Skip to main content

Politics and the Pandemic - Progress Denied

Over the course of this pandemic, we have learned a lot about the country, our leaders and ourselves – and not all of it has been good.  One thing we have learned is that anything can be politicized.  Will anyone be shocked, for example, if a protest movement develops demanding that that Mother’s Day either be abolished or renamed?  

Overall, Governor Mike DeWine has provided sober guidance and directives here in Ohio.  I think that his performance during the pandemic will be an important reason why he will be reelected in 2022.  Interestingly, although he is a bonafide conservative, he will face primary threats from the right in a state that Trump handily won in the past 2 presidential elections.  As we all have learned in November 2016, anything can happen.

But, DeWine, like every other political leader considered the political impact of public health decisions.


Governor DeWine Understands the Pandemic and Politics.

In April 2020, he issued a mask mandate for customers and employees in newly opened retail establishments and businesses.  The slogan was ‘no mask, no work, no service, no exception.’  The governor issued this recommendation after consulting with public health experts.  Although I have only rudimentary public health knowledge, this measure seemed very rationale to me. 

What a difference a day makes.  Within 24 hours, the governor did a political back flip and reversed the requirement that customers must be masked.  This abrupt U-turn resulted after howls of protest from mask opponents.  The public health facts certainly didn’t change, but the politics did. 

We have seen repeatedly our political leaders caving to serve political concerns. I am not suggesting that public health experts are the only ones wearing white hats.  Because their mission is to protect the entire population, I think some of them have been overzealous to protect the public at the expense of our economic health, the education of our kids and mental health consequences of mitigation strategies.  It’s easier to recommend that someone else lose his job to serve the greater good.  It’s easier to support extending the eviction moratorium if you are not a landlord.   It’s easier for teachers to support cancelling classroom learning for ‘safety’s sake, than it is for parents who must quit their jobs so that they can become homeschool teachers. 

I don’t claim to know where to establish the balance between public health protection and society’s other needs.  Of course, this is not a mathematical query that has a single correct solution.  Experts will disagree as they face a moving target with insufficient data.  But, had politics been stripped from the process, then we would be a lot farther along than we are now. 

 

  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Becoming a Part-Time Physician

Next month my schedule will change.  I will henceforth be off on Fridays with my work week truncated to Monday through Thursday.   I am excited to be enjoying a long weekend every weekend.  And while the schedule change is relatively minor, this event does feel like an important career moment for me.  It is the first step on a journey that will ultimately lead beyond my professional career.  It is this recognition that makes this modest schedule modification more significant than one would think it deserves.  As some readers know,   my current employed position has been a dream job for me.   Prior to this, I was in a small private practice, which I loved, but was much more challenging professionally and personally.   My partner and I ran the business.   Working nights, weekends and holidays were routine for decades.   On an on-call night, if I slept  through until morning, I felt as if I had won the lottery.   And w...

When Should Doctors Retire?

I am asked with some regularity whether I am aiming to retire in the near term.  Years ago, I never received such inquiries.  Why now?   Might it be because my coiffure and goatee – although finely-manicured – has long entered the gray area?  Could it be because many other even younger physicians have given up their stethoscopes for lives of leisure? (Hopefully, my inquiring patients are not suspecting me of professional performance lapses!) Interestingly, a nurse in my office recently approached me and asked me sotto voce that she heard I was retiring.    “Interesting,” I remarked.   Since I was unaware of this retirement news, I asked her when would be my last day at work.   I have no idea where this erroneous rumor originated from.   I requested that my nurse-friend contact her flawed intel source and set him or her straight.   Retirement might seem tempting to me as I have so many other interests.   Indeed, reading and ...

Will Smarter Lawyers End Frivolous Lawsuits?

How do you know if a lawyer is any good?  Of course, they've all passed the bar, but now their profession is lowering it.  While most of us strive for excellence, and raise our children to value this virtue, prominent legal educators are establishing a new quality intitiative for their profession.  Who says that lawyers can't reform themselves?  Perhaps, we physicians can follow their bold example and raise the credentials of our pre-medical students.  I’ll present the facts. You be the judge. I have written a dozen posts on tort reform on this blog, which always generate spirited and adversarial retorts from attorneys and their supporters. They accuse me and other tort reform advocates of carrying water for insurance companies. They repeatedly point out that I know nothing about the legal system and are unqualified to opine on its flaws. They deride me when I argue that effective tort reform would reduce the practice of defensive medicine, despite the re...