If your government is still mandating severe “social distance” quarantines in April, your country probably needs a revolution (when this is all over).
As necessary as social distancing is in most parts of the world, it’s also a deep, disturbing sign that your government has already failed to protect you.
The disturbing truth is, social distancing just doesn’t work. Face masks don’t work. Washing your hands doesn’t work. Not even testing, which is often credited as a major reason why South Korea and virtually every other country that has already pulled through this was successful. At least, not as single individual steps in a vacuum.
The fact is, all of these steps are necessary together. But if there is one step that has shown to be most critical of all, it is early testing. South Korea managed to largely avoid these “social distancing lockdowns” with early mass testing that has allowed them to identify and only quarantine those who actually have the virus. Germany is now on the road to recovery thanks to mass testing. And even the People’s Republic of China, where the first mass-outbreak of coronavirus originated, has been able to recover thanks in large part to mass-testing.
Likewise, there is one common thread among countries that still impose severe social distancing and quarantine measures into April: a lack of mass-testing availability. Or more specifically, deeply troubling and dangerous policy decisions that made such mass testing impractical or even scrapped altogether. This has meant that whatever country you happen to be residing in right now, no matter how wealthy or privileged, can be the difference between feeling safe and feeling like a death sentence.
Let’s look at them in a case-by-case study:
The United States
This is likely the most well-understood one. Simply put, President Trump severely gutted and even outright scrapped large parts of the framework already put in place to respond exactly to pandemics just like this. The exact reasons and nuances why are worthy of their own discussion, but in broad summary it’s part of the “mandate” Trump was “elected” for, and why he had become such a force for the Republican Party: an extremely dangerous ideology, if not an outright obsession and love affair, with the “Reagonomics” dictate of dismantling the government outright. This is an issue the United States has struggled with throughout its history: from the current crisis, to the George W. Bush-era recession bailout, to the Great Depression, to the nearly forgotten economic crises that bookended the 19th century for America, even to the very cause and foundation of the American Civil War and the first critical missteps towards founding this nation as a properly functioning government in the first place.
But again, those are left for another discussion. But it’s critical that the coronavirus pandemic under the Trump administration be compared to how the Obama administration handled the MERS pandemic and how even George W. Bush (who was also hoped by his party to continue the Reagan legacy of systematic dismantling of the government, but not nearly to the insane, dangerous degree Trump has — largely thanks to the distractions of the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom) handled the SARS pandemic. Both of these diseases are at least on-paper far deadlier than the coronavirus, although there is debate over which of these diseases are actually the most transmissible (which is independent of actual deadliness; indeed, the “average” seasonal flu, itself a coronavirus along with SARS and MERS and almost universally agreed upon to be a very “survivable” virus in comparison, can very much potentially necessitate yearly and seasonal “social distancing” quarantines of significant length if proper flu outbreak response were to be gutted — something that is very much a possibility under this President, as he has and currently is already demonstrating). It’s absolutely telling, however, about how effective the responses put by Obama and even Bush were to their respective outbreaks, in that at least prior to the current coronavirus crisis most Americans had completely forgotten they had even occurred at all.
It was entirely possible — in fact it should’ve been the course that played out — that the current coronavirus pandemic would be just as remembered (or forgotten). This isn’t a lesson about how forgetting about past pandemics can lead to new ones — but how making dangerous, purely ideological sacrifices of the government itself at the alter of Ronald Reagan and “less government” can destroy a nation, in unanticipated and very literal ways even the most far-right groups need to recognize is unacceptable.
The United Kingdom
Simply put, it’s practically the same exact story: a lack of early response and testing. Unlike Trump, however, Prime Minister Boris Johnson now has to pay this price personally.
Again, this outcome is the result of many of the same policies and failings, although it’s a little more nuanced than in the case of Trump. In PM Johnson’s case, it was more borne out of the same scientific ignorance and general reckless disregard that Trump had a reputation for even before the pandemic. However, in the case of Trump, it’s important to remember that, although indeed scientifically ignorant and reckless, Trump was merely following and indeed got a Presidential nomination on a decades-long-standing party mandate to dismantle the system from the inside over bizarre and insane ideology. Yes, PM Johnson is PM for many of the same reasons, but it’s important to remember that Trump is highly influenced by long-standing institutions in the Party and those in other areas of power and influence, not the other way around.
Italy
For starters, mass-testing in Italy has shown to be the key to completely arresting the coronavirus, more so than even social distancing. Time, and time, and time again. But it’s even more helpful to understand why there has been such a delay and resistance to mass-testing and how that played a role in dooming a country that has often been touted to have the “finest health care system in the world” and promoted as a model for universal healthcare in the United States to having one of the highest, if not the highest, infection rate of any country on the planet. And there, yet again, the story looks largely the same: simple inaction by the government and civil leadership.
But it’s helpful to look at why no action took place as indeed Italy is much more “socialist” than either the United States or even the United Kingdom, and so it should’ve had a faster, more successful response like other “socialist” countries such as Germany, South Korea and the People’s Republic of China.
As it turns out, the Italian government isn’t nearly as “socialistic” as people might try to claim and has dangerously close resemblances to that of the US and UK. In fact, the Italian government is in outright shambles thanks to many of the policies Trump and the Republican Right (and PM Johnson and his cronies) want to put in place — several months before COVID-19 was ever known to exist.
In short, in every single case, it’s been a complete failure of government through-and-through: a systematic dismantling of a government’s very ability to perform as a government due to rising extreme right-wing sentiments.
The People’s Republic of China — A Special Case
China was the very first country to experience a mass-outbreak and is recognized as the country of origin for the coronavirus in the first place. They’re also one of the first countries to experience recovery and, when factoring in not only the speed of the recovery but how this was accomplished with such a large infection rate and the country’s status as the most populated, is almost by default the most successful recovery by any measure if not an outright miracle.
But acknowledging this miracle recovery threatens to wash over key decisions the Chinese government made that prevented an even speedier recovery and indeed contributed to dooming the rest of the world — and why there needs to be a second (really third) Chinese revolution regardless.
Actually, to call for an outright revolution is extreme and unnecessary. To make this exceedingly clear: this isn’t a failing of the Chinese people. This isn’t a failing of Chinese culture. This isn’t even necessarily a failing of the Chinese communist government (which had “devolved” into de facto crony capitalism decades ago anyway). This represents largely the failings of a single man: Communist Party President Xi Jinping.
Claims that the Chinese government covered up the outbreak, which in turn helped it spread internationally, have at least some credibility; but make no mistake, Xi was individually the driving force of that cover-up. Xi is ultimately not a friend to his own citizenry, government, or even the Communist party. He has eagerly engaged in the type of extremist, authoritarian and, yes, right-wing behavior that has marked the Presidency of Trump, the Ministry of Johnson and the ongoing Italian government crisis. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver famously picked apart Xi’s right-wing and military expansionist policies, with global aspirations that not only mirror that of Imperial (and extreme right-wing) Japan (which directly lead not only to the Pacific War — WWII — but to their downfall and near complete destruction as a country)but are in fact blatantly ripped out of the exact same playbook (fed in very large part by, perhaps ironically, beyond merely wanting to “reclaim” Taiwan but an ongoing thread in current Chinese culture entitlement towards the need to extract extremely bloody, mass “revenge” out of Japan for the Sino-Japanese Conflict of 1931–45 and the Japanese Occupation, specifically of a military nature). And of course, the coronavirus pandemic has already nearly made the entire world forget about the mass Hong Kong protests.
The takeaway here is that in every single one of these cases, the coronavirus pandemic has been helped along by one key factor, without exception: very dangerous strongmen who have systematically dismantled their governments from the inside. And with the sole exception of the People’s Republic of China, every single one of these countries are still forced to practical mass “social distancing” quarantines. Thus, if you’re still being told by your government that you need to be inside stuck at home at this point in April, you might want to seriously reconsider who you vote for when it comes election time — when it’s safe to come out again, that is.
