Resignation

If you want to know where the virus is, consult the Johns Hopkins map. To make a long story short, we have a worldwide pandemic just beginning the step rise portion of its logarithmic increase. But we know the situation is a lot worse, since Russia and most of Africa are reporting few cases. Even in the US, now with the top number of cases in the world, testing is still so rare that the numbers could be a wild underestimate. The inestimable Dr. Anthony Fauci is estimating 100-200,000 future deaths in the US. This is many, many times the number of deaths from polio at its peak in 1952.

But where are we in our effort to understand and come to terms with this disaster? How did this happen? Why weren’t we better prepared? Why did the US not react more quickly and effectively? The answers are all too clear: in addition to the initial Chinese effort to keep the virus secret, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) combined through error, neglect, and over-regulation to slow the testing vital to isolating Covid-19 and getting it under control.

What should we expect of our political leadership at this point? Nothing good if it remains the same. If Trump really were the hard-charging chief executive he portrayed in his TV show, he would long ago have fired the heads of the responsible agencies. But he isn’t, and he fears what they would say about him once released from government service. HHS Secretary Aznar is particularly sycophantic, so he is presumably safe. The other two may end up sacrificed, but way too late. CDC and FDA are going to need a thorough shaking up, but any new Trump Administration appointees aren’t likely to be more competent than their predecessors.

The real culprit here is the President. He played down the burgeoning epidemic and thereby signaled that it didn’t merit emergency priority. President Trump was more concerned with the stock market numbers than the numbers of infected Americans. He still is, signaling that he might be “reopen” the economy by Easter. This is irresponsible: until testing in the US becomes ubiquitous and the number of cases demonstrably levels off–something weeks if not months in the future, it simply won’t be safe to send most people back to work. Doing so would infect millions more and cause more economic damage than the virus has inflicted so far, which is already dramatic.

We are talking many trillions in lost production, and trillions more in government expenditures to cushion the blow and meet the health challenges. That doesn’t even count the values of the lives lost.

Things aren’t going to get better any time soon. I’m resigned to that. But resignation is what Donald Trump should do. He was never qualified by intellect, temperament, or experience to be President of the United States. He is now demonstrating that at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. If ever there was a president who should resign, this one is it. That he won’t is just one more demonstration of his unsuitability for the job.