A
fter four hours of driving
from my overnight stop
in Des Moines, Iowa, I
crossed the Big Muddy into my
home state of Nebraska. The leafless
gray trees paired with the overcast
sky made the usually lush riverbank
appear strikingly different from
how I had always seen it driving
to and from my mom’s apartment
in Denver. The view was yet
another change brought on by the
coronavirus’s
dizzyingly
rapid
transformation from something
restricted to distant news reports
to sending me home from school
months early. After Spring Break, I
watched my semester and summer
plans topple like dominoes as the
virus spread uncontained. By the
time I left Ann Arbor with my life
hastily packed into the back of my
Mini Cooper, there was only one
plan left standing in the way of the
pandemic completely canceling my
summer: my 21st birthday. While I
knew the day of my birthday would
almost surely be spent locked in
the apartment, it was my mother’s
present to me, a four-day trip to New
Orleans, that held my excitement.
Planned for late May, enjoying the
bountiful bars and history of New
Orleans was my final foolish hope.
Defying
health
officials’
suggestions
and
government
orders aimed at reducing the
number of people predicted to
swamp Louisiana’s health care
system, a group of 1,200 people
gathered in the state capital of Baton
Rouge. Shoulder to shoulder, the
congregation at Life Tabernacle
Church listened to pastor Anthony
“Tony” Spell. “We’re free people.
We’re not going to be intimidated.
We’re not going to cower. We’re not
breaking any laws,” he preached.
In response to the backlash,
Spell
says
his
congregation
has a “constitutional right to
congregate” and they believe that
the
coronavirus
is
“politically
motivated.” As they defiantly and
foolishly gathered to pray, COVID-
19 cases in Louisiana reached
3,540 on Sunday afternoon. In late
February, when the confirmed
number of cases in the United States
numbered in the 50s, over a million
people flocked to New Orleans to
partake in the city’s 321-year-old
celebration of Mardi Gras. After
experiencing the fastest increase
in COVID-19 cases in the world in
the final weeks of March, the seeds
of this disaster seem to have been
sown on Bourbon Street.
A city still suffering from the
effects of Hurricane Katrina from
15 years ago, New Orleans is bracing
to be ground zero of yet another
natural disaster. While the number
of cases in New York far outweigh
those in New Orleans, the death
rate of COVID-19 patients is seven
times higher than in New York. The
reason is simple: “we’re just sicker,”
explains Rebekah Gee, former
health secretary for Louisiana. Of
those who died of the disease in the
city, 94 percent had a pre-existing
health condition, and New Orleans’s
population exceeds the national
averages for obesity, diabetes and
high blood pressure. Health officials
fear that the rapidly declining
situation in New Orleans is just
an early taste of what’s to come
throughout the South.
A region known for its infamously
decadent cuisine, high rates of
heart disease make this region of
America the most susceptible to the
deadly effects of COVID-19. While
grandma and grandpa have been
painted as the likely victims of this
pandemic, pre-existing conditions
make anyone that has them — no
matter how young — susceptible to
the deadly effects of the virus. These
groups of individuals are the people
that other governors have acted so
proactively to save.
Despite
this
alarming
information, many of the region’s
state governors have been the most
stubborn to implement public health
measures. Outside of Louisiana
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ quick,
foresightful actions, almost every
other governor in the South has
been a role model on how not to act
during a global pandemic. Georgia’s
Republican governor, Brian Kemp,
admitted that he had just learned
about asymptomatic carriers on
April 2. While his ignorance is
seemingly the most inexplicable,
others have been equally resistant
toward letting facts steer their
decision-making through this crisis.
Gov.
Ron
DeSantis,
R-Fla.,
drew criticism the earliest when
thousands of students on Spring
Break
were
filmed
crowding
beaches. Despite early warnings
that the state would become a
“hotspot”
if
measures
weren’t
taken quickly, DeSantis languidly
issued a state-wide stay-at-home
mandate to his 18 million citizens
on April 2, after 30 other states had
already implemented precautionary
measures.
This
inaction
by
Southern
governors puts those with pre-
existing health conditions at high
risk. Because of existing health
disparities
that
make
racial
minorities more likely to have
these risk factors, the burden of this
disease will not be shared equally
among citizens. The disparities
can be seen far outside the South in
our own state of Michigan, where
African Americans make up 70
percent of COVID-19 fatalities in
places like Chicago and Louisiana.
Similarly, Native Americans, who
have the highest rates of pre-
existing health conditions, are
seriously concerned for the survival
of their communities. “When you
look at the health disparities in
Indian Country… we could get
wiped out,” said Kevin Allis, chief
executive of the National Congress
of American Indians.
With the response to this
disaster now in the hands of the
states, there is no way to ensure that
these disparities will be accounted
for in our responses to coronavirus,
greatly exposing the need for
federal action that lawmakers and
governors struggling with this crisis
have been requesting for weeks. Rep.
Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Sen.
Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called
for the federal government “to step
up in a big way,” in addressing these
potential inequalities, including
access to testing and treatment.
While President Donald Trump has
been infamous for trying to flex his
executive power, he is refusing to do
so at the most significant point in his
presidency.
As the country braces for one
of the worst nationwide disasters,
my 21st birthday is likely to fall as
another, altogether unimportant
victim of the virus. While life in
the “Big Easy” — New Orleans — is
becoming more difficult by the day,
it would be a lot harder if not for the
swift action of their government.
Other cities throughout the South
may not have it so easy thanks to
their inept leaders. With cases
resurging in parts of Asia that
thought they had it under control,
federal inaction could lead our
nation to the same fate.
A
s the United States continues
to
battle
the
COVID-
19 pandemic, millions of
Americans working essential jobs put
their lives on the line every time they
go to work. In particular, hospital
and health care workers across the
country have risked their lives daily,
working to treat patients fighting
the coronavirus without the critical
masks
and
personal
protective
equipment they need. In a recent
interview on “60 Minutes,” one
medical worker from a New York City
hospital described the scene inside
the hospitals as “Hell on Earth.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic now
claiming more than 30,000 lives
across the nation — including a
high but unknown number of health
care workers who have succumbed
to the virus — the coronavirus has
set off a calamitous chain of events
for our nation. Many Americans
have questioned what the federal
government has done over the years
to prepare for the kind of event we
find ourselves in today, along with
the resulting medical and economic
implications.
While
our
nation
continues
to
grapple
with the effects of the pandemic, it’s
clear that our government wasn’t
prepared to fight a highly contagious
respiratory
disease
like
the
coronavirus.
If the proper steps had been taken —
and
our
stockpile
of
N95
masks,
personal
protective equipment and ventilators
had been maintained — our hospitals
and health care workers wouldn’t be so
overwhelmed right now. As one nurse
said in the same 60 Minutes interview,
“Every health care worker infection,
every health care worker death is
preventable.”
In
response
to
the
federal
government’s
clear
lack
of
preparedness,
the Trump administration, which
currently
oversees
the
nation’s
response
to COVID-19, has gotten the brunt of
the blame. The New York Times wrote
a recent article detailing what so many
Americans believe to be countless
missteps by the current occupant of the
Oval Office.
It
is
true
that
President
Donald
Trump
has had a lot to do with our country’s
response
to
the
coronavirus
crisis.
While
many critics claim he should have taken
action sooner, Trump has done the
best job possible with the tools he was
given by his predecessors and the data
available at that time. The president
has taken a number of common-sense
steps that have protected millions of
Americans
from
contracting
COVID-19,
as I detailed in my last column.
The truth is that in order to really look
at our nation’s response to COVID-19,
we have to look back in time. Long
before Trump was elected president,
history shows that our government
had the chance to prepare for a
pandemic like the coronavirus a
decade ago, after the worst of the
2009 H1N1 pandemic.
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, the H1N1
influenza virus was first detected in the
U.S. in the spring of 2009. By April 2010,
the CDC estimates that over 60 million
people within our borders were infected
while 12,000 people died. While the
situation caused by H1N1 cannot be
compared to the national shutdown
we are currently experiencing today,
this virus was considered a pandemic
nonetheless.
In the midst of the spread of H1N1,
which hit younger people who didn’t
have the antibodies to fight off this flu
strain harder, the federal government
turned to its stockpile of critical medical
supplies and equipment that is typically
only used in extreme situations (like a
pandemic). According to a study in the
journal of Health Security, “75 percent
of N95 respirators and 25 percent of face
masks contained in the CDC’s Strategic
National
Stockpile
(100
million
products)
were deployed for use in health care
settings over the course of the 2009
H1N1
pandemic
response.”
Despite
calls
from medical experts to build up the
national stockpile in order to prepare
for the next pandemic, President Barack
Obama’s administration failed to do so,
according to a USA Today Fact Check
in response to a Daily Wire article
published in March.
The truth is that Barack Obama was
president during a medical event similar
to COVID-19. His administration knew
the risks of failing to rebuild the national
stockpile of masks and other equipment,
but failed to actually replenish that
critical stockpile. While this inaction is
not solely to blame for the fallout from
the coronavirus, it undoubtedly has
contributed immensely to the calamity
we are living through today. Sadly, our
depleted stockpile, paired with this
highly contagious respiratory disease,
has created the perfect storm, a storm
that was somewhat preventable.
Ultimately, our society has had
enough warnings. We lived through
the H1N1 pandemic and continue to
confront
the
COVID-19
pandemic
today.
Meanwhile, we remember other health
crises that threatened millions across
the world in the past, including SARS,
MERS and Ebola. There will be another
pandemic, sooner than later, that makes
its way into our country. Before that
happens, we owe it to ourselves and future
generations to invest in medical supplies
and prepare ourselves, so we don’t have to
watch
thousands
die
and
millions
risk
their
lives at the expense of our inaction.
Once
COVID-19
subsides,
we
must
begin
conversations immediately about how we
will begin to rebuild our national stockpile
of emergency medical supplies, because
we cannot make the same mistake twice.
We have an obligation to learn from
our inaction after H1N1 and prevent
something
like
the
current
pandemic from
ever happening again.
4 — Friday, April 17, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Jess D’Agostino
Jenny Gurung
Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes
Michael Russo
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Joel Weiner
Erin White
ERIN WHITE
Managing Editor
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Editor in Chief
EMILY CONSIDINE AND
MILES STEPHENSON
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
EVAN STERN | COLUMN
What we can learn from the H1N1 pandemic
Evan Stern can be reached at
erstern@umich.edu.
The South’s stubbornness is why federal action is needed
RILEY DEHR | COLUMN
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