It doesn't have to be this stupid

     The federal government's Covid 19 guidelines, including physical distancing are set to expire at midnight tonight.   I have a feeling most people will continue to wear masks and stay 6 feet apart.  I know I will.  Meanwhile, the citizens of Georgia are set to participate in a public health experiment as their governor lifts most restrictions on economic activity.
      Neither individual states or the federal government had to react to the pandemic in such pathetically inadequate ways.   Public health experts in government and out have the expertise to guide the rest of us through this crisis, but in many cases their counsel has been ignored by officials, whether in Atlanta or D.C.   It didn't have to be this way.
      Our intelligence agencies warned the president* in January that the disease was coming.  Instead of preparing the nation for this emergency by stockpiling PPE and viral tests, he produced a steady stream of  happy talk about how everything was under control.   60,000 deaths later his son-in-law tells us the government's response to Covid 19 is a rousing success! \
     Now we are being told that there is an adequate supply of body bags, so we should get back out there and become good little consumers so the .01% can continue to enjoy a lifestyle most of us can't even imagine.   Even some "liberal" commentators point to the experience of Sweden, which has mostly ignored the pandemic and seems to have done better than Italy as far as deaths/thousand is concerned.   Maybe, but Sweden's economy is forecast to contract by 7% this year while the US is only supposed to shrink by 6%.  Movie theaters may be open there, but not many people are catching the latest flicks along with the virus.
     There is still no national  plan to test and contact trace on the scale necessary to convince us it is safe to come out.  No amount of persuasion will lure people to sit in a restaurant, knowing they could be gasping out their last breath in an isolated hospital bed separated from their family.  Government will use its power to deny people economic security to try and force them to choose between the aforementioned lonely death and starvation, but it doesn't have to be that way.  The nation's people deserve better leadership.