A few days ago we reported thatDiane Kleinwas touting Zeke Emanuel as agreat (vice) provost in this time of COVID-19. Here is an excerpt from Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt (yes, you should subscribe to it):
Back on January 30, former Obama White House health advisor Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel told CNBC: “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical. We are having a little too much histrionics on this.” (Now Emanuel believes that Americans will not return to large events until “fall 2021 at the earliest.”) And Emanuel was far from alone in his assessment that the coronavirus was not much of a threat. [Emphasis added]
Perhaps Diane missed Zeke on CNBC. Would you bet that Diane is glad that The Donald limited travel from China the next (1/31) day? It is fun to read the Washington Post try to find the imperfections in The Donald’s action. We are not saying when it comes to COVID-19 that Zeke is always wrong and The Donald is always right. We are certainly not saying that expertise is irrelevant. It is a reminder that The Donald got one important thing very right when many experts like Zeke were not yet convinced that COVID-19 was a serious matter.
It does remind us of the usefulness of the analogy of COVID-19 pandemic and war. There is a similar fog in both. You can see some things but not others. There is an immense amount of data that is hard to evaluate. There are many decisions to be made and knowledge is always imperfect. Nobody, not Zeke, not The Donald, is going to bat a thousand. It is going to take time and people are going to die. It will help our outcomes if folks and listen and discuss the decisions and options rather than just attack any minor mistakes.
menwithgloves 