Member-only story
Several Politicians Are Making It Clear They’re Not Fit for the Job
When there’s a global pandemic and so many aren’t up for the job, I propose letting these leaders out of their jobs
May, June, and July were months spent training Southern governors on things they should have learned from April from New York. Confident and ignorant are a bad combination.
The governor of Texas at first didn’t think masks were needed. He was sure businesses could open. Wouldn’t take input. Then he learned on the job. It took a while so Abbott started to pull back a bit. Things flattened out a little.
But he stopped enforcing mask orders. Ignored the border. Bragged about how well businesses are doing. Now, Texas has over 500,000 cases, 1,400 deaths this week, and almost 10,000 overall, high positive tests, high hospitalizations. Limited access to tests.
Yet he’s gung ho to open the schools. Why? Because he’s studied the data.
Oh I make myself laugh. Ah, no. Because he’s literal. And he hasn’t seen a problem in schools yet. Georgia school districts that opened under order are already closing. There were 100,000 kids infected the last weeks of July, and studies now show that asymptomatic people may shed the virus equally. Abbott has to learn himself.
Next example is under the cover of darkness, the Department of Health and Human Services cut off Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from releasing hospital data. People were suspicious, but they made clear they had a better system. That system is a week behind and can’t get it right. At least we’re paying a hand-picked vendor!
Why does everybody need to be an experiential learner? At this point in the virus, maybe our elected officials and political appointees can learn to anticipate a bit better, or at all. Or learn from one another.
But we still do it. A lot of smart people have a theory that the reason the curve flattens in states after a month or so is because of underlying cross-immunity that people have. I’ve shared, but not endorsed, that theory here.
You know what this is called? A theory. Is there data that could fit that pattern? Yes. Is there also data…
