By Tom Burke / Herald columnist
I can’t wait to go bowling! Wrong! What I’m really jonesing for is ink. Sure. At my age it’s finally time for a tattoo?
Uhhh … a trip to pet store; not likely, Amazon’s been delivering our puppy chow for forever.
So how is “opening up” the economy gonna help me get it back to “normal”? Let’s look, after strongly acknowledging we’ve gotta help the economy recover, especially main street businesses. But let’s also stipulate what that means in very stark terms.
What it means: Even more people will die; that’s what it means.
On May 5, Donald Trump told us (for the six millionth time) we need to “open” our country saying, “we have to get our country opened and we have to get it open soon.” Then, acknowledging more people will die as a direct result of abandoning stay-at-home orders, he said, “The people of our country are warriors. I’m not saying anything is perfect. Yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes.” (By badly affected he means dead, as in D-effing-EAD.)
How many more dead? A lot.
After first saying there would be no coronavirus in the U.S., “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle; it will disappear;” he upped the death toll saying only 65,000 would perish. He’s now stating what “opening” means in terms of dead bodies, “it’s probably going to be somewhat higher than that.”
How much higher is his “somewhat?” Well, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, “somewhat” means double; like 135,000 dead “somewhat.” And Christopher Murray, the Institute’s director, cited “premature relaxation of social distancing” (or “opening up” as defined by Trump) as the primary reason for the projection’s increase.
And FEMA (using data from Johns Hopkins University) also says coronavirus-related deaths could rise if we open up: to 3,000 per day by June 1 from 2,000 deaths a day now.
That’s a lot of pain.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said reopening is both an economic and public health matter, “There’s a cost of staying closed. There’s also a cost of reopening quickly. That’s the hard truth we are dealing with. Let’s be honest about it. Let’s be open about it.” He continued, “The question comes down to how much is a human life worth? What the government does today will literally determine how many people live, and how many people die. That is not hyperbolic.”
So what is my wife’s life worth? Or my children or grandchildren’s lives? Or mine?
Clearly a lot more than going to a movie. Or the fair in Monroe. Or a visit to the barber shop, a mall, the pet store, a jewelry shop, the dry cleaners, Costco, Home Depot, Safeway, or the beach.
I ain’t taking our cruise to Alaska this year. Or the four trips to Leavenworth we usually make. Or driving to Neah Bay for the fishing and the Makah museum. Or flying anywhere. No Wyoming or Montana. Or Couer d’ Alene to visit friends. The Columbia River’s out, as is Mount Rainier (although we probably will visit our son’s mother-in-law’s cabin at Mount Baker.)
Our annual family outings to the San Juans are out.
And any thought of dining in at a pub, steakhouse, bar, sushi place, Thai restaurant, pizza parlor, barbeque joint, or any other food service establishment is O.U.T.
I can live without any of that. I can’t live with COVID-19.
And I’m not the only one thinking that way. Polling shows more than two-thirds of respondents in a new Pew Research Center poll said they were more concerned that state governments would reopen their economies too quickly than that they might take too long.
Trump said (and yes, his syntax is discordant), “There’ll be more death, that the virus will pass, with or without a vaccine. And I think we’re doing very well on the vaccines but, with or without a vaccine, it’s going to pass, and we’re going to be back to normal.”
That’s a crock. Trump reelection BS. Magical thinking. Delusion. And anyone who believes it is a dope or a MAGA dupe.
There is no scientific evidence that, in the absence of a vaccine, the virus “will pass” in a way that allows the country to open up. In fact, it’s the opposite. Trump’s own top scientists say premature opening without testing is a death sentence for many (and Trump has no plans for testing).
My two bottom lines for getting me to help “open up” the country: comprehensive testing and a vaccine.
Anything less and it’s just a deadly version of Groucho Marx’s old TV game show “You Bet Your Life.”
And I ain’t playing.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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