by James A. Bacon
Governor Ralph Northam has a problem with protesters who would like to see him reopen Virginia’s economy by phasing out his COVID-19 emergency decrees. In an interview with MSNBC, he said (as reported by Politico):
I’m just as anxious as anybody else to open up our economy. We don’t need protesters to encourage me and anybody else to ease these restrictions. …
What they’re doing at the end of the day — which I think is so selfish — they’re putting our health care providers, those that are in the trenches trying to save lives every day, they’re putting them at risk, and that’s wrong. I would ask them to think about that.
Selfish?
As Northam acknowledged in this tweet in another context, “Most people live paycheck to paycheck.” He was right about that. Hundreds of thousands of Virginians do live from paycheck to paycheck. The loss of a week’s pay can represent financial disaster for some, and there is no assurance that emergency federal helicopter dollars will make them whole.
Is it “selfish” to want to go back to work?
Is it “selfish” to want to maintain credit card payments?
Is it “selfish” to want to pay the landlord or banker?
Is it “selfish” to strive to be a self-supporting contributor to society rather than a drain on the public purse by drawing unemployment benefits, living off food stamps, and going on Medicaid?
Yeah, I get it — and I bet the protesters do, too — we need to support healthcare workers in the front lines of the battle against COVID-19. We need to act responsibly in maintaining social distancing. We need to avoid a re-acceleration of the epidemic that inundates our hospitals with patients. No one wants re-enact scenes out of China or Italy.
But it’s also reasonable to re-think the sweeping restrictions enacted as emergency measures when no one knew how rapidly the spread of the virus would propagate and when there was widespread concern that Virginia hospitals would be swamped with more patients than they could handle. Back on March 17 Northam justified the imposition of widespread restrictions on public gatherings by the need to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. “Everyone must play a role,” he said, “to help flatten the curve and mitigate the spread of this virus.”
The virus is still spreading, but the curve has flattened. Virginia hospitals are no longer worried about being overwhelmed. Of course, the reason the curve has flattened is because of the measures that Northam put into place. But now is time to start rolling them back judiciously and incrementally — balancing the health of the population with the health of the economy.
While he’s dialing back the restrictions, Northam might consider dialing back his statement about protesters being selfish. The protesters need to be cognizant, just as Northam should, of the trade-offs between public health and economic recovery. But wanting to go back to work, earn a living, and support a family is anything but selfish.
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