National trust was NOT our key to more successful management of the pandemic

Last update: Monday 5/16/22 

Why did other wealthy nations, like Japan and Australia, suffer much lower COVID deaths per hundred thousand population than we did? Studies done with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight have repeatedly identified trust as a key contributing factor to more successful management of the pandemic, i.e., the greater trust the people had in their governments, and the greater trust the people had in each other.

• "Researchers are asking why some countries were better prepared for covid. One surprising answer: Trust.", Adam Taylor, Washington Post, 2/1/22  
• "How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While Covid Killed a Million Americans", Damien Cave, NY Times, 5/16/22  

An obvious implication of these findings is that we should have made far greater effort to trust our pandemic leaders, e.g., the CDC, and each other, e.g., Republicans trusting Democrats and vice versa. We were all in this together, right? Unfortunately, in the decades preceding the pandemic, our nation had become more deeply divided on more issues than at any time since the decades preceding the Civil War 180 years ago. So it should not have surprised anyone that this recommendation for greater trust has been dead on arrival since the beginning of the U.S. phase of the pandemic in early 2020. 

The remainder of this note will argue that rejections of appeals for greater "trust" were appropriate because the appeals were framed within false assumptions of a monolithic government and a monolithic electorate. But as students in most U.S. middle schools learn, our system of governance is not a monolith; it is a federal system grounded on principles of rational distrust, i.e., checks and balances among the branches of the national government plus reservation of all powers to the states that were not explicitly granted by the Constitution to the national government.

• "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.", Federalist Paper 51

One size does not fit all

If COVID moved quickly from state to state like hurricanes from south to north or massive snow storms from west to east, a top-down nationalized strategy might have been effective. But public health officials soon learned that COVID mostly travelled short distances via the exhalations of infected persons to the inhalations of nearby uninfected persons. In other words, COVID was a local phenomenon that infected clusters of people in their normal social and professional interactions, then jumped to "nearby" clusters. 

• For example, it took months for the virus to move from its initial centers of infection in the nation's densely populated coastal states and midwestern manufacturing states to farm states and other less densely populated regions. One size did not fit all, i.e., one guidance did not address the specific conditions in all 50 states.
  
  
• Nevertheless, the president's Task Force and the CDC issued one guidance for all fifty states week after week. We were not all in this together, but our federal pandemic managers acted as though we were.

Different underlying values

There was also a striking difference between red states and blue states that reflected striking differences in their electorates: Democratic voters are more risk averse with regards to COVID, whereas GOP voters are more risk tolerant. This difference emerged with forceful clarity in voter responses to exit polls conducted shortly after the November 2020 elections. The next few bullets provide selected highlights from the report "National Exit Polls: How Different Groups Voted" that was published by the NY Times on 11/3/20. 

• Which is more important: Containing the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy ==> Dems (79%), GOP( 19%)
  ... or ...
  Rebuilding the economy now, even if it hurts efforts to contain the coronavirus ==> Dems (20%), GOP (78%)
  
• Wearing face masks in public is a personal choice ==> Dems No (24%), GOP Yes (73%) ... Note: the GOP assertion of "personal choice" means that individuals should decide whether to wear masks or not wear masks but maintain social distancing in public
• Wearing face masks in public is a public health responsibility ==> Dems Yes (64%), GOP No (35%)

These starkly different responses reflected stark differences in the voters' underlying values, differences that could not be resolved by experts in "the science". They had to be worked out via political processes. Our federal system enables GOP voters to trust and vote for risk tolerant governors, like Gov DeSantis of Florida, and enables Democratic voters to trust and vote for risk averse governors, like Governor Newsom of California.

The politicization of COVID was inevitable and necessary

The first difference noted in the previous section also had political implications. For single issue voters a candidate's position on their prized issue either gets their votes or loses their votes. Most people are not single issue voters, but suppose that the dedicated experts in "the science" at the CDC were single issue voters. Which party would they vote for? Readers who have spent any time on the CDC's Website know that every page has a subheading that reads: "24/7, Saving Lives, Protecting People". This subheading makes a statement that is heard loudly and clearly by GOP voters ==> Most CDC experts are probably Democrats.

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Links to related notes on this blog:  

• "Avoiding the CDC's systemic blunders and flip flops", Last update: 1/7/22