New York Times Editorial Board Calls For War-Style Mobilization: ‘Stop Saying Everything Is Under Control’

Charlie NashMar 17th, 2020, 2:55 pm
 
New York Times

Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

The New York Times editorial board called for war-style mobilization to tackle the coronavirus crisis on Tuesday.

In an article entitled “Stop Saying That Everything Is Under Control. It Isn’t.”, the board called for a coronavirus response similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s World War 2 mobilization in 1941.

“Roosevelt compelled and inspired industries and individuals to rally for the greater good. Food was rationed without rioting, and car plants all but stopped producing automobiles in favor of tanks and fuselages. By 1944, American factory workers were building nearly 100,000 warplanes a year — or about 11 per hour,” the Times noted, adding that the United States “is again faced with a crisis that calls for a national response, demanding a mobilization of resources that the free market or individual states cannot achieve on their own.”

Acknowledging that “If the worst came to pass, as many as 1.7 million of our neighbors and loved ones could die,” the New York Times editorial board placed part of the crisis’ blame on mixed messages from world leaders, including President Donald Trump.

“For weeks now, clear statements — for example, that the worst is yet to come — have been undercut by blithe assurances that everything is under control. It isn’t,” the article claimed, before calling on the U.S. government to “ramp up production” on “ventilators, I.C.U. beds and other essential equipment” like the government ramped up production on certain essentials during the Second World War.

“The government will also need to deploy the National Guard or the Army to convert facilities like convention centers, hotels and parking lots into testing sites, isolation units and humane quarantines,” they declared, before listing various possibilities of increasing medical personnel.

You can read the full article at the New York Times.

New York Times editorial board member Charlie Warzel responded to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s claim that the peak of the coronavirus would be in 45 days, Tuesday, by tweeting, “I generally don’t think people realize how long we could be in for this.”

“Anyone thinking two or three weeks should adjust expectations,” he continued, adding that the “truly grim timeline on this are the (by no means definitive!) models that basically say it’s gonna be spells of quarantines and re-infections until either herd immunity or a vaccine (which could be 18 months or more).”

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