A No Win Scenario, But Leadership Nonetheless

Apr 20, 2020

Editor’s Note: I made a mistake. I have fixed it below. In the list of data, I stated the numbers were of deaths. Those are not deaths, but total new cases per day. I apologize for the error. The piece below is corrected.

Remember the old TV show “Northern Exposure”? The show was inspired by work done in remote parts of Alaska by Dr. Kathleen Toomey. Dr. Toomey moved from Alaska to work for the CDC in Botswana and eventually made her way to Georgia.

Dr. Toomey is now the head of public health in Georgia. She is unquestionably an expert on public health and epidemiology.

At the beginning of April, seeing models shift negatively, Dr. Toomey advised Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia that he needed to order shelter-in-place in the state. The Governor did so. The result? The IHME modeling shows Georgia peaked in deaths on April 7, 2020, and Georgia peaked in resource usage on April 15, 2020.

At no time did Georgia exceed hospital bed capacity, ICU capacity, or ventilator capacity. There have been some hard-hit parts of the state. Southwest Georgia, for a variety of factors, got clobbered by COVID-19 and is still having problems.

The rest of the state has turned the corner and there are signs that Southwest Georgia has turned the corner too. The daily new cases are declining. Daily case totals are declining.

On April 14, 2020, there were 779 cases
On April 15, 2020, there were 590 cases
On April 16, 2020, there were 506 cases
On April 17, 2020, there were 296 cases
On April 18, 2020, there were 106 cases
On April 19, 2020, there were 28 cases

The trendlines are in the right direction. Hospital capacity is good. ICU capacity is good. Testing capacity continues to increase.

So the Governor of Georgia is now listening to Dr. Kathleen Toomey again. Dr. Toomey said at a press conference a short time ago that Georgia can now reopen slowly. She has certain criteria she wants businesses to meet but thinks it is doable.

The Governor is implementing a plan to make it so. The result? Governor Kemp is already being savaged by Democrats claiming he is putting profits above people. They say he is going to get everyone killed.

But these are the people who said the Governor needed to listen to Dr. Toomey. He is still listening to her.

The only difference is this one: at the beginning of the month, Dr. Toomey was doing what the non-experts wanted. Now Dr. Toomey, the expert, is doing what the non-experts don’t.

So who should the Governor listen to? Experts or the mob? The mob is creating a no-win situation. They will politicize any deaths to seek a political advantage and ignore that the Governor is doing exactly what they always wanted — he is listening to the experts.