By Peter Galuszka
Governor Ralph Northam has approached the COVID-19 pandemic with a light touch that has drawn criticism for doing too little too late.
He has declared a state of emergency, banned gatherings of more than 100 people and closed schools until well into April. But he’s also not closed restaurants and businesses or done much to make sure that Virginian’s health workers have enough testing kits and respirators and personal protective equipment, such as masks and hazardous material suits.
Consequently, health workers have been slicing up bandanas or reusing face masks against manufacturers’ warnings to protect themselves from the deadly virus.
The Washington Post has compared the responses of regional leaders in an article this morning. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s Republican governor, got high marks for his pro-active, can-do attitude that saw him taking tougher policies earlier on. The Post gave Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser a little below Hogan in her response.
But, the Post reported, “If you’ve got Maryland and D.C. shutting down, but we aren’t, that cuts down tremendously on what Mayor Bowser and Governor Hogan are trying to do,” said Libby Garvey, a Democrat and board chair of Arlington County.
A Northam spokesman said that the lighter approach is appropriate because it doesn’t strangle Virginia’s economy and the state is more rural and spread out than Maryland or Washington.
Even so, it seems strange that Northam, a Democrat, isn’t more aggressive because he is a physician specializing in pediatrics and neurology. If anyone should, he ought to know how to get things done when it comes to health. So, it seemed especially jarring on March 20 when an administration spokesman complained that the state Department of Health was only getting 5% to 10% percent of critically-important medical equipment, such as ventilators that it had ordered.
What makes this situation troublesome is that Donald Trump has shown himself to be totally incompetent at leading the federal government in the pandemic, despite the efforts of the health care professionals on his team. His nearly daily television broadcasts are filled with his vanity, narcissism and pointless bombast as he makes inaccurate statements that his team has to correct as fast as he goes off the air.
Such incompetence means that state and local leaders have to pick up the slack. A shining example is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose on-the-ball performance has drawn national praise.
This isn’t the first time Northam has come up short on health issues. A little more than a year ago, he got into serious political trouble when he gave a clumsy response to an interviewer about what the proper medical procedure should be if a woman is giving birth to a severely deformed child.
It wasn’t clear if he was advocating an abortion or letting a newly-born child die. As a medical expert, he should have given a clear answer regardless of whether one disagrees with it or not.
Northam says that Virginia will be struggling through the pandemic for months, not just weeks. But he fails to give a more detailed timeline only stirring more fear and uncertainty.
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