Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 11/16/2020
I’ve been concerned for a long time about whether the economic deaths from Covid will outnumber the medical deaths. We’ve all seen stores and diverse businesses forced to close their doors, and of people having to rely on the government because they’ve gone through their savings. I’m sure that most of you reading this have done whatever you can to patronize businesses and help out neighbors.
I’ve heard doctors warn that if hospitals become overcrowded, they will have to decide who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t—who lives and who dies. I can’t imagine having to make such a decision. Even generals sending people into battles don’t decide who, specifically, will live or die. A woman in my community, who had Covid and was in very serious condition (and now has fully recovered), was asked in the hospital by a doctor whether she wanted a ventilator or to be allowed to die, and if she did become gravely ill, did she want to sign a “do not resuscitate” form? All this with no family available for her.
We’ve usually lived our lives mostly highly happy but not totally safe—we’ve had wars, disease, natural disasters, and crime. There is a risk in life itself. The question now often seems to me to be: Do we want to try to be totally safe where everyone is totally unhappy?
How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn’t, like, cashing Social Security checks; he wasn’t hanging out—he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work.
—Greg Gianforte
Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.
—Gail Sheehy
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Brian Ward
You said “We’ve usually lived our lives mostly highly happy but not totally safe—we’ve had wars, disease, natural disasters, and crime. There is a risk in life itself. The question now often seems to me to be: Do we want to try to be totally safe where everyone is totally unhappy?’
It’s an interesting question, but it’s based on the premise that ‘we’ includes all of mankind, or perhaps you’re talking about the people you associate with?
Alan Weiss
It applies to people in this country (as well as many others), and the “we” is most of the population. It’s not based on any other premise, and if you want to make the case that a proportion of the population is not “happy” and lives in terrible conditions, I’m not going to argue, I understand that. But that’s a completely different point. Most of us in this country DO lead happy lives compared to most others most of the time. I find “the people I associate with” to be a snarky comment, by the way. It is “an interesting question,” which is why I raise it relative to Covid: Do we want a draconian closing of the economy in an attempt to save everyone possible, or do we understand that we need the economy to flourish and there will be consequent deaths? That’s my point, not some other agenda.