People are out of work due to coronavirus. That’s a tough reality we have to accept

Some Fresnans are now out of work because of the shelter-in-place order mandated by Gov. Gavin Newsom and supported by Fresno Mayor Lee Brand. It is a difficult and unfortunate situation.

Yet it is completely necessary, if there is to be any good shot of beating the coronavirus pandemic now expanding in the central San Joaquin Valley.

That is the hard truth facing us, but some political leaders are having real trouble accepting it.

President Trump this week expressed frustration over the stringent social distancing being recomended by public health experts, and very nearly ordered that the nation return to business as usual by Easter.

In Fresno, City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld posted a video in which he states that Newsom’s response to the pandemic will needlessly wreck the economy. He points out the large number of flu cases in America each year, compared to the current totals of coronavirus. His point: Why destroy the economy when the nation gets through flu season each year?

He then pivots and acknowledges the pandemic is a real threat to some, like elderly people, and that viewers need to follow the federal government’s recommendations. Among those steps, as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control: the need to work remotely via telecommuting as a business strategy to limit exposure.

The flu comparison Bredefeld makes is apples to oranges. America’s doctors, nurses and hospitals understand the flu well and plan for it every fall and winter. Many Americans have built up levels of resistance by virtue of getting it, and there is a new vaccine every year. Coronavirus, by comparison, is unplanned, not well understood and there is no vaccine yet.

Bredefeld references South Korea, a nation that aggressively tested its population as soon as the virus was detected there. With robust data developed by the testing, the South Koreans were able to shelter infected persons and those carrying the virus away from the general population without shutting down their economy.

However, America is way behind in its testing, and any resulting comparison to South Korea doesn’t hold up. Until more testing can be done and better data can be developed so a fuller picture of the national pandemic can be made clear, experts like Fresno County’s interim health officer advise that sheltering at home is the wisest course.

“The most useful path, going forward, for all of us is to stay apart but work together in this effort to change the spread of the disease,” Dr. Rais Vohra writes in an op-ed in The Bee.

Those words may ring hollow to anyone now out of work — those employed at restaurants, bars or other “nonessential” businesses. Their pain will grow the longer the pandemic drags out.

But there really is no alternative. If Newsom and Fresno leaders had not issued shelter-in-place directions, and business as usual had been maintained, sick people would have gone to work. Then more people would have gotten sick. And maybe some would have gotten so ill that they died.

The virus, if left unchecked, in all likelihood, would itself wreck the economy, and lives in the process.

Congress has passed the largest emergency relief bill ever — nearly $2 trillion — to try to help Americans through this crisis, with benefits for the unemployed and small businesses. It does not equal the power of a fully functioning economy, but at least it is something.

Fresnans newly out of work or with shuttered businesses should avail themselves of government and nonprofit programs meant to help in times like this.

And all of us need to hold onto the hope that we will get through this. The good news is pandemics don’t last forever.

This story was originally published March 25, 2020 at 12:28 PM.