another in the ongoing struggle against the pandemic. If we can support one-another as neighbors and compatriots and lead one another through example and compassionate concern, we can perhaps restore enough of our economy to slow the gradual slide into panic, and avoid a sudden Armageddon.