Eichengreen: Pandemic’s Most Treacherous Phase—Noted
Barry Eichengreen: The Pandemic’s Most Treacherous Phase https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-pandemic-crisis-will-worsen-in-october-by-barry-eichengreen-2020-09: ‘The more dangerous phase of the crisis in the US may actually be now.... Fatalities are still running at roughly a thousand per day... matches levels at the beginning of April.... Many surviving COVID-19 patients continue to suffer chronic cardiovascular problems and impaired mental function.... [This] new normal['s]... implications for morbidity–and for human health and economic welfare–are truly dire.... Americans[']... current leaders are willing to accept 40,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths a day... inured to the numbers... impatient with lockdowns. They have politicized masks.... Congress seems incapable of replicating the bipartisanship that enabled passage of the CARES Act at the end of March.... If the economy falters a second time, whether because of inadequate fiscal stimulus or flu season and a second COVID-19 wave, it will not receive the additional monetary and fiscal support that protected it in the spring.... If steps are not taken to reassure the public of the independence and integrity of the scientific process, we will be left only with the alternative of “herd immunity,” which, given COVID-19’s many known and suspected comorbidities, is no alternative at all…
.#covid #noted #orangehairedbaboons #2020-09-10
