I imagine this grates on the libertarian ear. It grates on mine. But when you’re fighting for life, you do what works. 

       Trump deserves some credit. He gave the green light to the pharma companies to develop, test and produce vaccines in record time. But he downplayed the disease from the start. He said it would go away, fought with his public-health experts and promoted cures that didn’t work. He hobnobbed and shook hands with politicos and eventually got sick himself. Before, during and after his illness he behaved as if the virus were no big deal. 

       Would a President Biden’s response have been better? On the public health aspects, almost certainly yes. On the vaccine, perhaps not. I can imagine a President Bernie Sanders bullying the pharma companies, which would not have helped.

        But whoever was president, Republican or Democrat, was bound to be too late. East Asia snapped to attention in late January of 2020, when the Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., were fixed on Trump’s impeachment. Several administration officials warned in January of what was coming, but they were ignored. The first U.S deaths from Covid-19 were reported at the end of February in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, 15 miles from where I live. And when that news hit, the US government was not ready. The 50 state governments, Red and Blue alike, were not ready. The hospitals were not ready and the private-sector suppliers were not ready.  

       Probably we couldn’t expect to be ready. Asia was ready because people remembered the SARS epidemic of 2003. We were hardly touched by that. What’s more, we have a different culture. We celebrate rebels. Individuality. Rights. That is who we are, but it is not helpful in fighting an epidemic. Given the American character, the initial response to Covid-19 had to be strong. Decisive. It had to impress people that this was real, it was serious, and that they had better cooperate.

        After the “lockdown” of March and April, the virus spread anyway. The conclusion to draw is not that the effort was all useless; it surely helped to “flatten the curve.” But to have been really effective, the lockdown should have come earlier. As a nation, we were too slow.

       The countries that clamped down earlier, when there were few enough people to use contact tracing and individual quarantine, got better results. The Right needs to acknowledge this. If the United States had a cumulative death rate less than 1 percent of China’s, you’d be hearing about it. If Sweden, with its looser policy, had the best results in Scandinavia — even the same results — you’d be hearing about it. As it is, my political allies seem curiously uninterested in the data.

       Much of the concern among conservatives and libertarians has been the rules that put people out of work. I had a sense of the shutdowns a few weeks ago by walking through downtown Seattle for an hour. It looked like a war zone. Block after block, storefronts are boarded up. Much of it is because of the window-breaking by the Black Lives Matter protesters, and behind the plywood some businesses are still operating. But with Covid-19 they’ve been hit twice, and many are closed. The work-from-home movement has killed the lunch places. 

       I agree that the people’s need to make a living cannot be swept aside by the glib answer, “We have to deal with Covid first.” No; we have to deal with both at the same time. We don’t know how long Covid will hang on, and we can’t have a huge section of the people sitting at home indefinitely, living off government welfare. Businesses have to come up with ways to safely stay open, and officials have to allow them to do that. I’m thinking of the Mexican restaurant I saw in Cle Elum, Wash., last summer: the owner had cut a window in a brick wall so he could serve customers in their cars. He told me that that window had saved the business. In my neighborhood, restaurants set up tables on the sidewalk during the summer. On the other hand, all the buffet restaurants I know of are closed.

        All of these adaptations include the wearing of masks. In its public protests against masks, the Right has made fools of themselves. I’m thinking of a particular Internet wiseacre who mocks the face mask as “the diaper.” I’m not a medical authority, but neither is the Diaper Man, whose expertise is automobiles. 

       I’ll make my stand for masks on the following ideas. First, the people who are authorities — the medical doctors and public-health officials — insist on them. I respect those people. Second, in the cities of East Asia, which has had the best results in the fight against Covid-19, mask-wearing is near-universal. Third, if the virus spreads through droplets in the breath, which scientists say it does, common sense says that covering the mouth should help. Fourth, arguments against masks usually misconstrue their purpose as protecting only the wearer. Their purpose is to stop the spread and thereby protect the community.

       There is another reason for masks. It sends a message. It is a constant reminder to the wearer not to forget: Don’t rub your nose, don’t chew your fingernails, don’t hug other people or shake their hands. Mask-wearing is also a social signal: Hey, you! Stay away from me! And, Where’s your mask? I’m wearing mine!

       I don’t like wearing masks, breathing my own air and struggling to communicate with people by talking through a blanket. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten out of the car and halfway to the store thought, “Damn! I forgot my mask.” But when I get in the store, I am glad that someone required everyone to wear them.

       I do want my freedom — and to live to enjoy it. Right now, though, I think the people in Wuhan, China, have more ground-level personal freedom than I — the freedom to go to a restaurant, to host a hot-pot dinner, to go to work. They have it because of what their government did — which in some respects was too harsh, but was quick enough and thorough enough to stop the virus.

            © 2021 Bruce Ramsey

      I got little reader response to this. The message from conservatives and libertarians is almost entirely anti-vaccine and anti-government. It’s good, I suppose, that people are talking about liberty, but in this case I don’t agree with them.