Spring and the Corona Luna
An unfolding, yet so far under reported story, A Perfect Storm is Gathering in the South. The author, Margaret Renkl, has become one of my favorite NYT op ed people. She’s had interesting columns on animals and plants in Tennessee and her coverage of the tornadoes that struck Tennessee last month were tender, evoking the good news of community at its best.
When I read this article, it confirmed a conclusion I’d come to while looking at a map of travel reductions over the last month. The map showed blues, greens, tans over most of the U.S., representing significant reductions in miles traveled since the shut down orders began to take effect. There was however a large swath of red, indicating no decrease in travel and in some instances, actual increases. The red outlined the deep South, went over to Texas and up a ways into the Midwest.
This map shows the problem. Travel declined by far the least in the South. A conservative columnist writes that this is demonizing the south. His argument seems to focus on rural areas that require longer trips for essentials like food and medical visits. Thus, the red. Of course, that could have some merit, but it doesn’t explain the other rural counties in states not in the south. Most of them have managed to slow travel.
He also doesn’t take into account the most salient reason for travel remaining high in those states. Their governors, again with some emerging exceptions, have not issued stay at home orders. All Republican. All saying something along the lines of individual liberties come first. My guess? They’re not really so concerned about individual liberties as they are about political backlash if they become “tyrannical” like those governors in other states.
Whether you agree with their logic or not does not matter. What they’ve done is set up an unintentional experiment. Were lock down orders necessary and did they flatten the curve? Or, were they a serious contravention of the right to assemble, the right to go anywhere you damned want? If, over the next few weeks, virus cases begin to abate in the north and west, but not in the south, we’ll have an answer.
If the southern governors were wrong, we’ll still have a huge problem, because the United States is a federation with no passport controls between individual states, much like Europe. The infected will stay be able to move freely and as the rest of the nation begins to open up a bit, the virus will have a chance to take hold again.
Sigh.