Overcoming Incompetence and Inadequate Health Care

There are at least two major obstacles to our effort to stem the tide of this mounting pandemic and to flatten the rise in the curve of its advance. The first is the glaring and colossal incompetence of this administration in their slow response to the development of an effective test kit and the lack of foresight to plan for back up tests in the likely event that the original would fail (as it did). This error was compounded by their insistence to rely solely on the CDC to provide testing when the World Health Organization as well as private sector entities stood ready to step in and fill the gap in the wake of the CDC's initial failure. Trump himself passed on a golden opportunity to model the proper response to exposure to the Covid-19 virus when he refused to be tested after being in close proximity to the Press Secretary of Brazil's President Bolsonaro, an individual who later tested positive for the disease. Add to this his insistence on shaking hands (as did his favorite lap dog, Lindsey Graham) when the world-wide health directive cautions to behave otherwise. The second obstacle to halting the advance of this pernicious germ is the lack of universal and comprehensive health care for all people. Without this protection, the most vulnerable segments to our society are the least likely to access the valuable medical resources needed to limit the spread of the virus and, as a result, increases the chances of the continued and rapid exposure to and contraction of the virus by the population as a whole.
Both of these obstacles are correctable in the long term: the current administration can be replaced in November and Medicare For All can be become a reality under inspired new leadership and a forward thinking Congress that places the common good over other narrow, self-interested, and short-sighted considerations. In the meantime, we must rely not on those who would treat this crisis as political or public relations problem but rather turn our full attention to science and the medical experts whose expertise, professionalism, and competence give us all the best chance of survival going forward.