
There are two things we’re all about here at Our Bill Pickle: keeping it real and sharing this space with those who can provide perspective on matters outside our expertise.
Today I am thrilled to have Melanie from Partners In Fire here with a guest post on the United States response to COVID-19.
Specifically, things that have gone well.
Before reading this, I didn’t know if anything was going well in the United States when it came to COVID-19.
In fact, apart from the stimulus cheques, I did not know much about the US response apart from the statistics we see daily.
Melanie does a great job talking about some of the things I didn’t really know about the US response. If this is something you’ve wondered about, this post is for you.
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The US Response to COVID-19: It’s not all bad!
If you’ve been following the news from the states, you’re probably shocked and appalled by how the United States has responded to COVID-19. My country has seen the highest number of new cases for the past few months and is one of the only developed countries to not see much of a decrease.
It doesn’t look good.
But what the news might not be telling you is it isn’t all bad.
It might not seem that way, because the media likes to prop up all the bad news, but there are a lot of states that took it seriously. And those states that took it seriously are starting to see declines in cases, just like in the rest of the world.
What the states did
The states that responded quickly have seen declines in the number of new cases over the weeks. Some of the states with the best results are Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
These states took things seriously from the start, taking logical steps to help prevent the spread of the virus.
There are basically three key things these states did that helped slow the spread.
Closing non-essential businesses
This was probably the most drastic and disputed step that was taken. Many people feared (not all unjustly) closing down businesses would destroy the US economy. Millions of people who couldn’t work wouldn’t be able to pay their bills, causing the country to plummet into a depression.
The thing is, they aren’t exactly wrong, and we need to understand that viewpoint before we can move forward.
The United States has very little protections for job loss and poverty. And since, as a nation, most of our healthcare is tied to our jobs, these massive layoffs led to more people without access to healthcare – which is the opposite of what you want in a pandemic. So, you can see why many people would be hesitant to close these businesses.
Still, the interests of public health won out against the interests of the economy in many states, and thankfully, those states are seeing a decline in cases.
Requiring masks
Another great thing many states did in response to COVID-19 was require anyone entering any essential establishment to wear a mask. Studies have shown wearing a mask is effective in preventing the spread of germs, including COVID-19.
Unfortunately, mask wearing has turned into a political debate in many states. Americans from the states have a rich culture of rugged individualism and hate the idea of anyone telling them what to do ever — which includes what to wear (I’m totally not going to get into the hypocrisy that some of the most adamant defenders of personal freedom espouse when discussing their own freedom to wear what they choose versus the freedom of others to exist or control their own bodies. The US can be weird place).
At any rate, many people embraced the idea that the simple act of wearing a mask was respectful to others, and complied without issue.
Limiting gatherings
Another huge thing many states did to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 was limit gatherings. Sporting events, concerts, and any other event that would attract more than 10 people were strictly prohibited.
This prevented one person from infecting a multitude of people at one time and helped ensure public safety.
Yes, it sucked that my Green Day concert was cancelled, but I can deal for the benefit of everyone.
Other states playing catch up
Unfortunately, in the United States, COVID-19 has become a political issue.
States that lean conservative haven’t been as quick to respond, while states that lean liberal took a swifter approach and took the steps mentioned above. But that’s not all due to politics. We like to pretend that everything is political, but let’s try to look at it from the red states standpoints.
Red states tend to be more rural. They don’t have as many large gatherings to cancel. And many of them are called flyover states for a reason – they don’t have a lot of visitors. So, COVID-19 wasn’t necessarily as serious in these states in the beginning. They didn’t have as many cases, so you could see why the people living there might think it’s not as serious.
Arkansas is a prime example of this. They didn’t do anything to curb the spread until June. But, they also had very few cases until June. Now, they are catching up. Should they have taken it seriously in the beginning? Yes, probably. We all can see that looking back. But, as leaders, it must be difficult to make the decision to close things up when you don’t have a problem, especially when you consider the economic impacts I mentioned above.
As much as I hate the idea of putting the economy before people, I can see it being a reasonable idea when no people in your state are getting sick. I’m happy they took action once it became a problem.
The US is still lacking in a lot of ways
I hate to be pessimistic, but the truth is the US is still lagging other countries in a ton of ways.
Our options here are go to work and risk your life, or try to stay safe and risk destitution. We don’t have safety nets in place to keep people in their homes when they lose their jobs. The new unemployment law was a farce, we don’t have access to healthcare if we think we might have COVID-19, and we don’t have any sick days to stay home anyway. It’s easy to understand why people would want to reopen the economy as soon as possible. They don’t have any other options.
A perspective on the US
So, for all you readers from other countries, I just wanted to offer you some perspective. Despite what the news might be telling you, the COVID-19 response in the United States wasn’t all bad. Some states clearly fared worse than others, but we can see where some of them were coming from at least. And many states responded swiftly and are seeing huge decreases.
The United States is a large country with a ton of diversity, so it’s to be expected we have lots of different opinions and viewpoints about how to solve the problem.
It’s not all bad, we just need to learn to compromise.
Melanie launched Partners in Fire in 2017 to document her quest for financial independence with a mix of finance, fun, and solving the world’s problems. She’s self educated in personal finance and passionate about fighting systematic problems that prevent others from achieving their own financial goals. She also loves travel, anthropology, gaming and her cats.
Thank you, Tara and Melanie, for shedding some light on this situation! I’m with Melanie in saying that our response hasn’t been as awful as the media has unfairly portrayed. In many respects, I think it’s been quite good, especially considering what I witnessed while working in a leading American hospital system. Unfortunately, it’s been overly politicized. Even top physicians where I work were not quick to jump on the bandwagon with shutting down our economy in the early stages. People where I work were extremely hesitant to take such strict action and even doubted how badly the virus would impact us as it was just starting to hit the west coast and cases started growing. Many of us in Philly were still in disbelief as we watched the numbers growing out of control in NYC. Once the NYC/NJ people started flocking to our Philly hospitals, we knew the situation was serious. But it took those actions for us to really know that it could strike us in a serious way. And it did, though we were never as overwhelmed as NYC. Philly’s densely populated, but not like NYC; however, we have a large impoverished community, and they tend to get hit hard.
Anyway, I think our natural American tendency is to believe it can’t happen here, kind of like our pre-terrorism mindset. Well, that thought is over, at least in terms of global viruses. Still, people are growing complacent about masks and social distancing, but many are still trying. Now that our local officials are requiring masks everywhere, people are getting better about it once again. But it’s hot and humid, so they’re more reluctant. It’s such a complicated situation for us. Maybe that sheds some more light on it.
Thanks again for addressing this topic! 🙂
Katie,
That was very well said. The things you pointed out are very valid and I agree with them. Some states have done very well by taking the pandemic as seriously as it needs to be taken.
And, yes, sometimes we have a tendency to only focus on what is going wrong and not what is going right. So, it is good to get a reminder!
Thanks so much!
I was so grateful when Melanie agreed to tackle the “what’s going right” element — I didn’t have much of a sense myself, so between her post and Katie’s comment, I learned a lot!
I was really glad when Melanie agreed to tackle this — because admittedly, I fall into the camp of just assuming there wasn’t a lot of good to speak of in the response. Which I think can be easy enough to do when you see the coverage and the numbers, but at the end of the day…well, no one was really prepared for this, right? And while I think people are doing their best generally, the reality is…no one really knows exactly what to do in this situation because we haven’t had to deal with something like this in recent, modern history. Not to mention every place is different (and, in cases like a country as big as the US, states can be very different from one another)…I just think it’s a hard spot to be, you know? I certainly do not envy those who are tasked with making the big decisions because no matter what you do, there’s a cost.
On the complacency thing re: masks and physical distancing, though…that’s definitely not just an American thing. It’s something I’ve started to notice more here in Atlantic Canada, too. Even myself at work — I bring my mask every day and usually have it with me, but I’m not nearly as diligent about slipping it on in the halls as I was when I first went back. Now, that said, if I’m going to a grocery store or the mall or a busy place like that, it’s on before I even get into the building. But I see how people end up in that mindset. Gotta work on that!
This was enlightening. It’s true that all we hear about is the bad news stories. It’s not often that the wins and successes of this pandemic are shared.
I hope that with time, more and more of the right measures will be put in place. It saddens me to see those numbers tick up everyday, knowing that each number is a life.
agree! I think Melanie did a really good job adding some necessary (for me, at least) perspective to this. I think it’s easy to get caught up on the losses as we navigate the pandemic — and fair enough, there have been some very significant losses. But it was nice to see that, as the headline suggestions, it’s not all bad.