FOCUS: Vigorous government action needed to curb spread of virus

By Fred Palm, contributing editor  |  Correct and effective state action to battle COVID-19 is required. Now. Otherwise, more lives and livelihoods across South Carolina will suffer as a third wave descends upon the state.

Gov. Henry McMaster’s Oct. 23 public relations visit to Myrtle Beach revealed a guy who is in over his head with no way out. That means we have no way out. 

“We’re vigilant. We’re trying to do our best,” he said during the visit. “We’ve heard from a lot of people in a lot of different kind of businesses; we’re taking all of that into consideration. These restrictions, it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it imposes great hardship; we’re aware of that. All of these decisions are made not quickly.”  

McMaster’s biggest hedge for relative inaction was the under-the-bus defense: “AccelerateSC, which consists of leaders in business, medicine, academia and education from around the state. They are assisted by legislators that made these ‘excellent plans.’” In effect, McMaster shields and exonerates himself from the coming fiasco by cloaking himself with the expertise of others.

This dance does not work with COVID-19. What we need is real leadership.

The AccelerateSC COVID-19 response plan is lacking the clear-headedness to defeat COVID-19 spread. The participants were McMaster benefactors. They were not infectious disease experts having the final say for dealing with an aggressive virus that does not give a rat’s ass about lives and livelihoods. The test of time says that the plan did not work. Does not work now.  Given the predictable rise in the spread of the disease, it will not work.

McMaster

McMaster simply is not at his best in the face of this challenge that is huge and must be sustained if it is to bear fruit. A hurricane season lasts four months. So far, we are eight months into the COVID-19 season. We do not know when the COVID-19 season ends.

“The economic hardships of COVID-19 have been widespread in our tourism businesses, universally shared by all segments of the hospitality industry. Hotels, restaurants, golf courses, retail and attractions, alike. It’s through the job loss and the subsequent loss of income for South Carolinians that the effects of COVID really hit home,” said Karen Riordan, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

The South Carolina hurricane playbook does not work with COVID-19.  

Just what is the “limited government” response to this common enemy that takes lives and livelihoods through the exercise of personal freedom?  There is none.  We need to get ready now.

The COVID-19 spread now underway in the U.S. will cross into South Carolina. We have learned much more since the infection erupted with much more remaining to be learned. We need to use the lag in time before a third wave gets to the state as a gift of valuable time to act.  If there are not effective actions by the state and local governments now to stop the spread, we too will succumb to this scourge just as the other states have gone under as hospitals burst at capacity seams. 

Continued denial and half actions do not work to contain this virus.  South Carolina needs to recognize and declare emergency condition responses to save the current economy that has returned so far. Continuing as we are will kill the current economic activity, sending us back to the shutdown period that had many too many holes (privileges, waivers and essentials) to bring the base infection base down enough to provide protection.

Needed now are front-and-center statewide and local actions, new and reimposed strategies going beyond the soft PR approach to mask-wearing. We cannot creep around this virus, equivocate this mask issue or make optional the proven public health tool of wearing a mask. 

Exceptional times require effective and apolitical administrative actions scaled to the magnitude of the threat that we can plainly anticipate. This is the hour of our collective restart decision to stop the COVID-19 spread securing our lives and livelihoods. We cannot remain suspended and silent until Election Day.

Fred Palm of Edisto Island is a retired professor of oversight and investigations at the John Jay College School of Public Management and a former executive director of the Association of Inspectors General. He writes about the Common Good.