Grassroots/Hank Kalet

Crisis at the Borders

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo set law enforcement on New Yorkers traveling north to her state, state and local police to enforce a quarantine she says is designed to prevent New Yorkers from infecting her state with COVID-19.

Florida, which was late to shut its beaches despite an influx of spring-breakers, is doing the same. And there are calls around the country to shut state borders, even as it is clear that doing so has little affect on the spread of the virus, which has already killed more than 1,000 in New York City alone and hundreds of thousands around the globe.

Yes, this is where we are today, as the virus count increases geometrically. We have state governments seeking to fragment the nation, mimicking the rhetoric of the xenophobes who run our federal government, competing with each other for supplies, driving up costs, and being forced to store the dead in refrigerator trucks because morgues lack the capacity.

Look, this virus is real. The impacts are real. And we were not prepared. But we know that basic precautions can slow the spread of the virus. We know that washing our hands and not touching our faces is effective. We know, as well, that social distancing — a new part of our lexicon — has been effective at “flattening the curve,” which basically means that minimizing contact with others can tamp down the spread and allow our overburden healthcare system to deal with those who do get sick.

We also know that our best defense is testing, though a woeful lack of test kits has left local public health officials scrambling.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s been given a lot of credit for his response at the epicenter of the virus, likens the free-for-all among states to an eBay auction.

“We all wind up bidding up each other and competing against each other, where you now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you.’ It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”

This is the kind of thing that happens when there is no federal leadership and when we have a president whose prescription for all ills is to close our national borders rather than to address the infections that are killing us from the inside.

Immigration? Shut the borders and, for God’s sake, don’t address the reason that millions around the globe have been forced to flee their homes — kleptocracy and corruption, climate, war, violence, broken economies, etc.

Terrorism? Shut the borders and, for God’s sake, don’t address the root causes of terrorism, which are similar to those driving the refugee crisis — corruption and a sense of lost power.

COVID-19? Shut the borders to China. Then Europe. And now, the state’s are closing their borders to other states, attempting to restrict the movement of Americans within their own country, as if the virus respects borders, as if the virus can be contained without an aggressive and unified response.

We need federal leadership. We need to nationalize the manufacture of ventilators (Trump finally ordered GM to manufacture them under the Defense Protection Act, though other companies need to be doing the same). We need to do the same with the manufacture of tests and the research into vaccines that can protect us from getting the virus and other drugs that can treat those who are infected.

We also need a national moratorium on mortgage, rent, insurance, utility and other payments to protect workers from losing their homes — and we need to freeze interest payments as we do this. We need to do the same for student loans, car payments, and other major expenses. We need to require all companies, no exceptions, to provide sick leave — now and going forward. Our goal should be to create an environment in which people can stay home without having to worry about their finances.

Trump, who initially ignored the virus, now seems to take it seriously, though his main interest still seems to be in protecting his reputation and his base, and tussling with Democratic governors. Federal leadership remains absent, even as we’ve started calling this a war, even as states engage in panic-driven policies.

Hank Kalet is a poet and journalist in New Jersey. Email, hankkalet@gmail.com; Twitter,@kaletjournalism; Instagram, @kaletwrites; Facebook, facebook.com/hank.kalet; Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/Newspoet41.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2020

Populist.com