Six Good Things Coming From the Covid-19 Pandemic

There’s plenty of bad news because of the Covid-19 outbreak and the restrictions that have been put in place to combat it, but it occurs to me that there are also some good things that will descend from it as well.

1. Hand Washing Is Vital to Staying Healthy. It has always been true that our hands carry disease, but it’s been surprisingly recently that it was truly understood and promoted. It was just 1867 when the “germ theory” of disease became accepted and it is said that, during the Civil War, seven soldiers died of disease for each one who died on the battlefield partly because surgeons didn’t know the importance of washing their hands. During this time, we are encouraged to wash our hands for at least 20 seconds to kill the virus, which length of time was news to me.
2. People Are Praying. The evidence is mostly anecdotal, but there is some evidence that people who hadn’t given God much thought are turning to him for comfort, peace and protection. This often happens during bad times. In the weeks immediately after 9-11, church attendance spiked. During this crisis it’s impossible to measure church attendance because there isn’t any and religious fervor sparked by hardship is notoriously temporary, but it may stick for some, and that could have lasting value.
3. Border Security Is Important to the Nation’s Health. Italy has been hard hit by Covid-19 because a large number of Chinese tourists came to their shores in December and January. President Trump stopped travel from China, where the virus transferred from animals to humans, on January 31. Though he was called a racist for doing it, this early action no doubt saved lives. Because border security has been a key part of President Trump’s program from the beginning, many in the media and the Democrat party have opposed it, often to ludicrous extremes, like harboring and even releasing criminals who were slated for deportation. But Covid-19 is not the first infectious disease that should be a concern coming across our borders. Then there are other kinds of infections, like insidious ideologies such as radical Islam and drug and human trafficking, all of which come in over a porous border. One thing we should learn from this experience is that it is very important to know who is coming into our country, where they are coming from, what they are bringing with them, and what their intentions are. There’s nothing racist about that.
4. Manufacturing Is Vital to National Security. As a result of this crisis, there have been calls for ramping up the production of many things, from protective masks to ventilators. Several American manufacturers have answered the call. Unfortunately we have also learned that, along with many other industries which have moved production offshore, more than 90% of our pharmaceuticals are manufactured in China. The potential is real for them to withhold vital supplies and medications, which could devastate our nation’s security, economy and health. The trend to move manufacturing offshore must be reversed. It may cause things to cost more, but how much does it cost to be deprived of those things because we no longer make them ourselves?
5. China Is an International Menace. There is evidence that China covered up the severity of the outbreak that began there and continues to lie about the death toll within its borders, which has skewed the models other countries have used to govern policy. The closed society which is necessary to maintain Communist control means that the truth is always the enemy of the powerful, and their first instinct is to lie. It becomes pathological in these societies. Democratic processes are often messy and frustrating, but openness is much to be preferred to the iron-fisted control and culture of fear created by socialism. But when China’s pathology threatens the well-being of every person on the planet, it is time to recognize the threat the nation and its ideology poses to the world. They have not been shy about stating their intent to dominate the entire world economically, politically and militarily.
6. Socialized Medicine Is a Bad Idea. Continuing the thought of the previous point, another thing that is good from the Covid-19 crisis is that we can see why Socialized Medicine (“Medicare for All”) is a bad idea. Some have actually had the temerity to say that the Covid-19 crisis shows we NEED Medicare for All, but people who say that don’t understand irony, because the virus originated and was allowed to spread in Communist China, where they, obviously, have a single-payer health system like some would like to force on the United States. Government health care is care that puts the interests of the government ahead of the patient and in China that meant hiding the outbreak until it had spread around the world. Why would we expect Socialism to work any differently in our country?