Dispatch from Coronaville: "Hey Guys. .."

This has been discussed ad nauseam in a thousand thinkpieces since the coronavirus pandemic arrived on our shores.  Most people realize that something has g one badly awry in our nation's handling of this virus. We seem to be one of the few countries in the world that has failed to get COVID-19 under control for even a short period of time. And over and over again we hear that it is because of a failure of leadership.

In every place from the classroom to the boardroom, from the home to the governor's mansion to the White House, it is the people in leadership who sets the tone. We can be as independent as we like and insist that we march to our own drum and our influenced by no one, but the bottom line is we are all influenced by leadership.

We've had the misfortune to have entered this pandemic under terrible leadership. I will not elaborate on that point here. Those that laud President Trump will never be convinced that he is anything other than excellent (even though these same people would laugh out of town any one else with his leadership qualities, and who, in many cases, conduct their own lives and businesses with far greater integrity than the man they admire so much ).  And those that critique the president already know and need no further convincing of his considerable deficits.

There is no such thing as a "neutral leader" who has no influence.  All leaders, even poor ones, make an impact, and when a person opts out of "leading" entirely, abdicates responsibility, passes the buck, casts blame and takes credit, prioritizes their own needs over those they are entrusted with leading, that impact can be incredibly destructive.

When a leader fails to "step up" and make the tough calls, the result is confusion and unrest.  While I have appreciated much of our governor's leadership in this crisis, there have been times when he's fallen into what I call "Hey Guys. .." mode.  This comes from the classic case of the teacher with poor classroom management (or the capable teacher who has gotten lazy--I admit I speak from experience on this).  Instead laying down clear procedures, rules, and accompanying consequences when the class is disruptive you'll hear the teacher say something like: "Hey guys, come on now. . .let's settle down. Come on guys, lets get back on track. Hey guys. . .guys." This approach says I'm going to merely encourage or suggest that you do what I ask. I hope you'll see it's in your own best interest but I'm not going to require you do follow my instructions. The irony is that this approach always creates a class that is more disruptive and more resentful of any guidance.  Students--and adults--sense when there are no teeth to guidelines and it makes them more rebellious, not less.  For quite some time, masks were encouraged in our state and a trip to Kroger showed probably half the people there wearing masks. Meanwhile the outcry against this "guidance" was deafening.  Then, at last, DeWine instituted a mask mandate and just like that virtually everyone at the grocery store was masked, and while there are definitely people still disgruntled by this violation of their freedom, I find the outcry has muted considerably. Not unlike when a class realizes that they are dealing with a teacher who is not playing.

I don't want to hear "Hey Guys. . ." from our leaders. And I definitely don't want to hear whining and blaming and excuses. I want to hear:  "Here's the plan. This is what we have to do. This is how we are getting there. Let's do it."

As of today, there have been a total of 4,932,093 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. This includes 159,606 new cases in the past three days, about 12,000 more than I predicted. There were also more deaths in the past three days than I had expected: 3,465 more people died for a total of 160,584 deaths. That's about 700 more than projected. Based on these numbers, I expect the U.S. will cross the five million mark by Monday, August 10 with 5,094,852 total cases. There will be a total of 164,117 deaths.

Like astronauts descending back into the atmosphere after many days in outer space at last Florida re-enters my new case graph with 13,059 new cases in the last three days. I haven't been able to graph Florida's case numbers since June 23. Ohio and Nebraska are up this three-day period but the gains are modest and so far represent at worst a flat rate of increase.

Total Cases
Florida: 510,381 total cases, 2.3% of the population.

Ohio: 98,675 total cases, 0.84% of the population. Ohio will likely join the 100 Club of states with 100,000 or more cases by Monday.

Nebraska: 27,894 total cases, 1.4% of the population

I was wrong about deaths in Florida. It could be that the spike in deaths there is at long last coming to an end. Instead of rebounding again, the new deaths in Florida dropped again to, 345. Ohio and Nebraska both logged increases in deaths this time around but nothing outside of the usual pattern.

Total Deaths:

Florida: 7,746, a rate of 1.5%

Ohio: 3,652, a rate of 3.7%

Nebraska: 348,  a rate of 1.2%