Well in retrospect perhaps I was a little bit over the top. But not as much as you might think.
In the blog, I employed an analogy of a patient going to hospital for an ear ache and coming out with casts on both hands and both feet. Well I should have said ...came out in a full body cast.
I say that since there are 3 serious affects that can be attributed to the Corona: Health; Economic; and Social.
To date the focus has been mostly on the threat to health but the Virus has other equally deleterious affects:
- The World Economy has been shut down. Millions are out of work and the dirty 30s are beginning to look like a cake walk in comparison to what is happening today.
- Social Isolation recommended by health experts and politicians alike is working but at the cost of isolating the frail, the elderly, and the vulnerable. in fact it is not mentally or physically healthy for any of us.
So how come?
The answer my dear friends is relatively easy to determine - our Politicians are making decisions that affect us all on the basis of what the nearest Health Expert recommends.
For instance, how many times have you seen Politician X make a declaration of some sort and a reporter naturally asks - 'Why So'? The answer is inevitably that this is what the 'health care experts are advising us to do'. End of Story.
In effect our politicians are hiding behind these Experts - following rather than leading as they should. In one sense who can blame them - they are on the side of the angels. This despite the fact that the damage these self-same declarations can do is often worse than the virus itself.
So here is what I would suggest:
We all know the reaction of health care will be 'shut her down'. So that position needs to be counter-balanced with the other two major players in the game represented by economists / business and social scientists / sociologists. A panel representing the nation's experts in these 3 fields could then look for a compromise approach which the Politicians in their infinite wisdom can then consider and then act on the ones they find best suited to today's complex situation.
You read it here first - don't be shy to pass it along.
In closing, I will make a prediction - fear is what currently drives today's policy decisions but the day is quickly coming - even without the above panel - when fear of illness will be replaced by greed and economic self-preservation. Society will be out for the welfare of Number 1 - themselves and to hell with a virus that may or not make them sick and will unlikely kill them.
For the sick and vulnerable continue to stay in doors throughout all of this and self-isolate.
As I See It...
K.D. Bell
