The New York Times shows that we had over 205 thousand new cases reported yesterday.

And 1412 deaths. And since the deaths lag behind cases by a few weeks, that means we’re going to start hitting 3000+ deaths every day again.

That’s going to be 9/11 worth of deaths every day. EVERY DAY!

I believe in personal responsibility, but I don’t think that personal responsibility can work here. For one thing, there’s a disconnect between actions and consequences. If you get sick with Covid, you might not know for some time, and if you infect somebody, there’s no easy way to say that your actions were responsible. So it’s easy to detach from the risk/reward equation.

The second place where personal responsibility falls apart is that everybody has bills to pay. If you’re not fortunate enough to be able to work from home, you have to go out into the world, risking catching the virus or stop working, and run out of money.  Of course people are going to choose work and go out into the world. When they encounter people who choose not to wear masks, or take other requested precautions (because “Freedoms!”), then they’ve now gotten sick through no fault of their own.

Then there are the people, who, through no fault of their own, have lost a job because entire industries are depressed because people can’t safely gather. What is their responsibility here? I’m sure many are looking for jobs, but it’s hard to find them when everything is already depressed.

So it’s time to re-asses. Instead of expecting asking every person to do the right thing, and expect them to do it (even when it might not be in their best interest to stay home, etc… ), it’s time for the community to step up, and take some shared responsibility. So instead of asking everybody to fend for themselves, we pool our resources, and help everybody do the right thing. We help those who are out of work to survive. Same thing with those who are at reduced hours, let’s fill in the gaps. For those who do have a job, we reduce their risk by making sure they have PPE and other necessities, and when you do go out in the world, wear a mask, keep your distance and help everybody stay healthy. For those of us who are in a good situation, we go the extra mile to help, by contributing money, and reducing our interactions and foregoing holiday get-togethers, and other non-essential things.

And if we do all of those things, suddenly, instead of this huge risk/benefit calculation on every person, or every household, we’ve now shared it across the entire community, who can better shoulder the burden. And the reward for all of this is that our community can stay healthy by not catching this disease which has long term implications for many people.

We should do the same for businesses. We make sure that businesses can survive through this unpredictable time if they can’t maintain their normal level of commerce, and ask those who are doing well to help out to soften the impact for everybody.

Because if we don’t, we’re going to feel pain from this for a long time. Not just pain from being sick, but pain from the huge financial disruption, and loss of jobs, and yes, loss of life.

Let’s put aside our difference, and treat this like a real crisis. Let’s come together as a community, nay, a nation, and work through this together. Because it’s not a zero sum game, and the losers in this can lose everything. But if we work together, our efforts will be greater than the sum of our parts, and we will come out of this a better nation.

If we work together.