Laying It Out: We don’t need a pandemic of failed leadership

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on March 14, 2020.

Since I’ve been home sick the past couple days, and since COVID-19 is affecting everyone’s life at this point, I suppose it wouldn’t do much good to do my planned piece, Economists: For Cryin’ Out Loud, Quit Listening.

At the same time, most everyone with a keyboard has the best course of action for dealing with this global pandemic, taking to social media and news comment sections to argue with all the other “experts.” Some are so worried that they think toilet paper will be the next currency, while others jump on our Facebook page to blame “the media” for fear mongering over something “not even as bad as the flu.”

Frankly, I have no problem owning the fact that I don’t know much about this virus, other than having an ability to Google a few statistics, follow the advice of health officials and exercise common sense. Other than that, which most everyone could do, I’m doing what anyone else is – waiting to see what happens next.

No one needs my thoughts on the seriousness of COVID-19, especially when the realization of that changes every day.

Four days ago it was low-risk, and the next day the U.S. cut off travel to Europe. The day after that we cancelled large gatherings and began putting our lives on hold. Then Sophie Grégoire Trudeau caught it and the federal health minister said up to seven in 10 of us could join her.

By the time this reaches you, things will no doubt have changed dramatically, and it doesn’t seem like many people have an overly educated guess on how that turns out. I think concern is smart, while fear is understandable, and I think we should all take steps to better each other’s safety.

That’s all I’ve got for you.

What I will do is discuss the obvious reality of this situation, which is Mother Nature is a force we can’t control and she doesn’t remotely care if she mucks with human creations like, say, the economy.

Whether you’re sad you missed the Brad Paisley concert and can’t watch the Oilers finally not suck, or whether you’re wondering how you might get to work should your kid’s school close, the virus doesn’t care. Whether you’re rich and powerful, or poor and unassuming, the virus doesn’t care. Whether you’re young and likely to slide through it unscathed, or in your golden years and therefore at the highest risk of not making it through at all, the virus doesn’t care.

But maybe most importantly, under this system, the virus does not give a damn how much money is in the budget to cover the cost of containing it. It doesn’t care about money you might lose from lack of work, or lack of customers, and it certainly doesn’t care if provinces or countries go deeper in debt.

It seems to me like this would be a good time to realize that money (something we made up) has no business standing in the way of being alive (something we did not). And if it shouldn’t stand in the way of life, why should it stand in the way of wellbeing?

Don’t get me wrong, on an individual level the monetary effects of something like a global virus can have real consequences – a loss of income always does – and if COVID-19 continues to escalate (see: Italy) those singular ramifications will combine for an economic nightmare.

If that happens, we only have one place to turn – our governments. And in Alberta, should we reach the plausible stage where no one is safe from infection and we start losing lives, is anyone with a heart (or brain) going to care what the cost is to limit the deaths?

Of course not. And that’s the point.

We are social creatures who depend on others for survival, and we live under a system of every person for themselves. It doesn’t make much sense on the best of days, but when Mother Nature starts threatening people en masse, it becomes insane.

Deep down everyone knows this, even if it takes a growing pandemic to surface the mindset. There’s no getting around it – I need your safety to ensure my own, and you need mine.

This system creates winners and losers by definition, but if the losers can’t actually afford to stay safe and healthy, it doesn’t matter a lick if the winners can. In order to deal with that, we’re supposed to have a government that focuses on the preservation of its people.

In Alberta, what we have instead is one that won’t even alter cost-cutting plans in the face of an immediate health crisis.

New rules are set to begin April 1 for physicians, and even as the whole lot – especially those in rural areas – say your safety could be at stake, and as the severity unfolds, our health minister takes to the airwaves to attack their credibility.

It’s pathetic, and it’s dangerous.

A real leader would reverse those changes, if even temporarily, and they would’ve done it last week. Instead, most of the province is begging Tyler Shandro to do it, and he ignores them while his boss flies to Ottawa to ask the isolated PM for money.

If this group won’t even drop the “Alberta is broke” charade long enough to protect people from pandemic… if it won’t prevent money from hindering human safety at a time when its needed most, can you imagine it helping out if we survive, but our bank accounts don’t?

Scott Schmidt is the layout editor at the Medicine Hat News. Contact him at sschmidt@medicinehatnews.com or follow him on Twitter at @shmitzysays. All opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the News’ editorial board.

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