Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Friday, June 12, 2020

American Exceptionalism

Jeremy Konyndyk in Foreign Affairs (you have to register to read but it's free, all you need is an e-mail address and a password) places the disastrously failed response of the U.S. to the coronavirus pandemic in the context of American exceptionalism. It's fairly long but worth your time. I think he puts too little emphasis on the specific incompetence of our current federal leadership, but the failed response was nevertheless reflected a broad national hubris.

It was possible for the Resident to say that what was clearly happening elsewhere in the world just wouldn't happen here, and for many people, including many who are not his political allies and in general have no respect for him, to believe it. We refused to heed the warning implied by the catastrophic outbreaks in Wuhan, Italy and elsewhere; not did we pay any attention to the positive examples of countries that responded swiftly and effectively, and spared themselves the pain, death and economic disaster that occurred elsewhere -- and has now occurred here.

The delusion of American exceptionalism is still with us, as states are now removing restrictions and people are ignoring public health advice even where the epidemic is now starting to rage out of control. This includes Texas, where "Hospitalizations surged past 2,100 on Wednesday for the first time during the pandemic. That’s a 42% increase in patients since Memorial Day weekend, when beachgoers swarmed Texas’ coastline and a water park near Houston opened to big crowds in defiance of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s orders.Texas’ percentage of tests coming back positive has also jumped to levels that are among the nation’s highest." The state is now recording more than 2,000 new cases every day, but today is allowing restaurant dining rooms to open at near capacity.

Florida is also now above its previous peak of new reported cases, Arizona is rocketing out of control with the line starting to look nearly vertical, South Carolina's curve has a clearly exponential look, Alabama just hit a new peak, Arkansas is marching up steadily to daily new highs -- I could go on but you get the picture. The northeastern states have wrestled this under control, but the places that are likely to host MAGA rallies have completely lost control. Oklahoma, where the first one will happen, is a relatively low prevalence state but has basically plateaued since March and appears to have a recent uptick. Since they're next to both Texas and Arkansas they are likely to be in bigger trouble soon. And of course people will travel from both of those states to Tulsa. 

So I'll hope for the best but I'm not expecting anything good to happen.

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