With Coronavirus, It's Time to Declare a National Emergency - The New York Times

As the global financial system teetered on the brink in the fall of 2008, a Republican president and congressional Democrats, recognizing the severity of the crisis, worked together to pass a bailout package for the financial industry that despite its many flaws and compromises helped to prevent a second Great Depression.

The coronavirus pandemic poses a different kind of challenge, threatening the nation’s health as well as its economic prosperity, but it must be met with the same kind of audacious, coherent and coordinated response.

So far, as the virus spreads from person to person and state to state, the federal government has lagged several steps behind. While President Trump on Wednesday night finally began to acknowledge the seriousness of a threat that he has repeatedly played down, he mustered the determination only to belatedly slam yet another barn door, banning travel from Europe too late to significantly retard the spread of a virus that is already endemic to the United States.

Americans need much more from Mr. Trump. The president must try to emulate the sober urgency with which his immediate predecessors, President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, confronted the 2008 crisis. Mr. Trump needs to grasp that the best way to slow the spread of the virus and to minimize long-term economic damage is to make the difficult but necessary decision to put the economy on ice, as leaders are doing in other nations beset by the virus. That means emptying theater halls and stadiums, paying sick workers to stay home, closing schools and universities — in short, bringing much of normal life, including economic life, to a standstill.

Declaring a national emergency would make clear that Mr. Trump understands the magnitude of the challenge, and set an example for leaders in the public and private sectors. On a practical level, such a declaration would remove legal barriers to a wide variety of necessary actions, such as the distribution of emergency aid to state and local governments.

This editorial board is not inclined to grant the president more executive power, given his track record. But this crisis demands such quick action in the interests of the American people that we can only hope he will set his more selfish impulses aside and rise to the moment.

Mr. Trump also needs to take the lead in devising a fiscal response to the crisis. The Federal Reserve has tried to check the panic in financial markets, first by cutting interest rates and then, on Thursday, by announcing that it would inject $1.5 trillion to increase liquidity. But investors are rightly seeking action from the rest of the government, too. Mr. Trump has the singular ability to provide the political cover necessary for congressional Republicans to support the large increase in government spending that this crisis requires.

As it did in 2008, Congress should move quickly to provide the government with the necessary tools to confront the crisis. Mr. Trump already has signed an $8.3 billion spending bill focused on public health measures, but more is needed. A clear priority is to mandate that workers can take paid sick leave, and then to defray the cost. There is also a strong argument for pumping money into the economy. Instead of a payroll tax holiday, as proposed by Mr. Trump, the government should distribute money directly to American households, as the Bush administration did in 2001 and in March 2008. A payroll tax cut is an incentive to work, and it won’t help people who are laid off. Mailing checks is the best way to put money in the hands of those who need it most.

The government also can boost economic growth in the longer term by taking advantage of low borrowing costs to fund infrastructure investment: repairing crumbling bridges, replacing leaded pipes, rebuilding urban transit systems, overhauling the electric grid.

But the details of the stimulus matter less than the urgency of the moment. Democrats and Republicans must set aside familiar debates and find common ground. It should go without saying that it is unthinkable that Congress would recess before addressing the crisis.

Most of all, the Trump administration needs to accept, and make universally understood, the severity of the pandemic itself.

America’s leaders will have much to explain once this crisis passes. The delay in making tests widely available is inexcusable, as is the lack of honest, reliable communication about the threat. But the focus for now needs to be on the coming days.

Without more testing, it’s tough to say how widespread the coronavirus is in the United States, or how bad it might get. But epidemiologists say it’s fair to make a few broad assumptions. First, there are more cases in the United States than have been confirmed. As of Thursday morning, there were some 1,300 confirmed cases across the country. Epidemiologists say the real count is almost certainly much higher. Second, the number of actual cases of Covid-19 is expected to double roughly every six days.

Any degree of success in slowing the spread of the virus reduces the burden on the health care system, increasing the chances that those who fall ill can get the help that they need. Slower outbreaks also tend to infect fewer people over a longer time period, reducing the impact on hospitals and saving the wider health care system from a roster of potentially devastating trickle-down effects. Epidemiologists call this “flattening the curve.”

To see why time is so precious, look to Italy. Lombardy, a sophisticated region in the north with a good health care system, was quickly overwhelmed by its coronavirus outbreak. By some accounts, the region has twice as many intensive care patients as it does I.C.U. beds.

It is not hard to imagine a similar scenario unfolding in the U.S. “Hospitals and nursing homes already struggle with infection control in the best circumstances,” says Andy Slavitt, who presided over the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration. “They are not equipped to deal with something this contagious.”

Neither are intensive care units. Scientists from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security estimate that the coronavirus pandemic could necessitate anywhere from 200,000 to 2.9 million I.C.U. visits, and ultimately require some 67,000 I.C.U. beds. There are only about 46,500 such beds in the country now, and the vast majority of them are already occupied. Likewise, by some estimates, at the peak of the coming crisis, the country as a whole may need three to four times as many ventilators as currently exist in hospitals and in the national stockpile.

Facing that grim reality, Americans — from the president on down — need to start making caution their default choice. State officials and sports leagues have led the way in shutting down unnecessary public gatherings. Given the magnitude of the crisis, no decision to cancel public events looks to have been made in error. Local leaders cannot wait for the federal government to make those calls. To be cautious is to save lives, now or in the future.

Federal health officials should promulgate guidelines, and Mr. Trump can use the presidential megaphone to make clear he expects nothing less from every state and organization.

Businesses large and small should promote working from home as much as they can. And individuals have a crucial role to play, too. Coronavirus is a global challenge, but many of the best ways to deal with it are local. Cancel parties. Cancel travel. Wash hands. While you may be relatively safe, more than 100 million Americans have underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk of serious illness should they get infected with Covid-19. None of this by itself will stop the disease, but it can buy time for doctors and nurses to treat those who fall ill.

When the World Health Organization formally upgraded the crisis from an epidemic to a pandemic on Wednesday, the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, made an impassioned plea for global unity. “Let’s all look out for each other,” he said. “Because we’re in this together.” Less than 12 hours later, President Trump presented the nation with a very different message: We must look out for ourselves.

Yes, we have to look out for ourselves, but we can only do that by looking out for one another, too. The president’s leadership has already gravely imperiled the American response to this crisis.

Most experts say that full containment of the American epidemic is now most likely impossible.

But it’s still possible to avoid the worst outcomes.

Other countries — Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea — have managed to stop or slow down significant outbreaks, by acting early and decisively to slow community spread.

There is no way to know for certain if actions taken today will prove necessary or effective. But if the worst comes to pass in the weeks and months ahead, not having taken them will be indefensible.