November, 2020
Lincoln – Nebraska's leading medical professionals are now in open public conflict with Governor Ricketts about how to deal with Covid-19, which is out of control in Nebraska. From the Omaha World-Herald:
Record numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have prompted health care providers to call for Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts to adopt stricter health measures to stem the spread of the disease.“Nebraska hospitals are suffering,” Dr. Erica Carlsson, an emergency medicine physician at Nebraska Medicine, said on Twitter. “Our ER’s are jam-packed and we are tired. We need real mandates, enforcement of those mandates and action by the government. Nebraskans will suffer and many will die if we keep up this pace of COVID spread.”
Similar messages were posted online by health care providers from the two other Omaha-based health systems....
Ricketts said Thursday that he wanted to wait several more weeks to see the impact of directed health measures put into effect last month...
Several more weeks? At the cost of how many lives? Governor, back away as quickly as you can from your previous positions and start following the advice of medical professionals on the front lines. It is they who are basing their advice on "science and data"; you are not. Stop the claim that mandatory mask requirements are counterproductive; there is no such evidence. Stop threatening local governments with financial penalties if they take more aggressive actions than you propose. Stop your state health department from overruling local officials who are closest to what their local communities need. Stop the nonsense of looking at the trailing indicator of remaining hospital beds as your "North Star" to guide you. The beds are soon full to overflowing, because you have been looking at trailing, not leading, indicators. Nebraska business leaders know that, too, and have aligned themselves with the recommendations of the medical community.
Governor Ricketts is not the only politician acting irresponsibly. Former congressman and mayor of Omaha, Hal Daub, felt ill on election day, went to vote and on his way home obtained at test which proved his suspicions correct: it was Covid. How many people did he infect at the polls?
All of which raises the question of what President-elect Biden can do nationwide to fight the pandemic now, because he does not take office until January 20th and the incumbent president has disengaged himself from consideration of immediate countermeasures against the pandemic.
Recommendation: when Biden appoints his Covid task force this week, he should ask them to come up with suggestions that would have bipartisan support and even get the current administration's agreement for immediate action where possible.
For example, one suggestion would be to have the incumbent president use the Defense Production Act to authorize federal agencies like FEMA, DoD, and DHS to coordinate production and distribution of medical supplies, as well as emerging Covid treatments, among the states. The president has already said he would use federal agencies to distribute vaccines, so this overdue action should not be seen as any fundamental violation of principles of federalism.
Another suggestion would be to obtain early agreement on a Covid legislative package by involving key Republican governors in negotiations to break the current congressional impasse. Governors Charlie Baker, Phil Scott, and Larry Hogan know that getting help to states on a bipartisan basis is crucial to keeping local governments functioning. That assistance would be not only for frontline health workers but also to keep firemen and policemen on the job, which the current administration should surely be ready to support.
A key to combating Covid everywhere is not to wait until January 20th, but to get a running start on bipartisan actions by involving responsible Republican governors immediately.
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P.S. (Three days later) It's good to see the message that we can't wait from UNMC's Dr. Lawler, in the national press. Read it here.
