Part of the increase in outbreaks can be attributed to horrid public policy decisions. “Despite an outbreak in South Dakota’s biggest city and criticism that there’s no statewide shelter-in-place order, Gov. Kristi Noem said Wednesday the state is doing better than expected and ‘bending the curve,” NBC News reported. “Noem, a Republican, made her remarks as the number of people who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus in the state rose to 1,168, in large part because of a cluster of cases stemming from a meat processing plant in Sioux Falls. There have been six deaths in the state.”)

President Trump’s declaration that some states can open even before his concocted May 1 deadline leaves open the potential for new outbreaks and deaths among his most loyal supporters, who have been fed a steady diet of hokum from right-wing media falsely portraying coverage of the virus as overblown. As his advisers seem to have figured out, hot spots that develop in states following his May 1 declaration might be attributed to his irresponsible grandstanding.

AD

AD

It is no wonder that both state and local leaders as well as business executives are not game to repopulate public places, businesses and schools while the death toll is rising, testing is meager and the capacity for contact tracing is minimal.

The worst death toll coincides with another dreadful report on new unemployment claims. Last week’s total was 5.2 million, making for a total of about 22 million in four weeks. The Post finds, “The United States has not seen this level of job loss since the Great Depression, and the government is struggling to respond fast enough to the deadly coronavirus health crisis and the economic crisis triggered by shutting down so many businesses.”

Trump has painted himself into a corner. He demands that states do his bidding to stave off further economic disaster, but few are willing to reignite the pandemic. To make matters worse, there is an example staring us in the face of consequences of not taking social distancing seriously. “Singapore, long held up as a model of effective containment strategy, announced on Wednesday evening a record jump in coronavirus cases, with most of the 447 new infections in crowded dormitories for migrant laborers,” The New York Times reported. “Singapore has been lauded for its rigorous contact-tracing program, which identified clusters of local transmission, but the coronavirus spread quickly through crammed residences shared by migrant workers.”

Singapore’s rigorous testing, tracking and isolation policy, which far exceeds anything the United States accomplished, did not destroy the virus; it only kept it at bay. Once social distancing is lifted or ignored, expect cases and deaths to increase — in New York, in Singapore and in South Dakota.