Honest Question? Honest Answer!

Recently I was asked what better idea I had for how the country should handle the current health crisis.

An honest question deserves an honest answer.

The honest answer is this:  I do not know if my idea would be better or even feasible.  However, it would be different.

If anyone had asked me I would have suggested we draw upon the measures used in the US during WW2.

People would have had their wages frozen.  Prices of all goods and services would have been frozen. No manufacturing of cars or boats or motorcycles.  Everything would have been converted to the manufacturing of PPEs.   The PPEs would be manufactured for both medical personnel and the general public.   An emphasis would be placed on the distribution of these supplies in areas hardest hit.

 No more construction of houses or buildings; rather, everything would have been focused on preparing for hospital beds around the country and do so in proportion to populations.  If you have rural areas with fewer people, then you don't allocate resources to that area in the same way you do in areas with higher populations.  It does not mean you leave them behind; rather, you note they don't need as much.

All manufacturing of necessary medicines - not just those used to combat symptoms of Covid-19 -would be pulled back out of foreign countries and done right here in the United States.  Once this crisis is over the manufacturing of those meds can stay right here and we can tell China to keep their meds, we don't need them.

Nurses and Physician Assistants close to graduation and about to be certified would have been authorized to begin practicing.  On the job work would count towards that certification.

If we are having a shortage of medical personnel we look at what kind of supplemental training we need to give to Veterinarians and their assistants.  It's all hands on deck, people.

People want to keep living their lives?  Convinced that wearing a mask is somehow bad for you (of course surgeons wear them for long operations and don't seem to collapse from C02 inhalation but whatever)?  Go ahead.  Live your life.  Do whatever you want.  Instead of the rest of us being held captive by your constant whining, we need to simply prepare for the uptick in cases, the filled up hospital beds and the long wait at the morgue for the bodies of our elderly, our disabled and (now) our young and relatively healthy to be released for their funeral Mass.

Businesses will be required to function at full capacity but just as we ask people to behave in public in a certain way in order to promote the common good?  We do the same now. No shoes?  No service.  No shirt?  No service.  No mask?  No service.  Oh, and if you are trying to convince me that you cannot shop for 20 minutes inside Trader Joe's wearing a mask because you have breathing issues you may have a better chance of convincing me of that if video did show up of you, on YouTube, screaming about it at the top of your (supposedly) fragile lungs.

People - my Mama and Grandma functioned on ration books.  It was tough to get certain things and sacrifices were made in order to meet the needs of our men and women fighting battles.  Gas was rationed, foods were rationed....you want farm to fork?  Plant a Victory Garden.

This is my honest answer.  Is it BETTER?  I don't know.  I am absolutely certain this plan contains flaws.

However, I was asked an honest question and this is my response.

It's a starting point.

Discuss.