Is Our Soft Reopening Soft Enough?
- fionacsweet
- May 4, 2020
- 2 min read
As I'm sure you all have heard, the United States is slowly reopening. Many states have adopted a "safer at home" order that eases social distancing restrictions and opens smaller local stores. Beaches have been opened back up and people are flocking to them in the new heat of summer. But was our initial mitigation effective enough for this grand reopening? Are states that have opened up nonessential services, such as restaurants or hairdressers, really in a good enough place to do that without consequences?
According to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, "While mitigation didn't fail, I think it's fair to say that it didn't work as well as we expected." He believes that the American population taking advantage of the new reopenings will result in a steady stream of cases over the summer with a large spike when students go back to school in the fall.
The interesting thing (I believe) is that the United States recorded their deadliest day with 2,909 deaths last Thursday, the day before many states loosened their shelter-in-place restrictions. I believe that this loosening of restrictions is due to citizen discomfort.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told ABC News that he rescinded his order to require Ohioans to wear face masks because he believed that they were not following it. He thought that this order was "a bridge too far" in government regulation. I feel like this is the same argument as teachers not assigning homework during shelter-in-place because they believe that none of their students will do it. When it is put this way, it seems rather ridiculous to me personally. The students that do the work will benefit from it, and the students that do not do the work will be behind and will feel the loss of knowledge later in life (whether that be in college or in a job or in the contracting of coronavirus). But not assigning homework at all fails to help the students that do want to learn and improve themselves and shows the students that they were right in not wanting to do the work as it is not important, just as not requiring people to wear masks will likely cause citizens to feel justified that wearing masks outside was an overstep and therefore not important. Having half or even a quarter of your state following safety precautions seems a whole lot better than none of your state. I'm pretty sure that that math checks out, but I'm just a teen.
By: Fiona Sweet
Comments