Caught with our pants down...

"America, pull your pants up! In fact, put your big boy pants on. We have work to do, and we can't do it by cowering in our basements like scared children. We need to live. We need to enjoy. We need to produce. Time to fight back."  

We are 2/3 the way through April right now, and this COVID - 19 thing has been with us since January 21, 2020, when the first US case was confirmed in Seattle. That was three short months ago today. My wife and I were getting ready to celebrate our grandson's 5th birthday. Shortly after his birthday, we were leaving the state and headed south. First, to visit my wife's cousin, then her brother in Florida, and finally some good friends further south in Florida. After that, we were going to set up shop in Pensacola, and enjoy the Florida spring weather until early March. COVID - 19? Never entered our thinking.

In 90 short days, we have gone from the first confirmed case of COVID - 19 (Wuhan virus) in Seattle, to over 40,000 dead from this virus in the United States. The Wuhan virus is now everywhere, and few counties in the US have avoided it. It came upon us like a fast moving storm, and how we reacted to it, was nothing less than amateurish. In 90 days we have gone from the "Roaring 20's", to almost a dead stop. Much of that is because (collectively), we got caught with our pants down. We were just about totally unprepared for an event such as this.

First off, let me say something I have said since the get-go. This is China's fault. Not Trump's, not Congress, not the red team, not the blue team - China's fault. How we have reacted to it however, has been poor, and on us. How so?

• Schools - Basically, letting the kids start their online learning at home in March, was a good idea gone wrong. We already know that many students did not look upon this pause in going into a school, as continuing learning from home. Nope. To many, it was just an extension of a very long summer vacation. We may be learning a lot on how to handle this in the future, but today's kids are paying the price of our being unprepared.
• Work Place - Talk about killing an insect with a sledge hammer, that is what we did to our industry. Today, in that short period of 90 days since our first case in Seattle, many places of employment sit empty, and workers who want to work, are sitting at home -doing nothing. Unemployment is sky high, GDP is nose diving, and more and more small businesses are throwing in the towel. Why? Rather than figuring out how to work safely in this new environment, instead we flinched. Basically, just shut down the economy. This has been a major fail, brought to us most by our Governors.
• Medical Supplies - We really got caught with our pants down on this one. After going through some close calls with SARS, MERS, Swine Flu and so on, one would think we would have had emergency supplies coming out of our ears, should we ever have an emergency such as this. Nope. It has been close to a disaster in many areas, especially our "hot spots". This has been a mess of the highest order, and when the dust settles, heads should roll because of it.
• Hospitals - For some reason, known to only a few, hospitals did a major flinch on this one. Most hospitals were set aside for this major influx of COVID - 19 casualties. No seeing your family doc (except for a dire emergency), and no elective surgeries. All of a sudden, the life blood of our medical system (money from normal operations) - was gone. Even a healthy hospital like Mayo, had to cut the wages of 20,000 employees to stay afloat. Now that we know the "models" we were using for this of disaster were way off, the hospitals are still not taking normal patients. Why not? Someone needs to tell me. Hospitals get a huge "F" on this one.

I could go on, but it is too depressing. This has been like Hurricane Katrina on steroids. Collectively, we have been flat footed as well looking like a deer in the headlights. In 90 days, just about everything we hold dear and normal, has gone from thrills to chills. So where do we go from here? We need to look at the pot holes we stepped in during the past few weeks, and learn not to step in any more of them. In other words, we can not fix what China has broken (or created), but we can fix what we broke in how we reacted to it. 

We need bold, decisive leadership right now. Putting a pause on letting immigrants into the country, is a good example of that. Getting people back to work in a safer environment before May 1st, would even be a better example of bold leadership. We all know we need to live with this Wuhan virus - maybe forever. And that really sucks. But to keep flinching instead of living our lives, will do nothing but allow the virus to win the day.

America, pull your pants up! In fact, put your big boy pants on. We have work to do, and we can't do it by cowering in our basements like scared children. We need to live. We need to enjoy. We need to produce. Time to fight back.