Rob Horowitz: Re-Booting our Economy Requires a Better Virus Response

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

 

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The economic costs of our tardy and still inadequate federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic are rapidly mounting.  With an estimated 20 million jobs lost in April, the unemployment rate is approaching 15% and even Trump Administration officials concede it is likely to continue climbing upwards at least in the short-term.

 In response to this dire economic situation, President Trump and some of his allies are attempting to frame the path ahead as a choice between opening up the economy and protecting Americans’ health, painting governors that move more slowly to re-open as impediments to economic recovery.  This attempt to turn the page from the administration’s mishandling of the pandemic fails to recognize that a better more robust public health response to the virus is essential to restoring our economy.

By and large, the nations that moved quicker to shelter-in-place and more rapidly ramped-up testing and contact tracing, such as S. Korea and Germany, have taken a much smaller economic hit than us. Their economies are already recovering.

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We have failed to learn these lessons, still falling far short of the level of testing that is required to help us stay safe as we re-open the nation.  We need to triple our current level of testing, conducting at least 900,000 tests a day, according to recently released estimates from the Harvard Global Health Institute.  These researchers report that only 12 states are currently doing sufficient testing to accurately track and combat the virus. Yet, the Trump Administration still refuses to use the Defense Production Act to secure the supplies needed, creating an inefficient and costly Wild West of procurement where states bid against each other for what remains an insufficient supply to meet the increasing demand.

As we re-open, a robust regimen of testing, contact tracing and isolation is a key to keeping the spread of the virus under control and to people feeling safe enough to frequent businesses and return to public life.  Maintaining social distancing and wearing masks are another important component to opening the economy back up safely.  The failure to provide all the federal support needed for the expanded public health measures required as well as the inconsistent messaging from President Trump on the need to adhere to the guidelines offered by his own coronavirus task force has undermined both these pillars of safe economic re-entry, jeopardizing the economic recovery that he is pushing

In addition to a more robust response to the virus, additional federal funds for small businesses, states and individuals are essential to keep the economy afloat. Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve and liberal and conservative economists alike, mainly agree more federal rescue spending is needed.  Despite some of the push back from Senate Republicans and less favorable noises from the administration, another rescue package is likely to pass in relatively short-order. Still it is unintentionally almost humorous, given that the Trump Administration had nearly doubled the deficit without counting the recent coronavirus spending and done so in good economic times, to listen to Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin say on the Sunday shows that the Administration doesn’t want to bail out states that have mismanaged their finances. 

The path to economic recovery depends on a better virus response.  The sooner President Trump recognizes this inescapable reality and replaces ducking responsibility for combating the virus with seriously addressing it, the sooner our economy will more fully recover.  There are simply no short-cuts.

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Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.

 

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