ResCon1

Placing Trump’s Response to the Coronavirus in Historical Perspective

Placing Trump’s Response to the Coronavirus in Historical Perspective

By John R Guardiano on March 18, 2020

Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan were each responsible for monumental policy failures. Yet, they emerged from these crises with their honor and integrity intact.

We cannot, sadly, say the same of President Trump.

To appreciate how wrong and contemptible President Trump’s lies and evasion of responsibility are re: his administration’s weak and tardy response to the coronavirus, it is helpful to review how other America presidents have responded when they erred and failed at times of national crisis.

Kennedy. Here is what President Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs debacle:

There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan.

I’ve said as much as I feel can be usefully said by me in regard to the events of the past few days. Further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility, because I’m the responsible officer of the government… and that is quite obvious—

But merely because I do not believe that such a discussion would benefit us during the present difficult situation.

Kennedy was not excessively self-critical, and he did not wallow in self-abasement. However, he did man up and forthrightly accept responsibility for the Bay of Pigs debacle.

The American people respected Kennedy for owning up to his failure, forgave him, and rallied to his side with a spectacular 70-percent-plus approval rating. The country moved on.

Carter. Here is what President Carter said after the botched Iranian hostage rescue mission aka Operation Eagle Claw:

Late yesterday, I cancelled a carefully planned operation which was underway in Iran to position our rescue team for later withdrawal of American hostages, who have been held captive there since November 4. Equipment failure in the rescue helicopters made it necessary to end the mission…

I made a decision to commence the rescue operations plans. This attempt became a necessity and a duty. The readiness of our team to undertake the rescue made it completely practicable.

Accordingly, I made the decision to set our long-developed plans into operation.

I ordered this rescue mission prepared in order to safeguard American lives, to protect America’s national interests, and to reduce the tensions in the world that have been caused among many nations as this crisis has continued.

It was my decision to attempt the rescue operation. It was my decision to cancel it when problems developed in the placement of our rescue team for a future rescue operation. The responsibility is fully my own.

Carter ended up losing the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan, in no small part because of the Iranian hostage debacle. However, in the aftermath of the failed hostage rescue attempt, Carter’s support did not collapse.

To the contrary: a Gallup poll conducted roughly a week later (May 1, 1980) showed Carter with a 51-36 percent lead over his Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Carter, moreover, would go on to narrowly lose the Michigan Caucuses to Kennedy, 48-46 percent, before winning 11 of the next 12 primaries en route to capturing the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Again, the American people were quite forgiving of presidential failure. They understood that, despite whatever disagreements and doubts they had about Carter, he was nonetheless a good and decent man trying his level best to do right by them and the country.

Reagan. Here is President Reagan acknowledging to the American people that, despite his intentions to the contrary, his administration did, in fact, sell arms for hostages to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism:

My fellow Americans, I’ve spoken to you from this historic office on many occasions and about many things. The power of the Presidency is often thought to reside within this Oval Office. Yet it doesn’t rest here; it rests in you, the American people, and in your trust.

Your trust is what gives a President his powers of leadership and his personal strength, and it’s what I want to talk to you about this evening.

For the past three months, I’ve been silent on the revelations about Iran. And you must have been thinking, “Well, why doesn’t he tell us what’s happening? Why doesn’t he just speak to us as he has in the past when we’ve faced troubles or tragedies?”

Others of you, I guess, were thinking, ”What’s he doing hiding out in the White House?”

Well, the reason I haven’t spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And, as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion.

There’s been enough of that.

I’ve paid a price for my silence in terms of your trust and confidence. But I have had to wait, as you have, for the complete story.

Notice how Reagan emphasized presidential trust and candor, and the importance of speaking truthfully to the American people. Notice, too, that he felt the need to apologize for not being communicative enough! (Of course, they didn’t have Twitter back then.)

Reagan explained that he had appointed a special review board to investigate what had happened, and that the board had just issued its findings.

Let’s start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated in its implementation into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to Administration policy and to the original strategy we had in mind.

There are reasons why it happened but no excuses. It was a mistake.

I undertook the original Iran initiative in order to develop relations with those who might assume leadership in a post-Khomeini Government. It’s clear from the board’s report, however, that I let my personal concern for the hostages spill over into the geopolitical strategy of reaching out to Iran.

I asked so many questions about the hostages’ welfare that I didn’t ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan…

As I told the Tower board, I didn’t know about any diversion of funds to the contras. But as President, I cannot escape responsibility…

Now what should happen when you make a mistake is this: You take your knocks, you learn your lessons and then you move on. That’s the healthiest way to deal with a problem.

This in no way diminishes the importance of the other continuing investigations, but the business of our country and our people must proceed…

You know, by the time you reach my age, you’ve made plenty of mistakes, and if you’ve lived your life properly, so you learn. You put things in perspective. You pull your energies together. You change. You go forward.

My fellow Americans, I have a great deal that I want to accomplish with you and for you over the next two years, and, the Lord willing, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Goodnight and God bless you.

Reagan’s Triumph. And God Bless President Reagan. He did, in fact, go on to deliver one of the greatest and most historically consequential speeches in world history: at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, June 12, 1987.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

The walls were torn down; Eastern Europe was liberated; the Soviet Union was defeated; and the Cold War was won. America, meanwhile, enjoyed continued peace and prosperity; and Reagan finished up his second term a highly popular, successful, and respected two-term president.

Now, compare that to how President Trump has handled the coronavirus. NBC News White House correspondent Geoff Bennett has compiled a timeline of Trump’s key remarks dating back to January when the coronavirus first emerged in the public consciousness:

To this disgraceful list we should add other damning Trump statements or admissions. NBC News reports:

Asked Friday at his press conference by NBC News’ Kristen Welker whether he should take responsibility for the failure to disseminate larger quantities of tests earlier, Trump declined.

“I don’t take responsibility at all,” he said.

Trump also responded testily to a question from another reporter about a decision made by the administration in 2018 to disband the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense — a unit sometimes referred to as the White House pandemic office.

Trump called the question “nasty” and replied, “I didn’t do it.”

“You say we did that, [but] I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said.

In addition to having insisted for weeks that he had the outbreak under control, Trump has also propagated personal beliefs about the coronavirus that contradict those of veteran health officials and experts.

Then today, Trump tweeted this bald-faced lie:

This tweet would be laughable were the matter not so serious, with tens of thousands of American lives hanging in the balance.

Again, as we have reported here at ResCon1, Trump’s China ban was the one praiseworthy decision that he made early on in this crisis. However, it was hardly a game changer, because it never was combined with rapid and comprehensive testing to prevent community spread of the virus.

Forgiveness. In any case, mistakes and errors are forgivable and can be excused. In fact, as our history shows, the American people are quite forgiving of presidents who make mistakes, acknowledge their error, and seek forgiveness.

What is unforgivable, though, is refusing to acknowledge error and then compounding the error by lying repeatedly about it. And that, unfortunately, describes the all-too-characteristic behavior of Trump. George Conway captures this character flaw well:

But responsibility? Never. Ever the blameless narcissist, Trump always insists that the buck stops wherever convenient—for him, personally.

For Trump, success always has a single father—himself. Failure has a hundred—everyone and anyone else: The media. The Democrats. The “deep state.” Disloyal staffers. Prosecutors. Judges.

Anyone who doesn’t do his bidding or sufficiently sing his praises.

And the common thread between his taking credit and shifting blame? Trump’s standbys: Lying, deceit and exaggeration. All have come into play throughout his presidency, and all now have come home to roost.

Feature photo credit: Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times.

Hold Trump Accountable for the Crisis Surrounding the Coronavirus

Hold Trump Accountable for the Crisis Surrounding the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on March 17, 2020

We’ve noted here at ResCon1 that President Trump’s failure to act early and decisively on the coronavirus has endangered American lives and forced the United States to take even more draconian measures than otherwise would have been necessary.

Trump’s apologists, however, are pushing back and telling us that we shouldn’t “politicize” this crisis.

Instead, they assert, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly), that we should rally around the president, who presumably is now taking the requisite bold and resolute actions necessary to combat the coronavirus.

As Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen put it on Fox News Special Report Monday night, March 16, 2020:

Well, it [politics] shouldn’t creep in. I mean, this is a time when we should come together as a nation [and] put aside partisanship, put aside the backbiting.

Look, after this is all over, I’m sure we’re gonna have a 9/11 commission-style investigation that’s gonna look through [all of this]—not to lay blame, but to figure out, just as we did after 9/11: where were the gaps; what didn’t work; what failed; what succeeded?

So [that] when the next pandemic comes around, we can fix it. But this is not the time for laying blame.

Nice try, but Thiessen has it exactly wrong and backward. In a representative democracy such as ours, and with a presidential election fast approaching now is exactly the time for “laying blame”—or, to be more precise:

Now is exactly the time to hold our elected leaders—especially the top political leader with the most responsibility and authority for protecting and safeguarding the American people—accountable for their what they did and did not do as the gathering storm approached.

Thiessen’s plea to “put aside the backbiting” echoes Trump’s own call to “end the finger-pointing.” But as David Frum points out in The Atlantic:

It’s a strange thing for this president of all presidents to say. No American president, and precious few American politicians, have ever pointed so many fingers or hurled so much abuse as Donald Trump.

What he means, of course, is: Don’t hold me to account for the things I did—[and did not do, but should have done].

But he did do them, and he owns responsibility for those things. He cannot escape it, and he will not escape it.

In short, bemoaning the “politicization” of this crisis is a transparent attempt to try and evade or avert responsibility and accountability for a leader’s actions and failings.

Accountability is important because, as I observed last week when calling on the Senate to censure Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

The failure and unwillingness of institutions—churches, schools, corporations, professional societies, et al.—to maintain standards of professional conduct, and to police and disciplined their own, is a big reason institutions increasingly have lost the public’s trust and confidence, and, with that, their ability to mold the American character and shape the nation’s destiny.

This is not an insight unique to me, or even one that I can claim credit for.

Instead, as I’ve reported here at ResCon1, Yuval Levin makes this point brilliantly in a new and important book: A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.

Our political institutions, including the Congress and the Presidency, are like any other institution, but arguably more important than other institutions because of the scope and magnitude of their responsibility.

Thus if we wish to maintain public trust and confidence in our political leaders and institutions, then we must hold these leaders and institutions accountable for their actions—and for when they fail to act.

This is not a partisan point for me. That’s why I called on the Senate to censure Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer; and it is why I insist that we hold Republican President Donald Trump to account as well

If Senator Schumer had acknowledged wronging and offered a sincere, good-faith apology after threatening two Supreme Court justices, then his censure might not be necessary.

If, likewise, President Trump had acknowledged that he wrongly minimized the coronavirus and mishandled the problem, then perhaps we could simply “move on.” But he didn’t and we can’t.

And we shouldn’t. Our political leaders need to know that their misdeeds and failings will not be ignored and whitewashed for reasons of political expediency.

Instead, they will be held to account by we the American people, and by the institutions of American democracy: because here the people rule, and we expect and demand no less.

For this reason, President Trump should be forced to explain why he didn’t push for early and rapid testing of the coronavirus on a mass scale, and why he continually minimized the problem and suggested that it would disappear.

And the American people should consider Trump’s response—or non-response—when, this fall, they decide who will serve as president for the next four years.

Feature photo credit: Red Blue Divide.

Finding Humor Amid the Doom and Gloom of the Coronavirus

Finding Humor Amid the Doom and Gloom of the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on March 16, 2020

The coronavirus has cast a pall over the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has urged Americans to cancel events with 50 or more people, and President Trump has declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency.

The need for extreme social distancing to prevent our hospitals and our healthcare system from being overwhelmed and brought to the breaking point may mean that this emergency extends throughout the summer, Trump warns.

The stock market, meanwhile, has lost nearly a third of its value (32 percent) since Feb. 12. As a point of comparison, “between Oct. 24 and Nov. 13, 1929 [at the start of the Great Depression], stocks fell by 33 percent,” reports Bloomberg’s Joe Nocera.

During such depressing times, it is important to find instances of levity or black humor to help relieve the stress and anxiety that threaten us all. Here are two such instances that we think will bring a smile to your face.

First, you know things have gotten bad when even Islamist terrorist groups are warning their adherents to avoid London, Milan, and Paris because, well, it’s gotten too damn dangerous there!

Second, professional and collegiate athletes have all been canceled. March Madness? Gone! Spring Training? Hasta la vista! Opening Day? Not this year!

Professional basketball and hockey? No dice! The PGA Tour? Forget about it! The Kentucky Derby? Not in Kentucky and not in any of these United States!

Heck, even professional bowling (if that’s your thing) probably has been canceled, given the CDC’s edict—er, I mean, recommendation!—against gatherings of 50 or more people.

Yet, not to worry: ESPN “has you covered” with 24/7 programming. But covered with what, exactly? Not sports, because there are none anymore. Instead, ESPN has you covered with wall-to-wall bloviation!

Now, look: I love Stephen A. Smith as much as the next red-blooded-American sports fan. But as good as he is—and he is very good—there’s only so much of him that you can take in any one day or week.

Ditto Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. Pardon the Interruption and perish the thought; but what, exactly, are they gonna argue about if there’s nothing happening in the sports world to argue about?

The good old days? The 1969 Mets? The ’85 Bears? Dentures? Their latest hip replacement surgery? I mean: Come on, man!

Feature photo credit: The Patriot Post.

Trump’s Failure to Act Early on the Coronavirus Has Endangered American Lives

Trump’s Failure to Act Early on the Coronavirus Has Endangered American Lives

By John R Guardiano on March 15, 2020

President Trump is obviously not responsible for the coronavirus. However, he is responsible for his administration’s weak and tardy response to the coronavirus— and for failing to anticipate the gravity of the problem, even as evidence mounted in other countries (such as Italy) that without early and decisive action tens of thousands of Americans, potentially, could die.

Trump, moreover, has repeatedly downplayed the problem; lied about the availability of testing to address the problem; shirked responsibility for confronting the problem; and, most pathetically and disgracefully, tried to blame others—mainly his predecessor, Barack Obama—for his own (Trump) administration’s belated and inadequate response to the problem.

Trump’s loyal base may not hold him accountable for his utter inability to lead during this crisis, but history surely will. Indeed, as Peter Wehner observes in The Atlantic:

The president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors—most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain.

These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security.

What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it.

Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.

Leadership. Let’s be clear. Bureaucratic errors happen. No one blames Trump for bureaucratic errors that are beyond his control.

But that’s why we elect political leaders: to ensure that bureaucratic errors are quickly corrected and do not forestall the type of timely and decisive action needed to safeguard the American people during a crisis.

Yet, there is absolutely no evidence that Trump acted with dispatch even as the federal bureaucracy literally stopped or prevented early testing for the coronavirus.

To the contrary: Trump was more concerned with downplaying what he said was a minor problem that would soon disappear.

But we don’t elect presidents so that, in times of national crisis, they can throw up their hands and blame the bureaucracy (or their predecessor three years removed), which is what Trump has done. Instead, we elect presidents so that they can tame, manage, and rein in the bureaucracy.

The Republicans who foisted Trump upon us called this “draining the swamp” and “putting America first.” Yet, when it mattered most, Trump was asleep at the switch.

He didn’t drain the swamp; he bathed in it. And he didn’t put America first; he put his own twisted political priorities first.

Trump admitted, for instance, that he preferred to leave Americans stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of California after it was discovered that some of the passengers there were infected with the coronavirus.

Politico’s Dan Diamond reports that “health department officials and Vice President Mike Pence came up with a plan to evacuate thousands of passengers” as a way to stop the virus from spreading and infecting many more people as had happened on a similar cruise ship, the Diamond Princess.

“But President Donald Trump had a different idea,” Diamond writes: “Leave the infected passengers on board—which would help keep the number of U.S. coronavirus cases as low as possible.”

Wehner reports:

“I like the numbers,” Trump said. “I would rather have the numbers stay where they are. But if they want to take them off, they’ll take them off.

“But if that happens, all of a sudden your 240 [cases] is obviously going to be a much higher number, and probably the 11 [deaths] will be a higher number too.”

Cooler heads prevailed, and over the president’s objections, the Grand Princess [cruise ship] was allowed to dock at the Port of Oakland.

Travel Ban. Trump did one thing right. On Jan. 31, he banned most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. That bough us time and helped stop the spread of the virus.

But this was a relatively modest measure that, in itself, is woefully inadequate unless combined with rapid and comprehensive testing, which was never forthcoming.

Yet, Trump talks of his China travel ban as if it were a game changer, which it most definitely was not.

Trump’s subsequent actions have been uninspiring and largely beside the point.

Last week, he imposed more travel restrictions on Europe. But as his own former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, has explained, additional travel restrictions now aren’t of much help since the virus is already widespread.

“We have nearly as much disease here in the U.S. as the countries in Europe,” Bossert tweeted. “We must focus on layered community mitigation measures. Now.”

Testing. For this same reason, even additional testing is, at this late point, of limited use. The time to test was six to weight weeks ago, when Trump was still in denial and insisting that everything was manageable and well contained.

Testing, after all, is most important early on before a virus has spread throughout a country or region. When relatively few people are infected, it is more feasible to limit or contain contact spread of the virus from person to person.

But we are long past that point with the coronavirus, which epidemiologists say is now widespread, albeit underreported, in the United States.

That doesn’t mean we should give up on testing; we shouldn’t and we aren’t. But at this point, extreme social distancing is our best and most effective preventative measure. Testing will have limited public health utility or benefit.

Meanwhile, in the absence of presidential leadership, leaders in state and local government, as well as the private sector, have stepped forward to fill the leadership void left by Trump. Indeed, as the New York Times Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman report:

Within the United States, as the coronavirus spreads from one community to another, he [Trump] has been more follower than leader.

While he presents himself as the nation’s commanding figure, Mr. Trump has essentially become a bystander as school superintendents, sports commissioners, college presidents, governors and business owners across the country take it upon themselves to shut down much of American life without clear guidance from the president…

Beyond travel limits and wash-your-hands reminders, Mr. Trump has left it to others to set the course in combating the pandemic and has indicated he was in no rush to take further action.

That was Thursday, March 12. On Friday, March 13, in an effort to regain the initiative and control the political and media narrative, Trump gave another, better-received address with business executives at the White House. But it was too little too late I’m afraid.

The die has been cast. Trump’s failures of leadership are too many too count, too grave, and too consequential.

Buck Passing. Harry Truman famously said that, as president, “the buck stops here,” with him. The president is responsible for what happens on his watch.

Truman was right then, and what he said then still applies today: The buck stops with the president.

Unfortunately and sadly, as president, Trump is more interested in buck passing than in assuming the responsibilities of the office to which he was elected.

We can only hope and pray that tens of thousands of American do not pay the ultimate price for Trump’s inability and unwillingness to lead, and his failure to act with dispatch when it mattered most.

Feature photo credit: Bastiaann Slabbers /Nurphoto /Getty via The Atlantic.

‘Don’t Panic!’: What I Got Right—and Wrong—About the Coronavirus

‘Don’t Panic!’: What I Got Right—and Wrong—About the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on March 14, 2020

The similarities to the influenza virus or flu are important; but more important right now are the differences, and those differences can be stark.

As ‘social distancing’ fast becomes national policy to avert the worst potential ravages of the coronavirus, the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan makes a good point about the commonplace advice, “Don’t Panic!”, and the much-used qualifier, “out of an abundance of caution.”

Now it’s time to lose the two most famous phrases of the moment. One is “Don’t panic!” The other is “an abundance of caution.”

“Don’t panic” is what nervous, defensive people say when someone warns of coming trouble. They don’t want to hear it, so their message is “Don’t worry like a coward, be blithely unconcerned like a brave person.”

One way or another we’ve heard it a lot from administration people.

This is how I’ve experienced it:

“Captain, that appears to be an iceberg.” “Don’t panic, officer, full steam ahead.”

“Admiral, concentrating our entire fleet in one port seems tempting fate.” “We don’t need your alarmist fantasies, ensign.”

“We’re picking up increased chatter about an al Qaeda action.” “Your hand-wringing is duly noted.”

“Don’t panic,” in the current atmosphere, is a way of shutting up people who are using their imaginations as a protective tool. It’s an implication of cowardice by cowards.

As for “abundance of caution,” at this point, in a world-wide crisis, the cautions we must take aren’t abundant, they’re reasonable and realistic.

Reason and realism are good.

Point well made and point well taken, Ms. Noonan. I should, therefore, offer up my own mea culpa.

In Obesity Is a Much More Dangerous Public Health Problem Than the Coronavirus (March 10), I wrongly downplayed the risk of the coronavirus and criticized the resultant “public panic (or at least [the] media panic).”

I was not entirely wrong. For the vast majority of us, obesity is a much more dangerous public health problem than the coronavirus.

And the media does have a tendency to sensationalize and distort public health problems—especially, when these problems (or at least the tardy and weak response to these problems) can be attributed to President Trump and his administration.

However, as I made clear in my last piece, Social Distancing’ Will Stop the Coronavirus and Save Lives (March 13), the risk posed by COVID-19 is very real, albeit much less real to any one of us than to the healthcare system in general.

Case in point: Italy’s healthcare system, which is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of COVID-19-infected patients who require care.

Similarly, in The Coronavirus Is a Public Health Problem, But It Is Not a Death Sentence (Feb. 29), I compared the coronavirus to the influenza virus or flu, and noted that “despite the surprisingly high number of flu-induced deaths or fatalities, there is no widespread fear or panic over the influenza virus.”

Influenza v. Coronavirus. Again, this is true, but it misses the point: While the coronavirus and influenza virus are similar, there are important differences—differences that legitimately can and should cause much greater public concern over the coronavirus.

The most significant differences appear to be the fatality rate and the incidence of severe and complicating illness.

The fatality rate for both the coronavirus and flu are low; however, the fatality rate for the coronavirus is significantly higher, and not just for the elderly, but for younger age groups as well. Ditto the incidence of severe and complicating illness.

Tomas Puyeo, who has done an extensive analysis of the coronavirus, says “countries that are prepared” will see a fatality rate of roughly .5 percent (South Korea) to roughly .9 percent (mainland China excluding Wuhan, where the virus originated).

“Countries that are overwhelmed” by the virus (Italy, for instance) will have a fatality rate of between three percent and five percent, roughly, he notes.

Scott Gottlieb, a medical doctor and former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Trump administration, appears to concur with this estimate.

Here in the United States, Gottlieb told CBS News’ Face the Nation, “the fatality rate [from the coronavirus] might not reach one percent,” but it’s also not gonna be as low as we routinely see for the seasonal flu (.1 percent) or a mild flu outbreak (.05 percent).

While these obviously are small percentages either way, the differences are significant—and they can have large and dramatic effects on our healthcare system, especially when dealing with a U.S. population of more than 327 million people. One percent, of course, is 10 times .1 percent.

Severity. Which means that the fatality rate for the coronavirus could be 10 times what we see for the flu.

“And it’s not just older Americans, as tragic as that is,” says Gottlieb. “If you look at 40-year-olds, the case fatality rate has been anywhere between .2 and .4 percent. So that means as many as one in 250 forty- to fifty-year-olds who get this [virus] could die from it.”

Moreover, as Julie McMurry, MPH, observes at FlattenTheCurve:

Mortality is not the full picture: Italy reports that 10% of cases need not just hospitalization but also ICU care—and they need that care over a period of 3-6 weeks. This is unsustainable.

Even if these figures are inflated because they reflect the experience of other countries with less capable and less advance healthcare systems, the fact remains that, as National Public Radio’s Fran Kritz and Pien Huang report, relying upon data from the World Health Organization and China:

[For] about 1 in 5 patients, the infection gets worse. About 14 percent of cases can develop into severe disease, where patients may need supplemental oxygen.

And 6 percent of cases become critical and may experience septic shock—a significant drop in blood pressure that can lead to stroke, heart or respiratory failure, failure of other organs or death.

“The bad news is the other 20 percent get the illness severe enough to require hospitalization,” reports NBC News’ Elizabeth Chuck.

These patients may not be reflected in the mortality rates for the coronavirus. However, their condition is quite serious and imposes a real burden on the healthcare system.

And that is the point. If too many people contract the coronavirus too quickly and it spreads too rapidly, we risk overwhelming our healthcare system such that it cannot cope with the volume of patients who require care.

We then could be in the unenviable position of northern Italy—which, as I have reported, is now forced to ration care and make heart-wrenching decisions about whom to treat and whom to let die.

Acknowledging Error. I offer up this mea culpa because, as I’ve explained, my intent here at ResCon1 is to pursue the truth regardless of the consequences. That means acknowledging my own errors in reporting and analysis, even as I criticize others for theirs.

As a classical (19th Century) liberal or modern-day (20th Century) conservative, I believe that truth is best served by a free and unfettered marketplace of ideas, where open competition and public scrutiny enhance knowledge and understanding.

Indeed, none of us has—none of us can have—a monopoly on the truth. And this is especially true when it concerns a rapidly unfolding story about a new and challenging topic such as the coronavirus.

For this reason, we must acknowledge our mistakes and strive to do better. It is in that spirit, that I readily acknowledge my own mistakes and misperceptions.

Feature photo credit: Peggy Noonan as shown in the Wall Street Journal.