{"id":3114,"date":"2020-04-28T07:29:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T14:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=3114"},"modified":"2020-04-28T14:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T21:57:42","slug":"we-need-national-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=3114","title":{"rendered":"This is NOT a drill"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Erik Dolson<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Another day lost to the coronavirus, another week gone by.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019re in a row boat, Republicans have the only oar. They row on their side only and around, around we go. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe states will do testing,\u201d Trump says (on Monday, could change any time). Mitch McConnell says \u201cblue\u201d states should be punished for past spending by withholding money needed to pay cops, nurses, firefighters. \u201cLet them go bankrupt,\u201d he says. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing if McConnell\u2019s Kentucky opens up for business today or tomorrow. Agreed, that\u2019s up to their governor. But then, do we restrict travelers from Kentucky because they can\u2019t afford to test? How do we know if Kentucky is a hotbed of virus? If some states test and others do not, do we build walls between them? <\/span><\/p>\n

Once again: The coronavirus is a national<\/i> problem, affecting national<\/i> health and the national<\/i> economy, and requires a coherent national<\/i> response. Here is a minimum national strategy, suggested by someone who knows, Paul Romer, a 2018 Nobel laureate in economics and former chief economist for the World Bank, as reported in the Washington Post:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 federal government should test every American once every two weeks to reestablish national confidence and jump-start the economy \u2014 an effort he estimated at $100\u00a0billion, all told.<\/span><\/p>\n

That cost, he said, pales in comparison to the amount of lost economic activity the pandemic has caused. Romer, an expert in economic modeling, estimates that the United States is losing at least $500\u00a0billion a month in domestic production; other economists have suggested the figure is larger still.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Every month of delay makes the recovery slower \u2014 and take longer,\u2019 Romer said.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not a drill. As Trump flounders, American\u2019s die and prospects for the future grow dim. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

Another day lost to the coronavirus, another week gone by.\u00a0 We\u2019re in a row boat, Republicans have the only oar. They row on their side only and around, around we go. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe states will do testing,\u201d Trump says (on Monday, could change any time). Mitch McConnell says \u201cblue\u201d states should be punished for past spending by withholding money needed to pay cops, nurses, firefighters. \u201cLet them go bankrupt,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing if McConnell\u2019s Kentucky opens up for business today or tomorrow. Agreed, that\u2019s up to their governor. But then, \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[652,660,433,662,661,445],"class_list":["post-3114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coronavirus","tag-mcconnell","tag-republicans","tag-strategy","tag-testing","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-Oe","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3114"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3121,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3114\/revisions\/3121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}