U.S. Army photo by Maj. Scot Keith/Creative Commons
Troops at West Point. The U.S. needs a wartime mobilization to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
First Response
At 12:01 this morning, life as I know it in Los Angeles ceased to exist. All entertainment facilities and gyms are formally shut, and practically speaking so are most consumer-facing businesses, save for groceries, food banks, and pharmacies. Restaurants, the beating heart of this city, are only available for take-out. The schools and universities were already closed. Washington State and New York City have taken similar measures. The CDC has recommended eliminating gatherings of 50 people or more; these announcements take that much further.
The reason for the lockdown is simple: uncertainty. Lack of widespread testing makes everyone, including the asymptomatic, a threat; the only way to reduce exposure is through total distancing. And at the root, these cities and states mean to preserve the local health system, which will verge on collapse under the current trajectory.
We’ve all seen the viral Twitter threads from doctors or nurses, and read reports of the most strained medical providers. We’ve memorized the “flatten the curve” chart, and can explain how spreading infections over a longer time horizon will maintain some hospital capacity. We heard a discussion over Medicare for All in last night’s debate (about which more in a moment) that was happening on a different plane of reality; the payer of health care services matters very little if there are no services to provide.
This is the concern that should keep every American awake. We have about 924,000 hospital beds in this country, and two-thirds of them are typically filled by other patients. Less than 100,000 are intensive care beds. Already there are triage tents outside emergency rooms, and beds being shoved into every available corner. Even if we had the space, we don’t have the staff or the equipment, particularly ventilators but also gear to protect the caregivers so they don’t become patients themselves.
Some of these problems are easier to solve than others. Nobody’s really staying in hotel rooms these days; they could be utilized to quarantine or house the sick. Vehicles can be refashioned as mobile ICUs. But just-in-time delivery has thrashed reserves of equipment like masks and gloves. Absurd middleman contracting policies that limit volumes to a range of historic purchases makes acquiring new protective gear for new challenges nearly impossible. That red tape must be cut through, and domestic factories retooled to manufacture whatever is necessary. But even then, what of the manpower? Who will provide the care?
There is a resource to tap, one with experience in crisis situations. And it’s the U.S. military. We need the almost limitless resources that the military has in hand, in treasure, capabilities, and manpower. The Office of Management and Budget is reportedly likely to ask for more money for the Pentagon, among other agencies, to deal with the crisis. But the Defense Department has hundreds of billions of dollars sitting in its budgets, already appropriated.
A president can repurpose those funds toward other national security needs, and there’s never been a greater one than the coronavirus. We’ve seen this done as recently as last year, when President Trump took billions from a military construction fund and put it toward constructing a wall along the southern border. The Supreme Court blessed the maneuver in a 5-4 vote. At the time, some snickered that the decision would come in handy when we had to take away hundreds of billions from the military to put toward saving the planet from the climate crisis. Well, the crisis came early. And we need the resources.
Money shouldn’t really be an object in this crisis, but the shift in know-how and authorities could be dramatic. Military construction expertise could be used toward building 500-unit hospitals all over the country. Mobile medical units already exist in a stockpile, giving the Pentagon the blueprint to build more. Procurement dollars could temporarily purchase hotels and other quarantine sites. Simply invoking the Defense Production Act would scale up domestic manufacturing production, mobilizing industry to retool factories and produce testing kits and masks and ventilators. The gear isn’t far from the protective gear troops already wear, and the military has enormous triage capacity in preparation for battlefield action. Some component of that manufacturing is domestic, the better to keep Congress on the hook appropriating the funds as a military Keynesian jobs program. All of this must be put to use, not sit in a warehouse somewhere.
We are in a war. We need wartime mobilization to increase hospital capacity or people are going to die unnecessarily. We need every resource at our disposal, and for better or worse we’ve become a country that’s put all its best resources in the Pentagon. It’s time to roll them out.
Vital Stats
The CDC site is not close to usable right now, because it does not update statistics over the weekend. NBC News has compiled a list of over 3,000 confirmed in the U.S., almost double the CDC’s number. Even that’s an undercount given the lack of testing.
The COVID-19 Tracker, just updated at 6:30 this morning, puts that number up to 3,512, with 38,631 total completed tests. The tracker lists 65 deaths. The exponential growth is exactly why hospital capacity is the biggest challenge now. People will still get heart attacks; where will they go?
Debate Night
The surreal debate last night between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will be accompanied by an even more surreal, why-are-you-doing-this election in four states on Tuesday. This was an opportunity to show presidential leadership in the absence of a president, and both candidates did so. There was significant agreement of the road ahead in the immediate crisis: Biden called for all treatment for COVID-19 to be free to everyone, including (sensibly) undocumented immigrants, who don’t have force fields around them preventing contagion. Sanders identified the near-term challenge of health system capacity, as did Biden. And both didn’t want to hear about the price tag; the ubiquitous moderator question throughout this primary, “How will you pay for that,” never came up.
It seems to me that Biden and Sanders are approaching the near-term crisis the same, but differ on the future. Biden at one point said that “we need results, not a revolution,” but his prescription for results in response to the pandemic would be absolutely revolutionary. Sanders wants us to move to that revolutionary footing to put us in better position to deal with emergency challenges: more equality so people can weather personal crises, a tradition of free health care at point of sale so people will not worry about seeing a doctor when sick.
The real analogous situation, which came up later in the debate, is the climate crisis. Like we saw the need for massive testing about six weeks out, we see the need for serious mitigation strategies to reverse the effects of a warming planet. You can mobilize a radical shift away from fossil fuels, and prepare to “flatten the curve” of warming as it were, or deal with the crisis when it presents itself. Those are ultimately the approaches of Sanders and Biden. They eventually get to the same place, but intense early action would make the emergency less acute. We’re all democratic socialists in a crisis; maybe we all should be when trying to stop one as well.
Take Part
Sign up now for our Web event with the American Economic Liberties Project, “Concentrated Power & Coronavirus,” a look at how consolidation of global supply chains has magnified the economic crisis. Featuring me, Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Mark Pocan (D-WI), AELP Senior Fellow Lucas Kunce, and Brookings Institution China expert Rush Doshi. It’s happening Tuesday, March 17 (that’s tomorrow) at 3pm ET. Register for the event at this link.
And if you have stories about how you’re dealing with COVID-19, email me at ddayen-at-prospect-dot-org.
Today I Learned
- Trump tried to sign a vaccine maker to an exclusive contract. This is a huge story in Germany and seriously damages the global coordination we need. (Reuters)
- The biggest banks stop buybacks to free up money for lending. (Wall Street Journal)
- The Federal Reserve uses a significant amount of the powers it rolled out during the financial crisis in one Sunday night. (Calculated Risk)
- Now we’re worried about the homeless. (Los Angeles Times)
- Economic time has stopped but financial time hasn’t. (Joe Weisenthal)
- Not enough sick leave at the groceries, which are essential infrastructure. (Popular Information)
