Editorial: The economy needs an immune system
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When President Trump says the economy needs to be open, he’s not wrong. It’s a matter of timing and safety, based on scientific data, as the president himself has said. But when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says, “This is not a light switch we can just flick on and everything goes back to normal,” he’s not wrong either.
Cuomo and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island announced Monday that they were “collaborating closely” on strategies regarding how and when to get the interconnected interests of the northeastern region back on track. Massachusetts joined later, adding a Republican governor to the group.
It’s a smart move to debate the issue in this regional approach. These seven states collectively represent 54.6% of covid-19 cases and 58.2% of deaths in the U.S. It would do Pennsylvanians no good to keep businesses closed down while people from Delaware drove through to New Jersey.
“While my administration continues to take critical steps to mitigate the spread of covid-19, I also recognize that we must look ahead and take a measured, careful approach to prepare for the future while ensuring that we don’t undo all of our efforts,” Wolf said in a statement.
At the same time, Trump has a new committee appointed to focus on reopening the economy. The whole thing has also led to a power struggle between the president and the governors over who gets to decide when things open.
That’s great. Just what we need. More political tug-of-war. Great time for it, everyone.
Meanwhile, people are still buying things because they need them. People are working from home if they can and others are doing essential tasks. The economy isn’t shut down. It’s sputtering and stalling.
It’s good that people are talking about how to get things back to normal. But why can’t they talk about how to fix things for right now?
Let’s talk about ways for the Smithfield plant in Arnold to stay open while keeping workers safe so it doesn’t turn into a repeat of the company’s South Dakota coronavirus hot spot. Let’s talk about ways more companies can keep doing business at a distance, or ways for more retail companies to serve customers in creative, non-contact ways. Let’s talk about bringing back drive-in entertainment and ways to convert businesses from how they were operating six weeks ago to something that works in a new way.
Because even if we get back to work tomorrow, the coronavirus has taught us how quickly a disease can shut things down — and we have already been warned about repeat outbreaks.
We need to encourage innovation. It’s already planted. People are seeing needs and responding. They are noticing things like the wear and tear on ears from wearing masks and making new products to solve the problem. New kinds of ventilators are being made.
Let’s stop focusing on reopening to “get back to normal” and focus instead on building our economy’s immune system.