By this point, everyone knows what COVID-19 is, so this topic needs little introduction. The public, media, and political reaction to it is certainly new in my lifetime. People in their sixties or seventies may remember a time when there were health scares of this magnitude, with smallpox or polio, but no one born after about 1965 really remembers them. The last known smallpox case occurred in 1977, and polio was drastically reduced in the late 1950’s, after a vaccine was developed.
The question that I cannot quite answer in my mind is this: Is the public reaction warranted? Even if the reaction is merited, I think we need to think carefully about what solutions to the problem are justified. Sometimes, as the old saying goes: “The cure is worse than the disease.”
Is Corona Virus a great danger? There is sometimes great difficulty in knowing what the right answer is on a complex scientific question, where even the most knowledgeable are operating on limited information. This article, written by a medical doctor makes the same point:
“All of this whiplash points to one perhaps uncomfortable thing: no one really knows how bad COVID-19 is, and how much damage it could eventually lead to.” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/uncertainty-in-a-time-of-coronavirus/
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Some in the media and on the political left have criticized Donald Trump for being too slow in recognizing or reacting to the virus. This can simply be an error of knowledge. No one is omniscient. This is precisely why you shouldn’t rely on an all-powerful Federal government to make decisions for you. No single human mind can hold that much complex information at one time and make a decision about what is best for your life and situation. It’s why Capitalism and constitutional republicanism are the proper system.
Government employees are poor at dealing with a disaster because the system they operate in is one of rules. There is no “upside” for a government employee who “thinks outside the box” or innovates. If they succeed, they’re unlikely to get a raise. If they fail, and it gets out they broke the rules, they’re likely to get fired. I noticed this before in a different blog entry about the Ebola Virus outbreak that occurred in Dallas:
“This is the essential problem with all government. Government sets rules that are (ultimately) enforced by the barrel of a gun. The CDC bureaucrats only act if there is a rule telling them to act -which is as it should be. So, its no surprise that when this nurse was under the temperature threshold for their no-fly rule, no one at the CDC was going to “stick their neck out” and recommend that she not fly. A bureaucracy doesn’t reward incentive by its employees like a for-profit business -so there would only be “downside” if a CDC employee took initiative.” (http://deancook.net/2014/10/16/i-need-wider-powers/)
Since I wrote this blog entry, I found a great example of the contrast between the culture of initiative that a free market encourages and incentivizes, and the “culture of conformity” that government creates. “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande discusses how badly State and Federal government failed after Hurricane Katrina. The real, unsung heroes of that disaster were the executives and employees of Walmart. (http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/ )
“The government’s command-and-control system became overwhelmed, with too many decisions to make and too little information available. But authorities clung to the traditional model. They argued with state and local government officials over the power to make decisions, resulting in chaos. Supply trucks were halted and requisitions for buses were held up while local transit buses sat idle.
Walmart executives, however, took the opposite approach from command and control. They realized Walmart’s Hurricane Katrina response could make a huge difference. Recognizing the complexity of the circumstances, CEO Lee Scott announced to managers and employees that the company would respond at the level of the disaster. He empowered local employees to make the best decisions they could.” https://www.shortform.com/blog/walmart-hurricane-katrina/
Walmart dealt with Hurricane Katrina better than the government because private enterprise encourages initiative, while government jobs encourage “covering your ass”.
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What changes should we make in the face of Corona Virus? Even if we need to adjust our behavior temporarily, I think that any permanent changes in our society aren’t desirable, regardless of the risks. To understand this, ask yourself a simple question: “What is life?”
Is life just continuing to breath and maintaining our body’s homeostatic equilibrium? I read an article about how grandparents are having to be isolated from their families and grandchildren, since the elderly are most at risk when it comes to Corona virus. (The mortality rates are much higher for people in their seventies and eighties.) (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/18/grandparents-cant-babysit-kids-at-home-coronavirus-fears/5072304002/)
Reading the article, I had to wonder: How long does Grandma want to go without seeing her grandchildren? How long does Grandma want to live in isolation like that? Does grandma think that life is about nothing but keeping her heart beating and her lungs pumping air? (Ask your grandma what she thinks.)
Do we want to permanently shut down movie theaters, ball parks, and churches, just because we might catch a disease? Is life worth living without social contact with other people?
Clearly, shutting down public events and isolating grandma and grandpa has to be temporary, in the face of an emergency. It cannot go on forever. Life is about more than maintaining homeostasis.
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Now, let’s turn to some of the governmental measures that have been proposed, or even implemented in the face of this threat. (Which may very well be a real threat -I don’t know for sure.) Is governmental force the answer to the Corona virus? Is a totalitarian dictatorship more “efficient” at dealing with something like this?
The Chinese were certainly quick to build hospitals and implement quarantine…I mean…after their attempt to cover it up failed. The Chinese doctor, Dr Li Wenliang, who originally discovered the virus and tried to warn people was initially arrested and threatened by the Chinese government. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382
Additionally, it appears that the Chinese government’s lack of transparency and openness about the virus meant the Western world didn’t find out about it until it was too late to do anything to contain it:
“China has a history of mishandling outbreaks, including SARS in 2002 and 2003. But Chinese leaders’ negligence in December and January—for well over a month after the first outbreak in Wuhan—far surpasses those bungled responses.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/
The Chinese government’s failure demonstrates a direct relationship between the initiation of government force and the spread of this disease. A free society and a free press would have had a much better chance of containing the initial outbreak.
Once the virus was outside China, some freer countries seem to have handled it better than others. Italy has now surpassed China in the number of deaths. But, South Korea has done remarkably well:
“A week after the Jan. 27 meeting, South Korea’s CDC approved one company’s diagnostic test. Another company soon followed. By the end of February, South Korea was making headlines around the world for its drive-through screening centers and ability to test thousands of people daily.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW
This Reuters article goes on to say that the US response hasn’t been as good. But, it notes that a lot of this had to do with bureaucracy at the FDA:
“How the United States fell so far behind South Korea, according to infectious disease experts, clinicians and state and local officials, is a tale of many contrasts in the two nations’ public health systems: a streamlined bureaucracy versus a congested one, bold versus cautious leadership, and a sense of urgency versus a reliance on protocol.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW
Additionally, South Korea is a much smaller country than ours. It’s not much bigger than some of our states. This suggests that what is needed is a political apparatus that is closer to the people, and closer to the problem. Unfortunately, we have ceded too much power to the Federal government, rather than letting individual state governments deal with local problems, which they are closer to, and will have a better feel for.
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What about trying to stop the problem at our borders? Is a temporary restriction on people entering the country from certain areas of the world, especially China, desirable? I’ve wondered if a lot of U.S. Hispanics might not have changed their tune. Are they now wondering why Trump isn’t doing more to keep Asians out of the US? A lot of the immigration debate is driven by tribalism on both sides. As I coincidentally mentioned some time ago, I doubt most Hispanic-Americans would be as against immigration restrictions if the majority of immigrants were Chinese:
“Would the ‘Hispanic leadership’ in the Democratic Party care so much about immigration if most of the immigrants were German, or Chinese? (I doubt it.) Obama’s policies on immigration were another appeal to a tribalistic pressure group, just like his support of “Black Lives Matter”.” http://deancook.net/2018/12/17/barack-obama-tribalist-in-chief/
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, a lot of immigration restriction was aimed at preventing Chinese entry into the country for precisely this reason. They brought epidemics with them. For instance, San Francisco was the location of a bubonic plague outbreak in 1900-1904, which was focused in that city’s Chinatown. https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article240714036.html
All that said, I am in favor of free immigration, because it is consistent with the free market. But, requiring people to undergo a short quarantine period before entering the country could certainly be a reasonable regulation. Denying entry to people specifically known to carry communicable diseases can also likely be justified. You don’t have a right to knowingly get other people sick with your germs -that is an initiation of physical force, just like if someone recklessly drove a car and killed someone. I do, however, think this is a matter for state government, not federal. http://deancook.net/2014/10/30/i-just-realized-there-is-no-authority-under-the-constitution-for-the-feds-to-impose-a-21-day-quarantine-on-persons-from-africa/
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What about some of the aggressive measures that have been implemented at the State or local level in the United States? Are they justified? For instance, San Francisco is only allowing people to leave their homes to get groceries or pick up essentials. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/greater-san-francisco-area-residents-195831637.html
Are cities like New York, San Francisco, and Dallas doing the right thing with aggressive, involuntary mass-quarantine measures? (Such as restaurant closings, bar closings, “shelter in place orders”, and the like?)
The “shelter in place” order in San Francisco pretty much has to count on voluntary compliance because there isn’t sufficient governmental force in place to enforce it. How will the cops know if you’re going to the grocery store or not? What if you say you’re not carrying ID? Since homeless people are exempt from the order, how will a cop know you’re not homeless? Short of a system of police checkpoints, an internal “passport system”, and heavy penalties for anyone violating this order, it is unenforceable without voluntary compliance.
In fact, compliance with quarantines and social distancing measures has to be almost entirely voluntary. As a free society, we don’t have the systems in place to enforce mass quarantines against people’s will. (And, it’s not desirable.)
I suppose someone could argue something like: “Emergencies can happen. Systems, like the ability to enforce mass quarantine, in San Francisco and New York, are needed. We need systems in place for mass lock downs, holding people without due process, and violations of the freedom of assembly.”
But, what is an “emergency”? It’s a temporary unexpected calamity. If virus outbreaks happened all the time, they wouldn’t be emergencies. We’d develop technologies and social customs to deal with them. (Everyone would learn to wear bio-hazard suits in public, people would insist that others show them a “clean test result” before letting them into their homes, etc.) No police state would be necessary in that case. The free market and freedom of association could handle it.
But, if virus pandemics remain unlikely, “outlier”, events, as they probably will, then putting into place governmental systems and sufficient force to be able to enforce a “shelter in place” order like they are proposing in New York, and have implemented in San Francisco, could be abused by any would-be tyrant or oligarchy looking to seize power and subvert constitutional republican government.
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If governmental initiation of physical force is never the answer, even in an emergency, then what should be done?
First, it isn’t a good idea to wait until the emergency occurs to figure this stuff out. We need to think carefully about what sorts of temporary governmental measures are acceptable when emotions aren’t running high. The matter requires sober and careful consideration by legislatures and courts, with an eye to due process, basic civil liberties, property rights, and the sanctity of the individual. But, since we are apparently already in the emergency, I would like to propose some “operating principles” for judging different measures being proposed by our Federal and State governments in dealing with COVID-19.
(1) The more each individual can choose their own level of risk, the better.
People can choose whether they want to go to bars, restaurants, and gyms. People can choose if they want to fly on an airplane, or travel on a cruise ship. No one else is being forced to do these things, and mass-restrictions on freedom of assembly should be used extremely sparingly.
I recognize that one person’s decision to take the risk affects other people’s lives. If I go to a restaurant, and get infected, then I could potentially infect other people. But, is mere risk of harming others justification for long-term restrictions on freedom of assembly when there is no evidence that the particular people assembling are sick? Think about this in other contexts. We could save a lot of lives by outlawing cars. People who drive in cars put pedestrians and bikers at risk, so they are, in some sense, putting people who didn’t chose to drive at risk. No one really “needs” a car, do they? Why don’t we get rid of them? Because the inconvenience on our lives is too great.
(This is not to say quarantines are never justified, as further discussed below.)
(2) The more local government can decide on what to do, the better.
County decisions are better than State decisions, and State decisions are better than Federal. Small countries like South Korea can react better than large countries, because their leaders are closer to those they represent. In the United States, each state should be viewed more as its own country, and allowed to deal with the problem, free from Federal interference.
(3) Particular people, who are a known objective threat, should be treated and quarantined, while respecting their due process rights.
The focus should be on encouraging people to be tested and treated through voluntary measures. This seems to be part of what has made South Korea so successful in dealing with the problem:
“The preventative measures being taken in South Korea have so far involved no lockdowns, no roadblocks and no restriction on movement.
Trace, test and treat is the mantra. So far this country of over 50 million people have been doing their bit to help. Schools remain closed, offices are encouraging people to work from home, large gatherings have stopped.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898
Forced quarantine should be a last resort, and only when there is good evidence someone has the virus. Courts should be set up to provide Skype or other teleconferencing hearings for those quarantined to ensure their due process rights. No one should be held, or forced to stay in their home, more than 24 hours without the State getting approval from a court.
(4) Mere economic hardship should not be grounds for a bailout at other people’s expense.
Where does that end? If a restaurant can be bailed out because no one wants to eat there anymore, then what about all the other people who, in normal conditions, see their business fail? A natural disaster is an insurable event. If a business owner is concerned about business shutdown due to an emergency, then contact Allstate or State Farm, not the Feds.
The Trump plan to give everyone $1,000 makes no sense. Goods aren’t produced by the government. If you print an extra $1,000 and somehow magically put it in everyone’s bank account overnight, then they’ll just bid up the price of goods and services, since the quantity of goods and services will remain the same. That’s a prescription for price inflation.
But, with that said, when there is government-enforced quarantine, there is a good argument for that particular individual or business being compensated. If a person is forced not to work for two weeks because we, as a society, have said they might spread a disease, then that particular individual probably should be entitled to some form of support or compensation during that time-period, because it is essentially a governmental taking of private property under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
(5) Fundamental civil liberties, rights to free assembly, freedom of movement, and due process must be observed.
But, this can occur within the specific context of an emergency. The freedom of assembly is not the freedom to knowingly or even negligently infect other people with your disease. People with specific, known communicable disease can be quarantined, with due process.
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A natural disaster can call for highly unusual government responses, but there is a limit. Even in an emergency, there are things that should not be done, because, in the long-run, free societies have proven to be more prosperous, healthy, and “pro-living” than the alternative, and would-be tyrants will tend to find emergencies, if not manufacture them, to justify the seizure of power.
