In a White House press conference on 3.23.2020, President Donald J. Trump assured Americans that the economically painful measures being taken won’t be a more harmful “cure” for the U.S. than the deadly and harmful consequences of the Coronavirus outbreak.
The president took the opportunity to praise Asian Americans and to make it clear that a nationality wasn’t responsible for the COVID19 virus pandemic which purportedly originated in Wuhan, China.
But the president also addressed an issue that has found a growing number of voices who are making the case that the U.S. economy cannot sustain too many months of a virtual shutdown of wide parts of the economy. “We are not going to let the cure be worse than the problem,” President Trump said. While making it clear that he would listen to medical experts advice, he also wants to balance the health impact with economic impact.
As an analogy, the president said: “You look at automobile accidents, which are far greater than what we’re talking about. It doesn’t mean we’re talking about telling people not to drive cars.”
It is part of an issue that has been raised in media ranging from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal or various Fox News shows.
That topic was addressed by an industry professional who forwarded to MHProNews a link to the following.
Per the Daily Wire – “In an op-ed for The New York Times published Friday, David L. Katz, the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, suggests that “our fight against coronavirus” may end up being “worse than the disease.” By taking an “at war” approach to fighting COVID-19 — widespread shutdowns and isolation of the entire population — rather than a “surgical strike” approach focusing on the truly vulnerable, Katz argues, we have set ourselves on the path to “uncontained viral contagion and monumental collateral damage to our society and economy.”
The scenario is difficult whatever decision is made. The death toll in Italy has soared. As more testing is done in the U.S., infection cases and deaths have climbed here too.
There are those who allege that China is lying about their current death toll and infection rate, as the screen capture above exemplified. That same source points to the communist regime’s increased use of what they described as “propaganda,” calling COVID19 the “Trump Virus.”
Epoch Times is an independent publication that Wikipedia describes as follows. “The Epoch Times is a multi-language newspaper founded in 2000 by John Tang and a group of Chinese Americans associated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement.” The paper self-describes like this, Reporting important news other media ignore. Clear, fact-based journalism without spin or hidden agendas: US, politics, China, world, opinion, business…”
Citing Katz, “The data from South Korea, where tracking the coronavirus has been by far the best to date, indicate that as much as 99 percent of active cases in the general population are “mild” and do not require specific medical treatment. The small percentage of cases that do require such services are highly concentrated among those age 60 and older, and further so the older people are. Other things being equal, those over age 70 appear at three times the mortality risk as those age 60 to 69, and those over age 80 at nearly twice the mortality risk of those age 70 to 79.” Katz says that based on the known data, the strategy should be to containment efforts on the elderly and chronically ill, not society at large.
While the president and the Trump Administration have come under fire for the handling of the contagion, there are numbers of examples of those political or media figures who disagreed early on that this was going to be a serious matter in America.
For example, on January 31, the same date as the Trump Administration ordered the travel ban from China – the Washington Post ran an article with the headline, “How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.” On February 2, “Even if it were feasible to contain it, these measures could make us less safe in other ways,” also in the Washington Post.
Of course, since then, other nations have adopted the same stance as the Trump Administration has, increasingly cutting off travel from ‘hot spots’ for the coronavirus outbreak. So those statements and others like it have been proven to be errant.
In New York, Mark D. Levine is the Chair of New York City Council health committee, representing District 7, Uptown Manhattan. As the two screen captures reflect, Levine has done a total flip on his advice. He’s not alone.
Objectively, whatever blame might be leveled at the Trump Administration for their response time could just as easily be applied to prior administrations which failed to establish public and trade policies that might have avoided the currently difficult dynamic.
Democrat Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat and/or his fellow researcher have made several statements since 2018 that called into question the political decisions made in California that drove manufacturing out of their state into China and elsewhere. He also referred to policies in his state as fostering “a new feudalism.”
Kotkin also recently called for a decoupling from China. He is not alone in that, a topic that has drawn some support from voices on both sides of the left-right divide.
Land use and “monopolistic” power and political influence were harming California, Kotkin said. He felt Republicans could capitalize on that, but also doubted that they would do so.
Apart from Kotkin, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – a “never-Trumper” who has locked horns at times with the 45th president, recently praised the administration for their efforts in his state and beyond. The former athlete, TV and movie star invited and introduced HUD Secretary Carson to speak at the Schwarzenegger Institute at USC. In Carson’s address, he favorably raised the subject of manufactured housing.
Economic Fallout Worse than COVID19?
There is a notion that every dark cloud has a potential silver lining, and there are certainly those who are already benefiting from the effects of the pandemic, while other smaller independent businesses suffer.
As a planned upcoming report will reflect, the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) obliquely made the point that MHProNews painted the picture that different states are responding to the outbreak in varied ways. Pennsylvania containment strategies has led to closure orders in their state that will impact HUD Code manufactured home builders. Meanwhile, Illinois’ closure order would not impact a factory builder. More on that in the report linked below.
The point is that the issue has not been black and white since the earliest reports of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. The timeline is critical, because it keeps partisanship out of the discussion and grounds it in reality. But the context above clarifies the presidential tweet below.
Manufactured Housing Exclusive – What’s Coming
As a teaser for what is coming, this COVID19 issue is impacting manufactured housing on a variety of levels and will continue to do so, as our report last night reflected.
MHProNews has an exclusive that is tentatively planned for tomorrow on a specific threat that manufactured home independents face during this spreading shutdown. Stay tuned for that from the industry’s largest, most read and leading trade publication on this and other issues – MHProNews. That’s “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) (See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHLivingNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing. For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com. This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position, and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
The text/image boxes below are linked to other reports, which can be accessed by clicking on them.
Are Manufactured Housing Supply Chains in China Threatened by Coronavirus?
