The drastic steps taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 are pushing the United States and much of the rest of the world off an economic cliff. The U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday that nearly 3.3 million Americans registered for unemployment benefits last week alone – a staggering increase in the total number of jobless workers.
So it’s no wonder there’s a growing chorus of business and political leaders complaining, as President Donald Trump puts it, that the cure is worse than the disease. “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” the president said Monday. Instead, he keeps hinting that the restrictions on movement and commerce could be ended around April 12, which is Easter Sunday.
Well, sure, we’d all like to see the restrictions lifted as soon as possible. But it would be reckless, irresponsible and deadly to do so anytime soon. Infections and deaths are continuing to increase rapidly even with the social distancing measures that are in place. What’s more, today’s numbers don’t reflect just how bad the situation is because they don’t include anyone who’s been infected but is not yet symptomatic.
Worse, we’re largely operating blind when it comes to who has the disease and where it’s spreading because we’re doing only a tiny fraction of the testing and almost none of the monitoring needed to detect it. Encouraging people to go back to work, to the mall, to bars and restaurants only risks allowing the disease to take an even bigger toll, in terms of both lives and livelihoods.
The country can’t go on indefinitely with the restraints that are in place today; the damage inflicted on the economy and on people’s psyches might be irreparable. The issue is how and when to remove or replace those restraints without unleashing a surge in infections that overwhelms the health care system and multiplies the death toll.