By: Faith Buttrick
Across the country, there have been radically different strategies for responding to coronavirus, a deadly virus that spreads quickly and often without detection. Both Massachusetts and Florida are in the top ten states with the most coronavirus cases. Florida is in the number two spot and Massachusetts is number ten in the country. These states have both been in crisis with skyrocketing cases but decided to reopen their states with different restrictions.
The varying responses throughout the country have left many wondering why politicians with no experience in disease prevention are the ones who get to decide how their state should respond to the threat of coronavirus.
Massachusetts proceeded with caution and cancelled it’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 9th and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued a two week stay at home order on March 23rd.
These were all on the early side of the outbreak and Massachusetts Governor Baker is reopening the state in four phases which are still in effect.
Phase one allowed places of worship to open with strict guidelines and construction to resume as long as they met certain standards. The governor still urged people to stay home unless absolutely necessary for activities like shopping or essential work.
Phase two permitted restaurants, businesses, and nail salons to open with restrictions. Stores and restaurants were forced to comply with these limitations or they could be closed down.
The third and fourth phases served to open up the rest of the remaining businesses but even in the final stage people were still urged to wear face coverings and continue with social distancing.
Coronavirus cases in Massachusetts on June 7th totaled 304 new cases. Then a month later there were only 201 cases. This decrease in cases can be attributed to the strict regulations put in by the state government to ensure the safety of the people.
These measures were put in place by elected officials who chose to listen to scientists and public health officials. But that begs the question of what would happen if elected officials decided not to listen to scientists. Florida is the perfect example of what happens when elected officials do not take a pandemic seriously and choose not to listen to the science.
Florida’s first case was confirmed on March 1st and soon after the state was crowded with spring breakers. Florida allowed the Winter Party Festival to go forward in early March as usual despite the buildup of cases. Even after the Center for Disease Control declared coronavirus to be a pandemic, Florida governor DeSantis only closed the restaurants to half capacity on March 17th. Florida issued their stay at home order on April 1st.
The closures of Florida and Massachusetts happened within a week of each other but their differing reopening strategies directly impacted the number of cases in these states.
DeSantis allowed many businesses to return to full capacity including gyms, museums, and sports venues on June 5th despite their growing cases. On June 7th, Florida hit a five day streak of 1,000 new cases each day, which was just the beginning of the problem. There were 64,528 cases in Florida on June 7th and then one month later on July 7th there were 223,540 cases. This is a little under four times as many cases after only one month of reopening. This is because there was such a quick reopening of a state that had not yet been able to contain the virus.
These two plans, one very slow and controlled and the other like opening the floodgates, directly impacted the health and safety of the people in these states.
The job of governor typically involves policy decisions and managing the budget. Because of coronavirus this same person is now in charge of the safety of their constituents when a global pandemic breaks out. Not to mention there is a shortage of both testing materials and proper personal protective gear to help fight the spread of the virus.
Why did the American people have to rely on their state governors to decide how their states should respond to this deadly virus? Why was the decision for the response to an outbreak of a global pandemic placed into the hands of politicians rather than scientists?
Some believe that the United States should not be blamed for the spread of coronavirus because this is an unprecedented pandemic and no one could have predicted this to take so many lives. But after looking at how other countries responded to this virus and how they have been able to contain the spread shows that what America truly lacked was a solid plan of action and good governance.
President Trump was warned as early as the beginning of January that there was a virus spreading that could turn into a pandemic. Once there was a confirmed case in the United States President Trump reported that everything is going to be “just fine” and that he was not concerned. As it turns out everything was not “just fine” and many countries whose leaders took this threat to their people seriously did not take this virus lightly.
Taking a glance at the response to coronavirus by New Zealand gives an example of a country whose leaders decided to listen to scientists when deciding to close and reopen their countries. The New Zealand policy created the concept of ‘bubbles’ which helped reinforce the idea that people needed to not interact with others who were not in their same group of containment.
They implemented four levels of restrictions which were decided based on likeness of the containment of coronavirus. These seem like strict measures at the time given that New Zealand had so few cases but in the end the measures worked because the number of cases never had a huge spike like most other countries.
New Zealand, a country of 4.88 million people never saw more than 1,600 confirmed and probable cases because of the strict measures put together by a government that listened to scientists.
Many people across the United States are questioning why governors decided to ignore the science and put human lives at risk when deciding to open their states. With a lack of a national plan of response to the coronavirus, these governors knew their re-elections would depend on how well they responded to the virus.
Many Republican states pushed for a quick opening of the states whereas many Democratic states favored a slower opening. Politics seems to be a defining factor for the American people when deciding between saving the economy or saving the people.
The decision to reopen states should never have been left up to the state governors who have no expertise in how to properly respond to pandemics. The country should have instead looked to the experts and allowed people who have studied pandemics to have input about how to contain the spread of this virus.
I understand human lives being at risk because of the virus, but many human lives were at risk because of the shutdown too. Many people have been thinking about the physical health of the people in the US, however a lot of people needed the reopenings to happen. In an area like Florida, a big part of the population relies on tourism to get them financially through the winter. Without the spring/summer visitors, it is very difficult for them to support their families.
Comparing Massachusetts and Florida is a very smart way to point out how a response to a pandemic as well as reopening strategies is important because both states suffered huge case numbers and deaths, but at very different times. Massachusetts was hit very hard earlier on because it has one of the main airports for international travel. They made masks a requirement and closed down most if not all of businesses, where that was not seen in Florida. Because they did a true quarantine and closing of the economy, cases in MA dropped significantly over the months of their official stay-at-home order. Florida, however, had closer to two major spikes of cases because of their late lockdown order and then reopening too early. I also agree that the decisions being made for when to mandate a stay-at-home order should be left to the federal government, more specifically the government health officials, rather than state governments. The United States treated the pandemic as if each state is it’s own country when that is not the reality. Borders to states never closed so there was no true containment of the virus in individual states.
I agree completely with your point on why our country is letting politicians decide whether or not to reopen the United States or not. This idea was brought up recently in the past by one of our guest speakers, Jim McGovern resulting in people wearing masks. I remember his talking about how Trump has turned the safety of yourselves and the others around you into something that is political where basic health and keeping people alive just shouldn’t be anywhere near your political views. Why are people listening to politicians rather than health experts? It’s like the people are choosing other beliefs rather than proven facts and evidence. Why do you believe many states like Florida and other states in the South are listening to their politicians rather than places like New England, for example when it comes to people wearing masks and social distancing? Do guidelines and the eases of lockdowns too early go deeper than being run by Republicans or Democrats or is it as simple as that? And if so how come?
Interestingly, “what happens when elected officials do not take a pandemic seriously and choose not to listen to the science” is a crucial fight in the politics of this pandemic. It seems that one of the only logical options is to listen to science. Charlie Baker has degrees in English and business administration. Ron DeSantis has degrees in history and a J.D in law. These degrees are beneficial in their regular day jobs. However, neither of them has any degree relating to science or public health. It’s uncommon for governors and state officials to hold degrees that many scientists hold. Out of the 50 U.S Governors, three of them have Ph.Ds.This ultimately discredits any decision made solely by state governors without a consult from a credited professional of diseases because they lack the scientific knowledge needed to know the greater good for citizens. The difference is how much experience and expertise from other countries with lower COVID-19 cases these governors and their teams use in their own decision making. It is also important to note that governors have mountains of responsibilities to look after while people who work for the CDC and WHO their sole responsibility is fighting pandemics like this one.
Do you think it would have been more proactive if the federal government had created the same rules for the whole country instead of every state legislature making their own rules and trying to solve the pandemic issue? If this would have the case, then is there an opportunity that the COVID-19 would have ended sooner or that the number of the infirmed people would have been fewer than it is right now? I am living currently in Florida, Miami. And the issue here was that as the schools ended, everyone has decided to come to Miami because of the beaches and have a great summer vacation. However, it really has affected the citizens of this state as the numbers increased drastically and as of right now Miami-Dade County has the highest number of infected people and deaths in the whole Florida. I also think that the issue why the United States has a lot of cases of the coronavirus as of right now is because after the numbers of infected people have decreased, the regulations had lessened, and more people have traveled across the country. This was not the case in China, where everything had started. That country waited for the virus to pass so the government could make an announcement with the support of the scientists to allow the quarantine to be over. In the United States, the president Donald Trump had missed the advices of the scientists and the warnings of the doctors and made no precautions. This is why the states had no rule or saying of how the regulations should have looked like. Do you think the way the other countries have dealt with the virus affected the way some states handled the situation of the pandemic?
As a Florida resident myself, I 100% agree with everything you have stated in this blog post. We should never have let governor Ron Desantis handle the pandemic himself when he could have just listened to scientists who know more about the spread of this virus than he does. Reopening the state of Florida simply was not the solution we all needed, what we needed was to listen to the scientists, and mandate the social distancing and mask wearing measures so that we can have this virus under control. Trump claims that the rising number of cases was due to “too much testing”, in reality, it was reopening the country too soon, and many so-called “Karens” and “Anti-Maskers” not taking the health and safety of everyone into consideration. As for the restrictions in Florida, Desantis failed to listen and close public spaces (restaurants, gyms, etc.) to only half capacity when really it should have been full capacity. Desantis has failed to save the state of Florida by not responding sooner, if our governor was a democrat we probably would have a lot fewer cases of coronavirus.
When one looks at maps on the news of which states have surging cases, it is really easy to see the correlation between red states and rising trends. Rising cases has nothing to do with politics, but the states with lax lockdown rules tend to vote Republican, and the President has shown his desire to re-open (remember churches open by Easter, and recent push to reopen schools, etc). In April through June, Monica Bharel stood side by side with Charlie Baker on instructing MA residents to lockdown and wear masks. She often took the lead in those press conferences. Meanwhile in a press conference, Trump asks a sitting Dr. Birx if injecting patients with disinfectants or UV light is a way to kill the virus (or did he mean kill the patient?). Too bad he couldn’t stand aside and listen to Dr Birx and other medical professionals even if they don’t promote the economy re-opening, just a few months ahead of the election,
First, I believe comparing the states of Massachusetts and Florida opens up an exciting concern on whether we politicians should lead the states or scientists. However, I will say that I don’t think there’s an individual occupation such as a politician or scientist in charge of states during the Covid-19 pandemic. Knowing that the pandemic was an unexpected outbreak in terms of the number of lost lives, it’s hard to say who should be in charge. Scientists are the experts who research sicknesses and diseases, trying to find a cure for them, but it’s hard to leave it up to them. I agree that the Federal government should be the head in charge of staying at home order instead of state governments. It would be much different if the virus affected just one state. I say this because all nations are being affected, and this virus doesn’t have respect for people. This would most definitely the cooperation and leadership of the United States to make orders useful for all citizens in every state.
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