Here We Go Again

A lot of governments around the world are taking a lot of flak right now over Covid-19. They're taking flak from other people in the government and opposition, they're taking flak from some of the health experts, and they're taking flak from people in the media and among the public who have Opinions.

The Governor of New York was on TV a couple of evenings ago demanding to know why the US Federal government isn't making more decisions. Why is it that one state is doing this and one state is doing something else, and decisions are being made on a city by city basis? Shouldn't the feds step in with a coherent plan and apply it everywhere? This problem shouldn't be being approached piecemeal, he said.

Well, unfortunately, he's wrong. It's easy to see why the Governor of New York would like the Feds to make the decisions, because then he wouldn't have to. The responsibility would be on someone else instead of on him. Wouldn't that be nice?

But the infection rate in Washington state or New York is completely different from the infection rate in Wyoming. Even within Washington state, the infection rate and population density in western Washington is very different from the situation in eastern Washington. One size doesn't fit all. The decisions have to be made on a local basis because the locations differ.

( How do you solve a problem like coronavirus? )