The Deadly Consequences of America’s War On Science.
If you read just one sentence in this post it is this: please wear a mask when leaving your house. Even if you think there is only a 5% chance that masks are effective, isn’t it worth it to have a chance to save lives? It is cheap and a minor inconvenience. I am begging you, please wear a mask. Here is Dr. Birx pleading for people to wear masks, which she explains could cut deaths in half.
More than 130,000 people in the United States have died due to COVID-19. Tens of thousands of these deaths were preventable. The United States has produced the leading research on understanding this coronavirus. Other countries, for example, Germany, have used this research to implement policies to limit the number of cases and spread of the coronavirus. In doing so, they have reduced transmissions and deaths by 70%. This research has also guided policy around the world with impressive results. Germany isn’t the outlier, the United States is. Why are U.S. policies so out of sync with its own science?
Scientific Consensus on COVID-19
It cannot be blamed on public health officials who have repeatedly provided rigorously researched policy proposals and guidelines that go ignored. Dr. Fauci keeps reminding us that the U.S. has never seen the end of its first peak and correctly warned that opening too soon and too fast would lead to the exponential rise in cases that we are currently witnessing.
In response, Texas Lt. Governor said in an interview with Fox News
National, state, and county health officials have pleaded for mandates on mask-wearing in public and continue to be ignored, especially in Republican strongholds. These officials are being silenced or even attacked. Many are resigning as a result.
Republican Ideology and Science Denialism
I do not want to write a partisan post, but it is simply a fact that U.S. coronavirus policies have been largely determined by the growth of science denialism within the Republican Party. There has always been a strain of anti-intellectualism in the United States, largely cultivated by its most extreme conservative Christians. The present-day war on science, however, has been subsumed into Republican ideology. This is best illustrated by examining the issue of climate change. The science on climate change is clear and indisputable. Even the U.S.’s most conservative institutions agree on the seriousness of the climate crisis. The Department of Defense, for example, has long listed climate change as one of the top threats to American national security. Most Republicans, however, insist the science is just wrong or indeterminate. Regardless of the scientific consensus on climate change or how conservative the institution that published the data, this group argues that the figures, data, and conclusions are manipulated. Even those Republicans with high levels of scientific knowledge tend to distrust environmental scientists while trusting the scientific conclusions on other issues. If basic science is persistently repudiated when it challenges ideological views, it is not surprising that much of the science on COVID-19 is ignored by Republicans.
The evidence is unambiguous; we could save tens of thousands of lives just by adopting a nationwide mandate on wearing masks. And yet we fail to do so. Even most states do not have a statewide policy mandating masks. As they watch their hospitals fill up, Republican Governors have announced policies that would allow cities to make masks mandatory. That this is a new concession after months of the virus is appalling. Without a national strategy for implementing necessary measures such as masks and social distancing, Dr. Fauci has stated repeatedly that we will be unable to get a handle on the crisis.
Scientific facts are dispassionate by definition. But these numbers represent so many people who died unnecessarily. There are no figures on the hundreds of thousands of others who are left with life long disabilities. This should make your heart ache for those who have been lost. It should make you angry about a government who tells outrageous lies about the containment of the virus. We all feel helpless right now, but anger can be productive if it leads to action. We should all be putting more pressure on our local and national leaders to protect us. Every small action can lead to a larger change.