FRIDAY,MARCH27,2020| THEGLOBEANDMAILO A
OPINION
NEWS |Y
ou could argue that U.S.
President Donald Trump’s
short-sighted and bungled
handling of the COVID-19 pan-
demic began before the virus
took hold in his country.
Two years earlier, Luciana Bo-
rio, the President’s biodefence
preparedness adviser, warned
that a flu pandemic – not a 9/
redux – was the country’s No. 1
health security threat. As the di-
rector of medical and biodefence
preparedness at the National Se-
curity Council, Dr. Borio said the
country wasn’t nearly ready to
confront such a lethal outbreak if
it was to occur.
What was the White House’s
response? It dismantled the
NSC’s global health security of-
fice shortly thereafter. Dr. Borio,
and other experts such as her,
were soon out of jobs. And now,
327 million Americans have been
left to suffer through a pandemic
without a coherent strategy for
dealing with it – even though
their government saw it all com-
ing.
To make matters worse –
much, much worse – the country
is being led by a dangerous ego-
maniac who has lied to and mis-
led Americans about the gravity
of the threat they’re facing al-
most from the beginning. Now,
he is musing about grossly in-
flaming a problem he had a
chance to mitigate. Mr. Trump is
threatening to ignore the advice
of virtually every major public-
health officer in the United States- including his own White House
adviser on infectious diseases,
Anthony Fauci – and effectively
allow for a “culling of the herd”
that will result in the deaths of
hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of Americans.
Maybe the scenes we are about
to witness will help Canadians
isolate-in-place with even more
vigilance. What is about to unfold
will be horrifying, unquestiona-
bly.
The situation in New York,
which could become the new
global epicentre of the disease, is
dire. Governor Andrew Cuomo
has pleaded with the White
House to do more, and when the
state was offered 400 ventilators,
Mr. Cuomo exploded: “What are
we going to do with 400 ventila-
tors when we need 30,000?”
“The White House has since
agreed to send 4,000 more, but
the Governor has predicted that
more than 40,000 New Yorkers
might need urgent care in the
next few weeks; between
Wednesday and Thursday morn-
ing alone, the number of patients
hospitalized in the state had shot
up 40 per cent, with 100 deaths in
that period.
There are scenes of turmoil
and disarray everywhere in the
U.S. In New Orleans, which sur-
vived Hurricane Katrina in 2005
and is now living through anoth-
er disaster, doctors have reported
that intensive-care units are run-
ning out of basic supplies; mean-
while, residents of the city con-tinue to ignore calls to keep a safe
distance from others. This scena-
rio is being played out across the
U.S. where, as of Thursday, the
coronavirus death toll exceeds
1,000 people, with about 70,
cases.
And now, President Chaos is
promising to begin ramping
down social distancing by April
12, despite the pleas of doctors
and nurses around the country
who are begging him not to do it,
as it would unleash scenes of
pandemonium in already over-
whelmed hospitals, and allow
the disease to spread further and
faster. But it might be April 12.
And just because he thinks hav-
ing the churches full again on
Easter Sunday “would be a beau-
tiful thing.”
This intended course of action
has already caught the attention
of Prime Minister Justin Tru-
deau’s office, and to say there is
worry there would be a gross un-
derstatement. Canadians also
have to be prepared for the fal-
lout of Mr. Trump’s actions.
That means being prepared to
tighten restrictions at the border
even further. If the virus spreadsbecause of a decision by the Pres-
ident to relax the rules around
social distancing, it will undoubt-
edly mean that those U.S. work-
ers coming into Canada now to
transport goods will be at greater
risk of carrying the disease.
That, in turn, will put Cana-
dians at risk. And that is not right.
Canadians, for the most part,
have gotten with the program
and are staying inside. We can’t
let our health be compromised
by the idiocy of Mr. Trump and
the pathetic, loyal lapdogs who
make up his administration.
While we likely couldn’t shut
the border completely, we may
have to institute new, harsh rules
about the manner in which those
coming into the country are
treated. I’m not sure precisely
how; we’ve just put a mandatory
quarantine in place for those ar-
riving from international desti-
nations, which is a smart move.
Our medical professionals, as ev-
er, would have a better idea of
how this might be handled.
But we have to be ready. We
can’t let our efforts to plank the
virus be compromised by the un-
conscionable folly of others.IsCanadareadyforTrump’smayhem?
U.S.President’svowto
relaxsocialdistancing
couldhaveprofound
implicationsforCanada
GARY
MASON
OPINIONT
he blooming novel corona-
virus pandemic has forced
India to react to the fast-
evolving situation – and despite
being the world’s second-most
populous country, it has been rel-
atively quick with its measures.
State governments have im-
posed curfews and sealed bor-
ders and, as a result, only 649
cases and 13 deaths have been re-
ported, mostly confined to peo-
ple who had travelled abroad,
and those who had been in con-
tact with them. The World Health
Organization praised Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
government for grounding do-
mestic and international flights
and screening all arrivals.
That all looks relatively simple
now, compared with the task at
hand: keeping 1.3 billion Indians
at home for 21 days.
On Tuesday, Mr. Modi an-
nounced a countrywide lock-
down, the world’s largest. The
stakes will be of a similar scale: If
it works, it can change the course
of the coronavirus epidemic,
sparing the country the ravages
seen in China and Europe by low-
ering the numbers of affected
people, allowing thegovernment
to buy time and reducing pres-
sure on the health system. If it
fails, or only partially succeeds in
breaking the chain of transmis-
sion – resulting in the virus
erupting inside India’s teeming
cities and slums, before spread-
ing to vulnerable rural areas –
the consequences will be shatter-
ing.
The conditions are potentially
explosive. India’s people are nat-
urally gregarious, and often chafe
at rules. Communal living is the
norm, often with three genera-
tions living together. Empty
spaces are a rarity, and crowds
are everywhere in India – at tem-
ples and mosques, in markets
and malls, on the streets and in
parks. In the slums, families are
packed even more tightly. In-
deed, India’s population density
is 464 per square kilometre, com-
pared with China’s population
density of 145 people per square
kilometre.
More than 60 million people
live in unsanitary and congested
slums, making physical distanc-
ing impossible. Many areas have
no running water, effectively
making instructions to wash
hands frequently a joke to mil-
lions. As one slum dweller told
me, “On some days I have to skipbathing because I need to save
water for cooking.”
But if Indians do not stay in-
side, an upsurge in cases is likely
to follow – and India is simply
unequipped to handle this. In his
Tuesday speech, Mr. Modi
warned Indians that even devel-
oped countries with the best
health-care systems in the world
were struggling. What chance
does India have with only one
doctor for every 11,600 patients,
one hospital bed for every 1,
people, and 40,000 ventilators
for the whole country? If the cor-
onavirus were to spread to the
villages, people would die in the
fields.
Few doubt the necessity of a
lockdown. What is uncertain is
whether the government can
provide enough essential suppli-
es. Mr. Modi’s track record on thisfront is not inspiring. His zealous
2017 demonetization plan, by
which his government devalued
high currency notes, was an-
nounced like some Napoleonic
mission, but its implementation
was abysmal and caused untold
hardship to millions of poor and
vulnerable Indians.
For the rich and middle class,
staying at home and not earning
is manageable. But India’s poor
need to have enough to eat and
survive for the next three weeks
without being able to earn a sin-
gle rupee. More than 300 million
Indians live below the poverty
line. Drivers, maids, carpenters,
electricians, artisans and street
vendors buy just enough food
with the money earned each day.
They have no reserves, either of
cash or supplies. The first thing
you notice on entering a poor In-
dian’s house is the total absence
of processed or preserved foods:
no tins, packets, boxes or jars. As
a result, the poor fear that if the
coronavirus does not kill them,
hunger will.
The Indian state typically
leaves the needy to fend for
themselves. In this crisis, the
poor must be looked after be-
cause, if they start disobeying the
restrictions, the consequences do
not bear thinking about.
The good news is that the ini-
tial response to Mr. Modi’s lock-
down announcement has been
surprisingly encouraging.
His message – that Indians
have to stay at home and practise
physical distancing to save them-
selves, their families and their
country – seems to have hit
home.
But India still does not know
the scale of its coronavirus crisis- much less testing has been
done there than in the United
States and in Europe – and so buy
in is just the start.
ThehighstakesandlongoddsofIndia’scountrywidelockdown
Adogsitsatadeserted
trainplatformat
ChhatrapatiShivaji
MaharajTerminus
inMumbai,India,on
Wednesday.India’s
1.3billionpeoplehave
been ordered to stay
home.RAFIQMAQBOOL/
ASSOCIATEDPRESSAMRITDHILLONNEWDELHI
OPINIONANewDelhi-basedjournalist
T
elegram: “Start worrying
now. Details to follow.”
That classic Jewish joke
sums up our current state of
knowledge about the COVID-
pandemic. The list of unknowns
is long: Will the virus peak this
summer? Will there be a second
wave? Will the hoped-for vac-
cines work? And, for how long
will Canadians (and others) ac-
cept closed schools and universi-
ties, offices and factories, concert
halls, sports arenas, restaurants
and much else?
To the scientific questions, the
answer is: We don’t have the data
at present to predict whether this
novel virus will behave a lot, or
only a little, like seasonal flu and
common colds. Because there is
so little reliable scientific infor-
mation, advice and predictions
keep changing.
Equally difficult to predict is
our social response to the public
health measures. At present, to
protect themselves and their
neighbours, most people seem to
be following recommended pro-
tocols. But the conduct of a heed-
less minority might require dras-
tic coercive measures.
The loss of close contact with
friends and loved ones is an ines-
capable consequence of the gov-
ernment’s current social-isola-
tion strategy. Ironically, at just
the time when bonds of commu-
nity are most needed, we are for-
bidden to hug or even to shake
hands.
Moreover, the preventive mea-
sures we have adopted threaten
millions of Canadians with loss of
their main source of income.
Western governments solved the
financial meltdown of 2008 by
bailing out the banks. Ordinary
people were sacrificed, and the
resulting alienation and anger
are still with us, fuelling populist
movements. It seems unlikely
that such a grossly unfair policy
choice will work again. So if the
social fabric is to be preserved,
our governments will have to de-liver income support to millions
of Canadian families for the dura-
tion. That will require, in turn, a
massive and unprecedented re-
distribution of economic re-
sources from the few to the many.
Social resilience is going to be
sorely tested. If we cannot sustain
the spirit that “we’re all in this to-
gether,” the crisis may so erode
social cohesion that collective ac-
tion becomes impossible. With-
out strongly redistributive eco-
nomic policies, we could experi-
ence something like the world
described by Yeats inThe Second
Coming: “things fall apart; the
centre cannot hold; anarchy is
loosed upon the world”.
Margaret Thatcher famously
opined that “there is no such
thing as society,” and hergovern-
ment duly proceeded to promote
the privatization of schools and
hospitals, prisons, railways and
public utilities, and cut back on
vital social services – measures
which might be seen as a self-ful-
filling prophecy. Nor can we pre-
tend that Canada has been im-
mune to the global movement
away from collective provision
toward letting individuals fendfor themselves. There are already
cracks in the social fabric, which
could, under severe stress, split
us apart.
It’s a sign of the times in which
we live that some entrepreneurs
are able to perceive in the pan-
demic a silver lining. The media
recently carried a story about a
couple who mass-purchased Ly-
sol wipes from Costco in Van-
couver to sell them online, at in-
flated prices. It’s a hopeful sign
that this kind of opportunism has
been met with near-universal
public anger. The couple’s Ama-
zon account was eventually
blocked by the company, which
also stated: “There is no place for
price gouging on Amazon.” Those
who attempt to exploit the
health crisis to enrich themselves
will not win any popularity con-
tests.
Canadians are quickly coming
to recognize our vulnerability in
the face of global warming and
novel viruses. So far, most people
are responding in pro-social
ways. Neighbourhood support
groups are being formed to help
those who are especially suscep-
tible to the pandemic and to so-cial-isolation. The better angels
of our nature, fellow-feeling and
compassion, prevail, at least for
now, against the pressure to
“lookout for number one.” But
that could change.
In 1968, social psychologists
from Columbia University con-
ducted a wallet-returning experi-
ment. They dropped wallets on
the streets of Manhattan and
then monitored the percentage
that were returned to their own-
ers. Over a period of months, the
average return rate was 45 per
cent. Then, on June 5, Robert Ken-
nedy Jr. was mortally wounded.
On June 6, not one of the wallets
was returned. Only gradually did
the rate return to normal. The
bullet that killed Robert Kennedy
also killed social trust, for a time
at least. The experiment suggests
that demoralized individuals be-
come socially irresponsible.
If ourgovernments can create
and sustain public morale over
an indefinitely long period of
time, then it’s possible we will
emerge from the pandemic as a
stronger, fairer and more cohe-
sive society. The alternative is
frightening to contemplate.Socialresilienceiskeytoemergingfromthispandemicstrongerandbetter
ARTHURSCHAFER
OPINIONFoundingdirectoroftheCentrefor
ProfessionalandAppliedEthicsat
theUniversityofManitoba