Memento Mori, or: You always have to pay the piper

So yesterday 5 Republican governors wrote a paean to Donald Trump and "Midwestern" values, even though only Iowa and Missouri are really in the Midwest.  Still, almost nobody talks about "Plains states" values, and while Wyoming qualifies there (I guess?), Utah is in the desert West and Arkansas is mostly the empty space somewhere east of Oklahoma and north of Louisiana.

But they're all doin' great, thank you very much!  Why:

Arkansas has announced conditions to restart elective surgeries. Iowa has deployed strike teams to conduct proactive surveillance testing of essential employees in areas where virus activity is high. Nebraska has drawn on its world-renowned infectious disease experts to create safety standards for meat-processing facilities.

Get that!  Arkansas will let you have elective surgeries again!  By the way:  the entire population of Arkansas is just over 3 million.  There are almost twice that many people in the Houston area alone.  And the biggest city in Arkansas is Little Rock, with less than 200,000 people in it.  Not exactly the population density of Dallas/Fort Worth, or Atlanta, for that matter.  Or Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, most of New Jersey....need I go on?

The "miracle" is the geography of Arkansas and the low population.  I drove through the state once.  Little Rock is in the middle, coming from Texas, and there's bugger all between Texarkana and the the capitol, or the capitol and the eastern border.

Two meatpacking plants in Nebraska announced closures the day this op-ed was published.  Embarassing!  As for those "safety standards:"

As many as 18% of workers in meat and poultry plants are infected with the coronavirus in Iowa and South Dakota, while Pennsylvania and Nebraska account for one quarter of the COVID-19 cases nationwide, said CDC scientists and state public health officials. 

Nebraska shares a dubious honor with Pennsylvania.  How 'bout that?  Iowa has had over 10,000 cases and over 200 deaths.  Iowa is just slightly more populous than Arkansas.  To put that in rough perspective, Harris County has a population just under 5 million, and has had over 32,000 cases and just under 890 deaths.  Nothing to brag about, believe me.  Harris County also has a far greater population density than Iowa, so Iowa's not doing that well, either.

Yeah, these guys are sounding like Trump mini-me's.

I wouldn't hang this albatross around the neck of any governor in America.  But bragging about how "well" you've done in your low population states when the rest of the country is just starting to crank up is rude, when it's not completely inaccurate.

Where the coronavirus is spreading fastest https://t.co/HWZIvDJpvK pic.twitter.com/bEH6eDEaDf

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) May 6, 2020

Of the five states under consideration, Wyoming and Arkansas are getting better (good for them!) and Utah seems to be holding steady; but Missouri and Iowa are still climbing to the plateau; they haven't reached it yet.  They may find they bragged too soon (not that it would please me; we're talking about illness and death here, not football teams).  The others should show a bit more of that "Plains state"  or Midwest reserve, and remember that when you start celebrating how clever you were, is the moment just before you faceplant; or the weather turns and the crops you were so proud of are destroyed by hail; the cattle you were counting on start dying of disease.

Let me pick up from another WaPo op-ed, by a physician:

More than 40 states have announced plans to lift restrictions, even though only a handful have met the minimum criteria for reopening as outlined by the White House coronavirus task force. The consequences of this are all too predictable, because the science around covid-19 has not changed: Without a vaccine or cure, the only thing keeping the disease in check has been keeping people separated from one another. Once social distancing is relaxed, covid-19 will again spread with explosive speed.

There's evidence now that coronavirus was in New York for months before it was recognized.  The sick in those 5 states may be ill already, and not yet know it.  God forbid but pride, as the Good Book says, goeth before a fall.  Even the ancient Greeks understood that.

But, of course, that might not be apparent for weeks or even months. That’s because of the lag between new exposures to the virus and the subsequent increase in infections, hospitalizations and deaths. As everyone knows by now, the incubation period — the time between exposure and symptoms — is up to 14 days. It could take another week or two before people become ill enough to seek medical care, and another week or more for those who are severely ill to succumb to the virus.

The danger here is that policymakers and the public will jump to the wrong conclusions if they don’t immediately see the numbers increasing. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, they should prepare for the surge that will inevitably arrive a month or so from now: What New York went through at its peak will happen in communities across the country. Hospitals will become overwhelmed with ill patients. Staff will be forced to ration personal protective equipment. There will be shortages of intensive care unit beds and ventilators.

This is already happening in Georgia.  Take heed.

Also worrisome is that many of these outbreaks will occur in rural communities that already struggle with lack of hospitals and health-care workers.

All of the states we are talking about here are mostly "rural communities."  I'm sure there are hospital beds in Little Rock, Arkansas.  I'm also sure they would fill up rather quickly in a crisis.

These five governors are like the bowler who thought he was going to score a perfect game.  He got so excited, he blew the second frame.  This is a catastrophe looming on the horizon, and this time we can't blame China for not warning us (as if that makes any difference):

We are knowingly going back to where we were in mid-March, before the first exponential surge in infections and deaths. That surge will come again, but this time no one can say they didn’t see it coming.

You may try, but who will believe you?.