OPINI: Bukan Lockdown Tapi PSSB - Portal Makassar

PORTALMAKASSAR.COM — Pemerintah telah memutuskan menempuh kebijakan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar (PSSB) sebagai tindak lanjut pelaksanaan physical distancing secara tegas, terukur dan sistemik.

Melibatkan semua unsur dan komponen bangsa dalam penanganan penyebaran corona virus disease 2019 (covid19).

Langkah ini diambil, di tengah adanya desakan untuk memberlakukan lockdown wilayah atau lockdown total, seperti yang dilakukan beberapa negara, meskipun kebijakan seperti itu tidak “diwajibkan” dalam protokol WHO menghadapi pandemi covid19.

Untuk maksud tersebut, pemerintah telah mengeluarkan Peraturan Pemerintah sebagai turunan dari Undang Undang No 6 Tahun 2018 tentang Kekarantinaan Kesehatan.

Dalam PP ini telah mengatur secara rinci , hal mana saja yang harus dan dapat dilakukan oleh pemerintah daerah propinsi, kabupaten/kota sebagai upaya pencegahan serta pengendalian penanganan penyebaran virus ini.

Secara lengkap, saya kirimkan isi PP dimaksud, sebagai berikut:

1. PP Nomor 21 Tahun 2020 tentang Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar Dalam Rangka Percepatan Penanganan Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). PP bertanggal 31 Maret 2020 itu diteken oleh Presiden Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

Dalam Peraturan Pemerintah ini, yang dimaksud dengan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar adalah pembatasan kegiatan tertentu penduduk dalam suatu wilayah yang diduga terinfeksi Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) sedemikian rupa untuk mencegah kemungkinan penyebaran Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Pasal 2
(1) Dengan persetujuan menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan, Pemerintah Daerah dapat melakukan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar atau pembatasan terhadap pergerakan orang dan barang untuk satu provinsi atau kabupaten/kota tertentu.

2) Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) harus didasarkan pada pertimbangan epidemiologis, besarnya ancaman, efektifitas, dukungan sumber daya, teknis operasional, pertimbangan politik, ekonomi, sosial, budaya, pertahanan dan keamanan.

Pasal 3
Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar harus memenuhi kriteria sebagai berikut:
a. jumlah kasus dan/atau jumlah kematian akibat penyakit meningkat dan menyebar secara signifikan dan cepat ke beberapa wilayah; dan b. terdapat kaitan epidemiologis dengan kejadian serupa di wilayah atau negara lain.

Pasal 4
(1) Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar paling sedikit meliputi:
a. peliburan sekolah dan tempat kerja;
b. pembatasan kegiatan keagamaan; dan/atau
c. pembatasan kegiatan di tempat atau fasilitas umum.

(2) Pembatasan kegiatan sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) huruf a dan huruf b harus tetap mempertimbangkan kebutuhan pendidikan, produktivitas kerja, dan ibadah penduduk.

(3) Pembatasan kegiatan sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) huruf c dilakukan dengan memperhatikan pemenuhan kebutuhan dasar penduduk.
Pasal 5

(1) Dalam hal Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar telah ditetapkan oleh menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan, Pemerintah Daerah wajib melaksanakan dan memperhatikan ketentuan sebagaimana diatur dalam Undang-Undang Nomor 6 Tahun 2018 tentang Kekarantinaan Kesehatan.

(2) Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (1) diselenggarakan secara berkoordinasi dan bekerja sama dengan berbagai pihak terkait sesuai dengan ketentuan peraturan perundangan-undangan.

Pasal 6
(1) Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar diusulkan oleh gubernur/bupati/walikota kepada menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan.

(2) Menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan menetapkan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar dengan memperhatikan pertimbangan Ketua Pelaksana Gugus Tugas Percepatan Penanganan Corona Virus Disease 20 1 9 (COVID-19).

(3) Ketua Pelaksana Gugus Tugas Percepatan Penanganan Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) dapat mengusulkan kepada menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan untuk menetapkan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar di wilayah tertentu.

(4) Apabila menteri yang menyelenggarakan urusan pemerintahan di bidang kesehatan menyetujui usulan Ketua Pelaksana Gugus Tugas Percepatan Penanganan Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) sebagaimana dimaksud pada ayat (3), kepala daerah di wilayah tertentu wajib melaksanakan Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar.

Pasal 7
Peraturan Pemerintah ini mulai berlaku pada tanggal diundangkan. Agar setiap orang mengetahuinya, memerintahkan pengundangan Peraturan Pemerintah ini dengan penempatannya dalam Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia.

Dari substansi PP d iatas, intinya antara lain, pertama, tumbuhnya pemahaman yang sama antara pemerintah pusat dan daerah dalam pelaksanaan pembatasan sosial berskala besar.

Kedua, bahwa daerah dalam hal mempertimbangkan pemberlakukan karantina atau isolasi pada wilayah berdampak, atau area di mana adanya warga yang positif atau pasien dalam dalam pengawasan yang melakukan atau dihimbau melakukan karantina mandiri, untuk segera diambil kebijakan Pembatasan Sosial secara ketat.

Ketiga, bahwa agar virus ini tidak semakin meluas, maka daerah, setelah mengusulkan dan disetujui ke pejabat berwenang mengurusi kesehatan, dapat melakukan pembatasan pembatas pada bidang tertentu yang dianggap sangat rentan dalam penularan, ketiga, bahwa daerah harus memastikan seluruh kebutuhan dasar atau pokok masyarakat pada wilayah berdampak dapat didistribusikan segera.

Sehingga tidak ada rakyat yang merasa kesulitan dengan adanya pembatasan sosial ini, keempat, kesiapan pemerintah daerah dalam penyediaan sarana dan perlindungan kesehatan kepada petugas medis maupun pihak yang memberi dukungan terwujudnya pelayanan kesehatan kepada pasien terjangkit.

kelima, penderita yang sudah dinyatakan positif dan harus ditangani rumah sakit, mendapatkan penanganan yang sesuai standar protokol covid19.

Keenam, bahwa dalam mewujudkan efektifitas pelaksanaan pembatasan sosial berskala besar ini pemerintah daerah melakukan koordinasi dengan seluruh pihak terkait.

Ketujuh, apabila dalam pelaksanaan pembatasan sosial berskala besar tidak mendapatkan respon positif dari banyak pihak (masyarakat secara luas) pihak berwajib dapat melakukan tindaka keras, efektif dan terukur.

Untuk memutus mata rantai atau alur penyebaran virus ini, selain penanganan medis, jauh lebih bermakna dengan membangun kesadaran masyarakat untuk tinggal dirumah atau dan melakukan pembatasan yang ketat dalam berinteraksi.

Harus diketahui bahwa dengan kondisi seperti sekarang, bila kota tidak sadar bahwa boleh jadi kita berpotensi “membunuh ” orang lain atau kita yang “terbunuh” jikalau kita tidak secara bisa saja menularkan dan tertulari oleh virus ini.

Mari kita bangun kebersamaan dan berfikir positif, bahwa kita harus menahan diri unruk tidak melakukan kontak fisik dsn berkomunikasi dengan lebih dari satu meter.

Agar seluruh himbauan pemerintah dimaksudkan untuk menyelematkan anak bangsa ini dari virus yang ganas dan mematikan ini. Semoga.
Wallahu ‘alam bisshawab

*Praktisi dan Pemerhati Pemerintahan
Makassar,, 1/4/2020

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Gesit Dalam Ketidakpastian | Harianjogja.com - Harian Jogja

Merebaknya pandemi Covid-19 telah mengubah kehidupan sosial dan ekonomi masyarakat di banyak negara, mulai dari terguncangnya sistem kesehatan nasional karena gelombang pasien yang tidak pernah terbayangkan jumlahnya, fatalitas kematian hingga lumpuhnya ekonomi.

Dari sisi ekonomi, first round effect pandemi ini adalah menurunnya konsumsi masyarakat akibat situasi yang menuntut setiap orang untuk melakukan isolasi diri. Kedua, hilangnya pekerjaan dari sebagian masyarakat, baik pekerja harian maupun pekerja di pabrik. Faktor kedua ini yang lebih mengkhawatirkan jika tidak ada bantuan pemerintah, apalagi jika penyebaran virus ini tak dapat dikendalikan dalam beberapa bulan ke depan. Perlu diketahui, konsumsi rumah tangga memegang peran 56,62% dari pembentukan Produk Domestik Bruto Indonesia tahun lalu.

Second round effect yang dirasakan ekonomi adalah menurunnya produksi, karena terhambatnya suplai bahan baku dan tenaga kerja di industri. Belum lagi jika mempertimbangkan faktor ketidakpastian di pasar valuta asing dan pasar keuangan yang menyebabkan impor bahan baku menjadi kian sulit. Gangguan sisi suplai industri ditambah dengan penurunan permintaan konsumsi masyarakat akhirnya menyebabkan menurunnya produksi dan penjualan.

Jika dimaknai lebih jauh, ini berarti kalau tidak ada perubahan positif dalam penanganan masalah kesehatan beberapa bulan ke depan, penurunan pertumbuhan ekonomi Indonesia bisa dipastikan kian dalam. Indonesia bersama 198 negara lainnya berada dalam situasi berat karena menghadapi masalah kesehatan yang besar dan tekanan ekonomi luar biasa.

Di tengah situasi ekonomi yang melemah, resep makro ekonomi menyatakan urgensi peran pemerintah dalam ekonomi untuk menyeimbangkan kembali permintaan yang menurun melalui kebijakan fiskal. Pemerintah harus aktif meningkatkan pengeluaran pemerintah melalui berbagai saluran sehingga aktivitas produksi nasional kembali bergulir dan terakselerasi. Peningkatan pengeluaran pemerintah juga dapat menciptakan lapangan pekerjaan, sehingga masyarakat memperoleh pendapatan dan memiliki daya beli kembali.

Peran pemerintah dalam ekonomi ini menjadi semakin sentral ketika masyarakat menghadapi masalah pandemi corona dengan magnitude sangat besar. Ekonom Pierre-Oliver Gourinchas (2020) bahkan mengatakan dalam situasi dunia saat ini, kebijakan fiskal pemerintah menjadi seperti intensive care unit, beds, and ventilators bagi sistem ekonomi. Dengan kata lain pemerintah adalah kunci bagi penyelamatan ekonomi.

Berkaitan dengan kebijakan fiskal, pertanyaan mendasarnya adalah apa yang harus disasar dan bagaimana strategi implementasinya. Di tengah situasi pelemahan ekonomi, yang harus menjadi sasaran utama pemerintah adalah memastikan setiap orang dan rumah tangga memiliki uang yang cukup untuk mengakses kebutuhan sehari-hari. Prioritas kedua, mengurangi tingkat kebangkrutan, baik UMKM maupun korporasi yang sifat produksinya padat karya.

Prioritas ketiga, meningkatkan anggaran kesehatan untuk penanganan pandemi. Mengapa prioritas ini sangat penting? Karena semakin lama pandemi ini terjadi, kian tinggi biaya ekonomi dan non ekonomi yang ditanggung masyarakat dan pemerintah. Berarti pemerintah harus memberikan bantalan ekonomi yang lebih besar dan lebih lama bagi masyarakat dan dunia usaha. Oleh karena itu, tercapai atau tidaknya tujuan program stimulus ekonomi tak terlepas dari kemampuan pemerintah dalam menyelesaikan masalah di sektor kesehatan.

Secara internal, pemerintah sendiri memiliki tantangan untuk memastikan bahwa kebijakan stimulus ekonomi efektif dan kredibel atau benar-benar tepat sasaran, tepat jumlah dan tepat waktu. Tantangan terbesar saat ini adalah ketepatan waktu. Secara teknokratik pemerintah mampu mendesain program stimulus yang tepat dengan acuan banyak negara dengan jumlah anggaran yang relatif memadai. Pekerjaan rumah penting lainnya adalah pada aspek ketepatan waktu dan implementasi program di lapangan.

Pemerintah harus gesit, misalnya dalam kemampuan kementerian melakukan penyesuaian anggaran dengan cepat agar mesin program bisa cepat berjalan di lapangan dan berdampak langsung ke masyarakat. Pola re-focusing dan realokasi tidak bisa lagi menggunakan business process seperti biasanya. Desperate situation needs desperate measures. Hal ini penting karena hanya dengan cara ini maka kebijakan stimulus dapat tepat waktu, mengenai sasaran dan dipandang kredibel oleh masyarakat serta pelaku ekonomi di pasar.

Dari sisi teknokrasi, rekomendasi yang dapat ditawarkan adalah, pertama, mengevaluasi kembali beberapa program stimulus dengan memprioritaskan pada pihak yang benar-benar paling rentan terdampak ekonominya.

Artinya, program fokus pada menjaga tingkat konsumsi rumah tangga dan pekerja yang telah di PHK atau tidak dapat bekerja karena keadaan. Untuk ini pemerintah dapat menetapkan peserta kartu Pra Kerja sementara waktu hanya bagi pekerja yang terkena PHK saja. Pemerintah juga dapat menetapkan fokus Dana Desa hanya pada Program Padat Karya Tunai, tidak untuk yang lain, agar bisa menciptakan lapangan pekerjaan di desa.

Supaya daya beli tetap terjaga, pemerintah daerah dapat mendukung pemerintah pusat dengan menciptakan program keluarga harapan plus dengan penambahan nilai manfaat. Kedua, fokus pada upaya meringankan beban UMKM dan industri padat karya. Misalnya dengan memberikan subsidi tagihan listrik UMKM dan industri padat karya.

Ketiga, investasi masif dalam sektor kesehatan untuk menghambat proses penularan lebih jauh dengan cara membuka unit pelaksana pengujian Covid-19 yang lebih banyak dengan kapasitas yang cukup, penyediaan ventilator dan peralatan medis yang memadai dan insentif bagi tenaga medis.

Dalam ketidakpastian yang tinggi tentu tidak ada ruang bagi policy error karena dampak akan dirasakan oleh masyarakat luas. Namun pada saat yang sama, keadaan sulit ini juga tidak memberikan kita luxury waktu yang panjang dalam mengambil keputusan. Jadi, kuncinya ada pada teknokrasi dan kelincahan birokrasi.

*Penulis merupakan Dosen Fakultas Ekonomi dan Bisnis Universitas Airlangga

Sumber : Bisnis Indonesia

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Face masks could be part of the answer - CNN

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says no. China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Czech Republic say yes. In some parts of China, it is mandatory to wear a mask when in public. Those caught outside not wearing a mask are stopped by police and may be fined or even arrested. In South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, health authorities advise everyone to wear a mask in the presence of others, especially in crowded places (i.e., riding the subway).

However, here in the United States, the CDC guidance continues to be, "If you are NOT sick: you do not need to wear a face mask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a face mask)." The CDC goes on to say that "face masks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers." In line with this guidance, the US surgeon general tweeted in February, "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS!"

But as Covid-19 cases continue to climb in the United States, an increasing number of health experts, such as the director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Tom Inglesby, advise wearing masks as a means to prevent the proliferation of the virus. Additionally, the Trump administration is now reconsidering the nation's stance on wearing masks in public as a preventative measure. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease doctor, said that the White House is in "very active discussion" about whether to recommend the use of masks by citizens in some circumstances.

Are masks really unnecessary or are there just not enough?

Since we don't have enough face masks, we absolutely have to prioritize providing masks to those with the highest risk of infection, such as health care workers and first responders. But we, as a nation, should also be honest about whether the current guidance for healthy citizens not to use masks in public is really supported by the science or is just an attempt to prevent panic-buying and to preserve a limited resource for high risk groups.

The reality is that the proper use of face masks by citizens when they are in public spaces can benefit public health. (It should be noted that experts warn that if a face mask is worn improperly the wearer may be more susceptible to the virus, as they may touch their face more frequently.)

The US should strongly consider more widespread use of this protective gear, in addition to hand hygiene and social distancing.

What does the science tell us about masks?

We know that the virus is spread primarily by respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Droplets can also be generated by talking, laughing, singing or just exhaling. They can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or be inhaled into the lungs, which is why people have been asked to stay at least 6 feet away from each other.

It's also possible for infected droplets to be transferred to surfaces and then spread by contact when another person touches the surface and then touches their eyes, nose or mouth. This is why public health officials have emphasized frequent hand-washing and cleaning of surfaces.

It has been suggested by institutions such as the Mayo Clinic that when someone infected with a respiratory viral illness wears a surgical mask it protects others from getting infected because the masks catch the droplets and keep them from reaching other people. But we have also learned that individuals can be infected with the coronavirus and be contagious even when they have no symptoms. In fact, it is likely that in some outbreaks, a significant number of individuals were infected by those with no symptoms who were unknowingly spreading the virus. Could they have minimized spread of the virus if they had been using face masks before they felt sick?

Also, let's be realistic about how easy it is to be less than 6 feet away from others when we're at the grocery store or taking public transportation. Would it not be worth having an additional layer of protection? While brief encounters with others involving minimal interaction may not be high risk, why have we emphasized hand-washing and disinfecting surfaces after those interactions so much more than face masks when this virus is spread largely through respiratory droplets?

The scientific evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of masks at containing viral spread when worn by healthy people.

Some studies have not found a benefit. However, many were limited because the subjects didn't wear the masks as often as they were supposed to. In contrast, the CDC's own 2017 guidance on how to prevent pandemic flu in the community stated that "the use of face masks by well persons might be beneficial in certain situations (e.g., when persons at high risk for influenza complications cannot avoid crowded settings or parents are caring for ill children at home). Face mask use by well persons also might reduce self-inoculation (e.g., touching the nose with the hand after touching a contaminated surface)."

The same logic should apply to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

What's more, we can look at the measures shown to be effective to slow community transmission of SARS in 2003 as an example of steps to be taken today. A large study in Hong Kong found that wearing a face mask regularly in public places, frequent hand-washing and disinfecting one's home were all effective in limiting the spread of that virus in the community.

Another study conducted in Beijing found that always wearing a mask when going out was associated with a 70% reduction in risk of being diagnosed with SARS during the outbreak compared with never wearing a mask.

That brings us back to the shortage. If wearing masks could help reduce the spread of the virus, how do we get more masks?

Taiwan offers a helpful model. Like the United States, Taiwan has seen an increased demand for face masks and disruptions in the supply chain. Prior to the pandemic, the majority of masks sold in Taiwan were manufactured elsewhere, with over 90% coming from China. In the past month, the Taiwanese government aggressively ramped up private manufacturing so that Taiwan can now make millions of masks per day and has enough N95 masks and hazmat suits for all their medical personnel.

The Taiwanese government also made it easier for the general public to buy surgical masks, creating a centralized online system to ration and ship them (each mask is sold for less than $0.25).

Through this system, more than 2.3 million people were given the ability to buy seven million masks over the course of a single week. Of note, Taiwan, a densely populated country of 23 million people about 80 miles off the coast of China, has had only 322 confirmed infections and five deaths due to Covid-19 as of March 31.

And Taiwan has, for the most part, not closed schools or businesses and has not implemented a lockdown.

In an effort to protect citizens with minimal disruption to everyday life, the US government should use every possible authority, leverage and funding source to rapidly manufacture or acquire more masks and ensure they are distributed in a rational way nationwide to the highest risk groups first. But then perhaps we should turn our attention to helping the general public get access to masks. If Taiwan can ratchet up private sector manufacturing in one month, the United States most certainly can, too.

What can we do in the meantime?

While there is limited research on the effectiveness of homemade masks made from household materials to block droplet transmission, some studies show that homemade masks are better than no mask. Next time you go to the grocery store, you might want to bring with you some homemade Personal Protective Equipment.

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We are trying to stave off and arrest a pandemic. Given what is being recommended, we think we need some second or third opinions. This pandemic, now that it has reached America, has taken 3,173 lives here.  This, from a tested population of 164,359 cases. That’s a mortality rate of 1.9%.  But immediately, questions must be asked. We record every case of death from the coronavirus, but we have no idea how many people have had the coronavirus. Clearly, there are more than 164,359 cases because not everyone has been tested. That would put the mortality rate at less than 1.9%. That rate could be far, far less. As Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have written, based on their model of over 6 million cases they believe exist: “That’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two-week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%.”

Again, as we pointed have out before: Each death is a tragedy and horrible, but the chance of it is also very small, depending on if you contract the virus and what your age and underlying medical conditions are. Will the numbers be much bigger than our annual rate of flu deaths?  Already this year we have lost 24,000 to the flu and expect that number to rise at least another 24,000, probably more.  Coronavirus deaths at half the flu number would also be much smaller than our annual rate of opioid overdose deaths—46,802—or annual deaths due to motor vehicle crashes, 33,654.  For none of these problems—some anthropogenic and due to acts of volition, some caused by nature—have we or do we change, literally, everything, from stay in shelter orders and travel bans to the shuttering of almost all retail and service businesses.

We have lost perspective.  Epidemiologists and others in public health and medical professions have opined that the worst is yet to come.  But already they, too, are offering their own second doctors’ opinions.  Neil Ferguson and his Imperial College study gave us the March 17 headline “A chilling scientific paper helped upend U.S. and U.K. coronavirus strategies.”  It warned of 2.2 million deaths in the United States.  By last week, Dr. Ferguson changed his predictions and Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force said, “I’m sure you have seen the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs. This is really quite important. … They’ve adjusted that number in the U.K. to 20,000. Half a million to 20,000. … So when people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected, it’s very scary, but we don’t have data that matches that based on our experience.”

The first analysis received a lot of headlines; the revisions downward, not so much.  Dr. Anthony Fauci is now making headlines for saying what we’ve actually been warned about for weeks: bigger numbers, hypothesizing rates could reach the six figures.  Sunday, he said, “Looking at what we're seeing now, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases [of death]” and then he added, “But I just don't think that we really need to make a projection, when it's such a moving target, that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people.”

Though we were told we would see and hear of these larger numbers, as more and more testing became available, they are treated as new and alarming information.  His qualifiers about being wrong will be ignored. His statement, “I've never seen a model of the diseases that I've dealt with where the worst-case scenario actually came out. They always overshoot,” from the same interview, will be equally ignored. 

Because of all this, we have curtailed our freedoms and badly hurt our economy.  How did we surrender so much, so fast?  Perhaps we have gotten used to alarmism, or worse.  What historian Richard Hofstadter once labeled the “paranoid style in American politics” to describe the Barry Goldwater movement of 1964 is now firmly at home in our political and social rhetoric today. 

Hofstadter wrote he used the word “paranoid” “simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” he was describing in the American right of the early 1960s.  From the moment of Donald Trump’s election, respected editorialists and political commentators said his election would ensure everything from a global recession to existential threats to our Constitution.  Donald Trump, to too many members of Congress, was “a dictator” and someone who was “tyrannizing our communities.”  He reminded them of “Germany in the 1930s.”  The front-runner in the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, even said our president is “an existential threat to America.”  This, all long before anyone knew where Wuhan was or what social distancing meant.  That irresponsible rhetoric, analysis, and forecasting has helped pave the way for simply too much panic, or paranoia—a tendency to believe the worst, a disposition to overreact.

To help restore a sense of calm and normalcy, we ought to look at this disease at its center of harm and engage something like a more vertical strategy as Thomas Friedman recommended, “sequestering those among us most likely to be killed or suffer long-term damage by exposure to coronavirus infection … while basically treating the rest of society the way we have always dealt with familiar threats like the flu.”  The horizontal strategy of “restricting the movement and commerce of the entire population, without consideration of varying risks for severe infection,” is too blunt, too paralyzing — and too haunting.

Barring that, Professor Hofstadter, though wrong about the 1960s, would be right about today: We truly are shutting down America and harming a great many Americans, based on the worst fears that have not been true and are not on the horizon.  We are scaring the hell out of the citizenry.  A few additional statistics help counsel a lowering of our national temperature:  The vast majority of deaths from the virus are of people over the age of 70 with underlying frailties.  The focus on New York where, of course, most of the media is based, is also flooding and distorting the picture for the rest of the country. Of course we need to pay attention to ground zero, which is New York.  But what happens there is not what is happening everywhere.   For example, our most populous state, California shows 149 deaths, 11% of the total in New York.  Texas, our second most populous state, shows nothing like the death toll in New York, with 47 deaths, about 3.5% of the total in the Empire State.

Again, our plea: Look at the numbers, look at everything, rationally, and let us reclaim a sense of proportion. In the early 1990s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that our country was defining deviancy down.  Today, we are concerned about defining pandemonium up.  We have a problem.  Rather than engaging in “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy,” as Hofstadter warned, we should focus our solution on it without upending everything else. Paranoia and overreaction do not suit our democracy well.

William J. Bennett is the former secretary of education and director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy.

Seth Leibsohn is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and the host of "The Seth Leibsohn Show," heard daily on 960am/KKNT in Phoenix, Ariz.

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What's lost in the rush to online learning - CNN

Monday morning, my wife and I got our kids up and ready for the first day of distance learning in the Minnesota school system. By 8:30, we had completed first-period science and had shifted to second-period PE. There I was, lying on the floor watching the assigned exercise video, planking for 40 seconds, as my uber-flexible son planked next to me and giggled. My daughter was upstairs happily chatting with friends (but not doing her schoolwork without direct supervision), my wife was on a conference call and my emails from worried students -- I'm a college adviser -- were piling up. My head swam, my son laughed and the fit woman on the video said we could relax for 20 seconds. Then our home internet cut out for 10 minutes.

Over the course of the day, the fundamental impossibility of what we as a society are trying to do became abundantly clear in my little microcosm. There's just no way to provide quality education to all students absent full-time on-site parental support. We can't do it because my wife and I both have jobs and because my son has high support needs related to his Down syndrome and autism. More importantly, we're extremely lucky when it comes to resources and the ability to, at least, work from home. It's understandable why nearly every school in the country has shut down through at least April, but this massive rush to move K-12 education online is a mistake. It's going to intensify pre-existing inequities and it just doesn't feel necessary. Instead of pretending we can instantly create virtual classrooms for every American child, we should shut the school year down until it's safe enough to return.

Building distance learning systems is not for the faint of heart. In theory, they can help make learning more accessible for more people, but not in an overnight crash situation like many are facing. Unequal access to technology and internet create one set of limits, but for kids, access to parental support and appropriate learning spaces in the home may be an even greater problem. While many school districts are working laudably to pass out laptops and tablets to students who need them, learning is going to depend on a fragile chain over highly stressed parents and other caregivers and teachers (many of whom are caring for their own kids) creating the conditions in which learning is possible. The children are stressed out, too, for that matter, as even the youngest are increasingly aware of the unprecedented turmoil into which the world has fallen.

Experts in education are worried. UCLA professor of education Pedro Noguera told the Los Angeles Daily News that "relying on schools and universities to utilize virtual learning ... places certain populations at a disadvantage" because they don't have access to internet or computers at home. Reporters for ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune used FCC data to demonstrate the lack of access to reliable internet for rural Illinois, even as state education officials optimistically push the hashtag #KeepLearning. Is a few months of haphazard online education worth exacerbating the consequences of America's digital divide? What about for poor urban neighborhoods, or homes in which both parents are essential workers, and all the caregiving is being done by an older sibling or elderly neighbor? Homes are not reliable and equal sites of education.

And then there are children who, as a result of a wide variety of disabilities, require extra support in order to learn. My son's teachers are working very hard to invent new ways to educate my son remotely, and I am grateful to them for their efforts, but unless I or my wife are giving my son constant one-on-one support, he's just not going to sit down at the laptop and click on his lessons.

ESL learners may find themselves in similar positions, dependent on one-on-one teaching, and thus they will fall even further behind as the most advantaged kids soar.

Worst of all is this chilling detail about the present crisis: We aren't even at the part of this crisis when, according to CDC projections first reported by The New York Times, more and more people start getting sick.

It's probably coming, unless we get very lucky, and the systems we are building right now to make it through the coming months need to be both resilient and flexible. A panicked and unequal online education system will be neither. What's more, as Ed Yong recently wrote in The Atlantic, the virus is likely to come back in various mini-waves even after we have treatments and vaccines. When it does, we'll need to quickly shut down schools and businesses in an affected area to contain outbreaks, and again we'll need resilient and flexible systems ready to go. This is the moment to design and build those systems, none of which can happen on the fly.

When it comes to health care, we don't have the luxury of taking our time. Our under-equipped hospitals have to at once provide care for the sick and rebuild to be better prepared for pandemics. Businesses are desperately clinging to whatever revenue they can, and again we need to fight the mass unemployment that is already spiking to unprecedented levels. Schools, though, are a place where might be able to find a little slack. Graduation standards, admissions standards, accreditation agencies -- all will have to be adjusted to make it clear that no one is going to hold a less-than-productive spring 2020 against anyone.

Then let's just call the school year off, hunker down, try to keep our families intact, and care for the sick. Most learning is not linear. All of this can be made up, perhaps by starting next year early if weather and the virus permits. And if you or your child is a high achiever who can totally excel online, recognize how lucky you are and take this time to support others who are not as fortunate.

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Opinion: We must depend upon science, not opinion, to fight this virus - Gainesville Times

Being a virologist, it totally baffles me that the FDA, CDC and our president would ignore science and recommend both an antibiotic and an antimalarial be used as an antiviral drug to treat coronavirus infections.

I fully understand that it was based upon a recommendation made from uncontrolled research by an incapable individual, which actually amounts to personal opinions rather than accepted science with acceptable statistical validity.

Viral replication is totally resistant to such drugs because mammalian virus replication must take place inside a mammalian living cell. The process involves attachment, uncoating, utilizing cell DNA or RNA mechanisms to replicate viral DNA or RNA, assembling of viral particles (maturation) and finally release of the mature virion from the cell, which usually dies or becomes non-functional. Antivirals are developed to interfere with one or more of these processes.

Antibacterials and antimalarials act through totally different mechanisms. They basically stop the growth of organisms based upon various stages of binary fission. These organisms grow on media or require living cells in which to multiply. Therefore there is no scientific reason to expect them to be antiviral. In fact, it is a scientific fact that they have no antiviral activity.

This is faulty thinking and faulty administrative decisions to depend on non-scientific advice or even no advice to make decisions that affect the health of our citizens.

Why expend valuable public funds to “research” facts that have been proven long ago. We must depend upon science, not uneducated opinion, to protect the health and welfare of our nation’s citizens. Go figure.

Dr. Paul C. Smith

Hoschton

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Opinion: It is when we are challenged that we reveal our true self - Juneau Empire

We are entering into uncharted waters, there is plenty to be afraid of. People around the world are and will continue to die. Reactions to this crisis will vary; some will get scared, some greedy, others angry and even more will turn to denial. We cannot control the virus or the resulting cascade of events, but we can control our reactions. It is in our darkest hour that we must be our very best. When we are stressed and tired, we must be calm and strong. When we are scared, we must be courageous. It is when we are challenged that we reveal our true self and it is times like these when our character is demonstrated and our values are tested.

There is always hope. Opportunities exist even when the horizon is dark and the future appears bleak. The unknown created by the pandemic is an opportunity to be our very best: to be compassionate, to help others, to not follow the crowd but to lead. As we head to the stores, call a neighbor and ask if they need something. Think about the difficulties of isolation, and remember that some people are isolated every day. Reach out, look past the bottom line and think about how your actions will impact others.

It is in moments like these that clarity can be found, an acute focus on priorities. Being our best in challenging times is not easy. It takes conscious effort and introspection to rise above the mass mentality. It is easy to submit to fear, greed, hostility, and blame. External events do not provide justification for poor behavior and callus actions. Be better. Be the best. Look for opportunity to respond in a positive way that makes even the smallest difference. Collectively, we can set new standards and embrace productive societal behaviors. We can create beauty, we can be the flower growing from the dirt.

While it is morbid to think about, what if these are the last weeks of our lives? How will you be judged and how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to die a fearful hoarder or as a kind, compassionate, vibrant soul that used his/her time to live their best life? How we treat others is the most important legacy we leave. Not only will we be remembered externally for demonstrating fortitude of character, but internally we will also see the world with positivity and optimism. It is in the darkest moments when we must be at our very best. Use this time to be thankful for what you have, and use today to be your best. This can be a time of personal growth; an opportunity to rise above and to be better than what we see around us. And for god’s sake remember to laugh!

• Steve Ricci is an active community member in Juneau, sitting on several boards and commissions, past legislative aide working on both sides of the aisle and past commercial fisherman that still works in the industry. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.

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The Coronavirus and the Conservative Mind - The New York Times

Over the past two decades, as conservatives and liberals have drifted ever farther from each other, an influential body of literature has attempted to psychologize the partisan divide — to identify conservative and liberal personality types, right-wing or left-wing minds or brains, and to vindicate the claim of the noted political scientists Gilbert and Sullivan, That every boy and every gal / That’s born into the world alive. / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative.

In its crudest form this literature just amounts to liberal self-congratulation, with survey questions and regression analyses deployed to “prove” with “science” that liberals are broad-minded freethinkers and conservatives are cramped authoritarians. But there have been more sophisticated and sympathetic efforts, too, like the influential work of New York University’s Jonathan Haidt on the “moral foundations” of politics: Haidt argues that conservatives actually have more diverse moral intuitions than liberals, encompassing categories like purity and loyalty as well as care and fairness, and that the right-wing mind therefore sometimes understands the left-wing mind better than vice versa.

Both the crude and sophisticated efforts tended to agree, though, that the supposed conservative mind is more attuned to external threat and internal contamination, more inclined to support authority and hierarchy, and fear subversion and dissent. And so the political responses to the pandemic have put these psychological theories to a very interesting test.

In the coronavirus, America confronts a contaminating force (a deadly disease) that originated in our leading geopolitical rival (an external threat) and that plainly requires a strong, even authoritarian government response. If there was ever a crisis tailored to the conservative mind-set, surely it would be this one, with the main peril being that conservatives would wildly overreact to such a trigger.

So what has happened? Well, several different things. From the Wuhan outbreak through somewhere in mid-February, the responses to the coronavirus did seem to correspond — very roughly — to theories of conservative and liberal psychology. Along with infectious-disease specialists, the people who seemed most alarmed by the virus included the inhabitants of Weird Right-Wing Twitter (a collection of mordant, mostly anonymous accounts interested in civilizational decline), various Silicon Valley eccentrics, plus original-MAGA figures like Mike Cernovich and Steve Bannon. (The radio host Michael Savage, often considered the most extreme of the right’s talkers, was also an early alarmist.)

Meanwhile, liberal officialdom and its media appendages were more likely to play down the threat, out of fear of giving aid and comfort to sinophobia or populism. This period was the high-water mark of “it’s just the flu” reassurances in liberal outlets, of pious critiques of Donald Trump’s travel restrictions, of deceptive public-health propaganda about how masks don’t work, of lectures from the head of the World Health Organization about how “the greatest enemy we face is not the virus itself; it’s the stigma that turns us against each other.”

But then, somewhere in February, the dynamic shifted. As the disease spread and the debate went mainstream, liberal opinion mostly abandoned its anti-quarantine posture and swung toward a reasonable panic, while conservative opinion divided, with a large portion of the right following the lead of Trump himself, who spent crucial weeks trying to wish the crisis away. Where figures like Bannon and Cernovich manifested a conservatism attuned to external perils, figures like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity manifested a conservatism of tribal denial, owning the libs by minimizing the coronavirus threat.

Now we are in a third phase, where Trump is (more or less, depending on the day) on board with a robust response and most conservatives have joined most liberals in alarm. Polls show a minimal partisan divide in support for social distancing and lockdowns, and some of that minimal divide is explained by the fact that rural areas are thus far less likely to face outbreaks. (You don’t need a complicated theory of the ideological mind to explain why New Yorkers are more freaked out than Nebraskans.)

But even now, there remains a current of conservative opinion that wants to believe that all of this is overblown, that the experts are wrong about the likely death toll, that Trump should reopen everything as soon as possible, that the liberal media just wants to crash the American economy to take his presidency down.

Where does this leave the theories of conservative and liberal minds? It’s too much to say that they don’t describe anything real. A certain kind of conservative personality (a kind that includes more than a few of my own friends) really did seem particularly well attuned to this crisis and ended up out ahead of the conventional wisdom in exactly the way that you would expect a mind-set attuned to risk and danger, shot through with pessimism and inclined to in-group loyalty to be.

At the same time, the behavior of what you might call “normie” Republicans — not Very Online right-wingers or MAGA populists but longtime Fox News and talk-radio consumers — suggests that any such conservative mind-set is easily confounded by other factors, partisanship chief among them. The fact that the virus seemed poised to help Democrats and hurt the Trump administration, the fact that it was being hyped by CNN and played down by Hannity, the fact that Trump himself declined to take it seriously — all of this mattered more to many Republicans than the fear of foreign contamination that the virus theoretically should have activated or the ways in which its progress seemed to confirm certain right-wing priors.

So one might say that the pandemic illustrates the power of partisan mood affiliation over any kind of deeper ideological mind-set. Or relatedly, it illustrates the ways in which under the right circumstances, people can easily swing between different moral intuitions. (This holds for liberals as well as conservatives: A good liberal will be as deferential to authority as any conservative when the authority has the right academic degrees, and as zealous about purity and contamination when it’s their own neighborhood that’s threatened.)

But the right’s varying responses to the pandemic also illustrate two further points. The first point is that what we call “American conservatism” is probably more ideologically and psychologically heterogeneous than the conservative mind-set that social scientists aspire to measure and pin down. In particular, it includes an incredibly powerful streak of what you might call folk libertarianism — which comes in both highbrow and middlebrow forms, encompassing both famous legal scholars predicting minimal fatalities from their armchairs and “you can’t stop the American economy … for anything” tough guys attacking social distancing on Twitter.

This mentality, with its reflexive Ayn Randism and its Panglossian hyper-individualism, is definitely essential to understanding part of the American right. But it’s very much an American thing unto itself, and I’m doubtful that it corresponds to any universal set of psychological tendencies that we could reasonably call conservative.

The second point is that on the fringes of the right, among QAnon devotees and believers in the satanic depravity of liberalism, the only psychology that matters is paranoia, not conservatism. And their minimizing response to the coronavirus illustrates the unwillingness of the conspiratorial mind to ever take yes for an answer — meaning that even true events that seem to vindicate a somewhat paranoid worldview will be dismissed as not true enough, not the deepest truth, not the Grandest of All Grand Conspiracies that will someday (someday) be unraveled.

[Listen to “The Argument” podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]

In his novel “Foucault’s Pendulum,” a sendup of crackpot esotericism that anticipated “The Da Vinci Code” years before its publication, Umberto Eco captured this spirit by describing the way that self-conscious seekers after hermetic wisdom and gnostic mysteries approached the rise of Christianity:

… someone had just arrived and declared himself the Son of God, the Son of God made flesh, to redeem the sins of the world. Was that a run-of-the-mill mystery? And he promised salvation to all: you only had to love your neighbor. Was that a trivial secret? And he bequeathed the idea that whoever uttered the right words at the right time could turn a chunk of bread and a half-glass of wine into the body and blood of the Son of God, and be nourished by it. Was that a paltry riddle?

… And yet they, who now had salvation within their grasp — do-it-yourself salvation — turned deaf ears. Is that all there is to it? How trite. And they kept on scouring the Mediterranean in their boats, looking for a lost knowledge of which those thirty-denarii dogmas were but the superficial veil, the parable for the poor in spirit, the allusive hieroglyph, the wink of the eye at the pneumatics. The mystery of the Trinity? Too simple: there had to be more to it.

This is where the pandemic-minimizing sort of conservative has ended up. They are confronted with a world crisis tailor-made for an anti-globalization, anti-deep-state worldview — a crisis in which China lit the fuse, the World Health Organization ran interference for Beijing, the American public health bureaucracy botched its one essential job, pious anti-racism inhibited an early public-health response, and outsourcing and offshoring left our economy exposed.

And their response? Too simple: Just a feint, a false flag, another deep state plot or power grab, another hoax to take down Trump. It can’t be real unless Hillary Clinton is somehow at the bottom of it.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram, join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female.

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The U.S. Is Not Winning the Coronavirus Fight - The New York Times

This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday.

China and South Korea have flattened their curves. Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands have begun to flatten their curves.

The United States still has not.

More than half of all confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States have been diagnosed in the past five days. Depending on what data source you use, yesterday was either the worst day for new cases or one of the worst. And more than 3,000 Americans with the virus have died, meaning the death toll has now exceeded that of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

As you can see in the chart above, the other three countries with the world’s largest number of confirmed cases — Italy, China and Spain — were all making significant progress at a similar point in their outbreaks. But the response in the United States has been slow and uneven.

President Trump spent almost two months denying that the virus was a serious problem and spreading incorrect information about it. Since then, he has oscillated between taking sensible measures and continuing to make false statements. (Yesterday, he said that hospital masks might be “going out the back door” — suggesting that doctors or somebody else were stealing the masks rather than using them.)

Many state leaders — both Democrats, like Gov. Jay Inslee in Washington State, and Republicans, like Gov. Larry Hogan, in Maryland — have done a much better job. Altogether, the federal, state and local policies on social distancing may be starting to have an effect. The number of fevers recorded nationwide is falling, as Donald G. McNeil Jr. of The Times notes, which is an encouraging sign.

But the United States is badly behind. Both South Korea and the United States had their first confirmed case around the same day, in late January, as Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress points out. South Korea has suffered only about 150 deaths, one-twentieth as many as the United States.

For more …

• John Burn-Murdoch, who’s been creating some excellent charts for The Financial Times, explains that larger countries have not been suffering more rapid virus spread than smaller countries: “Population does not affect pace of spread.”

• McKay Coppins, The Atlantic: “Hundreds of people dying in a day, makeshift hospital tents popping up in Central Park, bodies being loaded into refrigerated trucks, a Navy hospital ship pulling into the harbor — four weeks ago, this would have been dismissed as a wildly alarmist view of the coronavirus in NY.”

• Connor Harris of the Manhattan Institute writes that Sweden also appears to have responded poorly to the virus and is now suffering substantially more deaths than Denmark or Norway. “Sweden took a laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 while their neighbors shut down public life and sealed the borders. It looks like we’re finally seeing the results,” Harris writes.

If you are not a subscriber to this newsletter, you can subscribe here. You can also join me on Twitter (@DLeonhardt) and Facebook.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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Minnesota Opinion: Nothing unites us like a shared, merciless foe - West Central Tribune

Red state vs. Blue state. Fox or CNN? Media watchdogs or deep state? Bernie vs. Joe? Presidential pardons. Russia meddling. Revisiting Roe v. Wade.

The list went on and on, and it's a safe bet that our nation was well on its way toward the most divisive political campaign in history.

That might still turn out to be the case, but for now, political rancor seems self-indulgent, petty and even childish. America, and indeed the entire world, is at war with the same enemy – and nothing unites us like a battle against a shared, merciless foe. In fact, we'd argue that at a time when “social distancing” keeps people physically separated, we're actually becoming closer.

Neighbors who've nodded at each other for years are chatting from respectful distances. ...

Siblings are calling each other more. Kids are checking in on their parents more regularly. Many of us are embracing Skype, Zoom and other technologies to renew friendships, and social media outlets abound with encouraging messages, images and videos.

(Across) Minnesota, people are going the extra mile to help each other. Friends of medical professionals are opening their homes to children who can't be in school. Volunteers are delivering groceries and free meals to seniors who are afraid to leave their homes.

Librarians are reading books and doing activities on Facebook Live to entertain home-bound kids. Teachers are sending notes to their students, simply to say “Thinking of you!” Some .... teachers went one step further, having a parade through neighborhoods simply to wave and exchange messages with students face-to-face.

Tailors and quilters are volunteering their time to produce homemade facemasks. Workers at grocery stores and other major retailers are moving heaven and earth to clean and disinfect shopping carts, door handles and every surface their customers might touch, while also trying to keep shelves stocked.

And, then, of course, there are the people who every day put their own health at risk simply by doing their jobs.

Hospital workers, whether they are doctors or custodians, don't have the option of sheltering in place or being socially distant. They are on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19, and that's a scary place for them and for the families they return to at the end of their shifts.

Law enforcement officers, paramedics, firefighters and other first responders can't stay home, either. They can't control the circumstances under which they will interact with the public, and a global pandemic doesn't stop other health emergencies and car accidents.

And, when a call went out that blood was in short supply, so many people rushed to (some locations) that potential donors had to wait several hours or make appointments to return another day.

It seems that the worst of times brings out the best in people.

But the reality is that the worst of times might still lie ahead. While we'd all like to believe that we're nearing the end of the pandemic, we might just be at the end of the beginning. If the experts are right when they say that 40-80 percent of Americans will contract COVID-19 in the next year or two, then the past two weeks have merely been the opening mile of a marathon.

The true test of our mettle will be how we respond in “shelter in place” mode. Or after six weeks of having kids cooped up at home. Or when people's initial burst of enthusiastic volunteering begins to wane. Or when the virus hits enough truckers (another group of unsung heroes) to actually disrupt supply chains of food, gasoline and, yes, toilet paper.

We hope those things don't happen, but if they do, we're certain that there's no place we'd rather be than in ... Minnesota. People here are rising up to meet the countless challenges of COVID-19, and when we come out on the other side, our victory will be defined by the countless personal sacrifices and the unity that earned it.

This editorial is the opinion of the Rochester Post Bulletin's editorial board.

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Coronavirus Has Taught Us More About Trump Than We Wanted to Know - The New York Times

Bret Stephens: Gail, I’m having a weird disconnect. On Friday, I rode my bike all the way up to the George Washington Bridge. The weather was perfect and New York had never looked so glorious. The next day, which was dank and rainy, Donald Trump raised the possibility of quarantining New York, along with parts of the tristate area.

I experience this presidency as a cross between Stephen King’s “It” and “The Truman Show.” Nonetheless, Donald Trump’s popularity is rising. What gives?

Gail Collins: I still adhere to the rule that there is no situation so bad that Donald Trump can’t make it worse.

Bret: If he had been the designer of the Titanic, there would have been fewer lifeboats.

Gail: Or his minions would have forgotten to check for holes.

But even as we’re seeing him flounder, people want to believe they have a leader who knows what he’s doing in this crisis. So it’s not surprising his polls have ticked up.

Although actually Trump’s popularity hasn’t risen all that much considering the intensity of the situation. Certainly nothing compared to what we saw with George W. Bush after 9/11.

Bret: Not a perfect comparison. You can fault George W. Bush in any number of ways, but he did not spend the months before 9/11 repeatedly telling the public that there was absolutely no threat of a terrorist attack on our soil or boasting that he had it all under control, or claiming Osama bin Laden was a liberal hoax to delegitimize his presidency and wreck the economy.

Gail: Excellent point.

Bret: The inability of so much of the public to remember what Trump was saying just a month ago suggests that, in addition to the coronavirus crisis, we’re also experiencing a national amnesia pandemic.

Gail: Maybe it’s just national attention deficit disorder. People do hit a point where they just can’t cope with coronavirus discussions 24-7.

Hey, maybe as a public service we should briefly change the subject. Have you heard there’s a race for the Democratic presidential nomination?

Bret: Could we have a do-over? Watching Andrew Cuomo’s press conferences in recent weeks, I find myself fantasizing about the New York governor becoming the party’s nominee. Your thoughts?

Gail: Cuomo has an, um, forceful personality. Perfect for the present moment, when he can represent the frightened, beleaguered public. Joe Biden got to be the likely Democratic presidential nominee with the exact opposite aura — the candidate who didn’t drive a large chunk of the voting public nuts.

Bret: Fair point, and if the pandemic is behind us by Election Day, maybe Cuomo’s style won’t wear as well, just as Rudy Giuliani’s wore thin a few years after 9/11. But for the time being, Cuomo is playing the part of the president we wish we had — compassionate, well-informed, firm, but also flexibly responding to changing conditions — as opposed to the irascible, ignorant and self-infatuated president we do have.

Gail: No question Cuomo’s the hero in that pairing. And you could certainly sell tickets to the debate.

Bret: Biden is like the guy in the audience raising his hand and hoping the moderator calls on him. I fear this is an inauspicious beginning for the general election.

Gail: I’m not going to argue that Biden has been a stirring presence. But I was listening to him on TV the other night, and he was pretty clear in what he thought should be happening, policy-wise.

The moments when he really makes contact, though, are the personal ones — talking about having get-togethers with his grandkids where Biden and his wife sit on the porch while the kids sit a distance away on the lawn. Hard to imagine Donald Trump sitting still for that.

And of course Biden relates so intensely to what the country’s going through because of his own history of family tragedies.

Bret: Those of us in lockdown nation definitely could use an empathizer-in-chief. I just went back and looked at the clip of Biden’s interview on CNN, when he spoke about his own extensive experience of tragedy and grief. It was moving and real, the candidate at his best.

Gail: This is not the moment to have a leader whose most stirring emotional experience was firing people on reality TV.

Bret: But here’s my fear: the Biden campaign reminds me a bit of John McCain’s 2008 campaign — minus the Sarah Palin part, of course. McCain started off as the presumptive front-runner, then nearly ran out of gas before making a miraculous primary comeback. But then his campaign sorta just flatlined. In the meantime, he ran as the candidate of character and personal biography, not energy, ideas, and hope. And he got crushed as the country went through the crucible of the 2008 financial crisis.

Gail: I was covering McCain when he crashed and burned. Once the national focus switched over to the economic crisis, he was just sort of lost. He and Barack Obama were at a big bipartisan meeting on what to do next, and McCain didn’t seem to have a clue.

Biden’s not like that. He isn’t a personality-personal-history candidate; he’s a former-vice-president-who-knows-how-the-system-works candidate.

Bret: If Biden is going to make himself more relevant to the moment, I think he needs to do more than emphasize his command of bureaucracy or his experience of personal tragedy. He’s going to need to reintroduce voters to the “Scranton Joe” side of his biography. One reason I suspect Trump is benefiting politically from the pandemic is that he’s been talking about minimizing the economic fallout and getting the country back to work. That might be irresponsible from a medical and epidemiological point of view. But it resonates with millions of Americans, especially small business owners and their employees faced with complete financial ruin if the shutdowns carry on for months. Biden needs to compete with those voters, particularly those in must-win states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Gail: How are you feeling about the shutdowns? As it stands now, it’s easy to imagine them going on for months.

Even if New York does hit its peak in April, as the experts are now predicting, it’ll be summer before we’re really back to normalcy. And even then the virus will probably be wreaking havoc in other parts of the country where the contagion started later.

Bret: I’m not averse to the kinds of shutdowns that have been imposed so far, especially in dense urban areas where the risk of mass contagion is so high. I’m not averse to extending them by another three weeks, either, as Trump did over the weekend. We’ve got an urgent health crisis and critical shortages of essential medical equipment, particularly ventilators, so buying some time makes sense.

On the other hand, the idea of a much longer nationwide shutdown strikes me as no less dangerous, potentially more so. The economic damage would be monumental, beyond anything in the power of the government to fix. It runs the risk of creating a secondary health crisis in terms of depression, isolation, suicide, addiction and so on. And even then the virus is going to continue to run its course until we’ve found a vaccine or at least more effective medication.

Gail: You know I’m going to ask you what the alternative is.

Bret: I’m intrigued by countries like Holland and Sweden, which are pursuing a mitigation strategy instead of a suppression strategy. Obviously the jury is still out on what sort of outcomes they’ll have, and perhaps they’ll be terrible. But given that this is a pandemic whose consequences are going to be so far-reaching, I think there ought to be room for a certain amount of variety and intelligent experimentation in terms of response.

Then again, I’m not often in the habit of advocating the Swedish model!

Gail: Having lived through decades of fruitless arguments about why we should emulate Sweden, I’m just going to shrug and cede the point. But go on.

Bret: Can we encourage habits of social distancing without enforcing total lockdowns? Can we have restaurants open but cut their seating capacity by 60 or 70 percent, so customers aren’t so close? Can we focus our efforts on protecting the most vulnerable part of the population, especially the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, while accepting a heightened level of risk for others?

Gail: God, the idea of going out with friends to a restaurant sounds like a kind of Shangri-La. But it also scares the heck out of me. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed over the last couple of weeks, but given the incredible stress on our hospitals right now, the idea of just taking the risk to see what happens is … unnerving.

Bret: I don’t know. As my very wise mom never tires of reminding me, I don’t have a degree in medicine or public health.

Gail: Loved that column about your mother, by the way.

Bret: Thanks! She liked it too and only wishes I would agree with her more often. (As in: always.) But I was struck by a quote from John F. Kennedy that appeared in a recent Times obituary of the science writer Daniel Greenberg: “Scientists alone can establish the objectives of their research, but society, in extending support to science, must take into account its own needs.”

Gail: Nice, but I don’t think we’re letting scientists run the game. The real decisions are being made by people like — Andrew Cuomo. I’d love to hear you two argue the point out. Winner gets to run for president.

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