January 20, 2021: Joe Biden inaugural.
That is fucking brain breaking.
The U.S. has now almost 10,000,000 cases of COVID-19, more than any other nation on the globe. That is more than the populations of forty of the states. 238,000 have been killed, more than the entire population of the ninety-eighth largest city in the country, Fresno, California. The mortality rate, 2.4%, is twelfth among the twenty most affected nations. Only a little bit better than half the others.
President Biden will inherit a health-cum-economic crisis more complex but with added clarity than did Donald Trump. For most of 2020 the consensus was that the coronavirus epidemic had to be brought under control--"flatten the curve"--before, and for, the economy to get back to normal.
The numbers in the latter half of 2020 belie that consensus. Trump never flattened the curve, we now have more cases daily than we ever had during the first April blowup. Trump encouraged governors to lock down their states, they complied, but Trump immediately got impatient--wanted to reopen the country by Easter. That was untenable. He then, lacking the direct power as president (as Biden will lack direct power) called on his supporters to "LIBERATE" and reopen the states. At first a few of the reddest, and then as the summer advanced more and more went to phased reopenings. Now, as new cases are routinely over 100k per day most states are mostly entirely reopen. The scientific consensus at the time was that reopening was premature and mistaken and from a public health pov it was. But the consensus also was that as long as the health crisis raged unchecked the economy would suffer. That did not happen. As more and more people got sicker and sicker far more were back at work and job growth increased in nearly the rosy V-shape predicted by the Trumpists.
President Biden will have these facts and will have to answer the question: How do we bring this thing under control and do the least damage to the economy? Another lockdown is untenable. Trump so poisoned the discourse that people were bitching and resisting it even as the lockdowns began. Now their lives are back to a semblance of normalcy and they would never comply with a new lockdown by their governors. The reddest states governors will never attempt it. The federal government has no overt power to enforce it. Which is not to say President Biden will have no power to enforce it. He could, through the federal government's power over interstate commerce, quarantine an entire state, prohibiting travel to and from and preventing the state's manufactures from entering interstate commerce.
Another lockdown on all but essentials is thus popularly, politically and economically out of the question. Lockdowns on certain particularly vulnerable segments of the economy may still be practicable. For instance, jails, prisons. I still cannot go visit my in-custody clients. The food processing industry is particularly vulnerable but obviously you cannot lockdown food. The food service industry however, that we could again lock down. Schools: It sure seems that there is a marked correlation between schools reopening and the incredible explosion of new cases but there we have a conflict among the scientists. Pediatricians strongly endorsed reopening primary and grade schools. Colleges, I don't know.
Another all-but-essential lockdown is also unnecessary medically. We know now that lockdowns are the gold standard to halt the spread of the virus. But no scientist said that lockdowns should remain in effect until new cases are down to zero. They were flying by the seat of their pants, they wanted to flatten the curve and then when it was, okay, there! flattish gradually reopen and see where we were. There was always an end date, however fuzzy, that the scientists had in mind. Some also intuited that Lockdown Street would have many exit ramps but none for reentry. We cannot go back to lockdowns and we will not.
Wearing masks, once seen as leaky and ineffective, and practicing social distance, are now seen as practically the new gold standard. Damn masks work, not only in preventing the wearer from spreading the virus but more and more as a pretty effective method to protect the wearer from contracting the virus. I hate them. As a result I only go out of my house once a day. Everybody in Miami Beach wears a mask, you are a social outcast--like a cigarette smoker--if you don't. Social distancing in combination with the mask--you're just not going to get it if you do those two things. Period.
Because of Trump, again, mask-wearing has been belittled, in some segments of the population ignored and and literally demonized, some of our Disgusting Fellow Americans see the mask as the mark of the Beast or something. Virtually all of those working in the White House, including Trump, who is uber-fond of maskless superspreader events, have been infected, and just today Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Joe Biden has set the example that Trump never did but Trump has poisoned the well once more. Can Biden compel mandatory mask-wearing nationwide? I am not sure. Can he enforce it if he can? Not directly, for the same reason: up to the states. Can he by more than moral suasion "encourage" it? One should not deemphasize the power of moral suasion when a president and the federal government speaking with one clear voice, and with "guidelines," encourage. But the feds cannot issue citations to people for not wearing face masks, only the local gendarme can. And that would be outraging, as getting a parking ticket is outraging. If he cannot issue a nationwide federal law what President Biden could do is compel and enforce indirectly: compile statistics on compliance with federal mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines. Together with stats on new infections he could then sanction companies, industries, cities and whole states, shutting down, withholding federal funding.
Vaccine: Pfizer just announced that the first trials of its drug were 90% effective. Here, once again, Trump's deligitimization of science has influenced the public who are now skeptical of anything the government says about the virus. In May Pew Research found 72% said they would definitely or probably get vaccinated if a vaccine were then available. In Sept. that number dropped to 51%. CDC officials have said repeatedly that a vaccine is not a magic bullet, that mask-wearing and social distancing are still going to be indicated for awhile anyway and that getting everyone who wants a vaccine vaccinated is going to take into the middle of 2021. Now with only half the country willing to get vaccinated the bullet is not magic but half a bullet. Can President Biden compel people to get vaccinated? Some people have religious objections. The country did not all of a sudden drop 21% in religious fervor. People drank Trump's purple Kool-aid is what that's about. Here moral suasion and clear, consistent messaging from the bully pulpit can help much more. And here the federal government has more ability to compel. Students cannot enroll in school, from first grade through college without showing proof of vaccination against polio, diphtheria, typhus, and so forth. President Biden could absolutely deny the unvaccinated access to education, travel and employment.
