Covid-19 is obviously creating two profound crises - health and economic, and right now we seem to be in a tailspin on both. But, unless we get control of our economy quickly, we will not have the resources to attend to our health crisis. If our economy bottoms out, the dollar’s value will plummet, no one will buy government bonds, and our economy will shrink to such a degree that it will rival the worst years of the Great Depression in the 1930s. We can’t continue to stay home, not work, not spend $, and not produce goods and services. We need to get back to work.
Therefore, the government should change its social policy immediately to one where all people over 70 and/or people who have underlying immunocompromised medical conditions should stay home and self-quarantine, and the rest of us should go to work. The large majority of people who contract the virus will survive without the need of any hospitalization or extraordinary medical care, which means that they should continue to be productive in society and keep our economy moving. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the virus. Rather, we stay vigilant on its dangers, practice the highest level of hygiene, and not take unnecessary risks.
This virus is already endemic in our population (Gov. Cuomo of N.Y. is predicting that 80% of his state’s population will get the virus) and all of us can’t stay home and hope that our resources will last for months or a year because they won’t. Unless we get back to work quickly, we could easily find ourselves in a country at a tipping point where people will be on the verge of literally fighting for survival and staring at a bleak reality that could take decades to recover. We can prevent that possible future from becoming our reality by getting back to work.
- Joe
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