The following is a letter written by concerned citizen Joe DeFeo to the Planning Committee of Colorado's Routt County about the local political reaction to the coronavirus.
Hello Commissioners,
First I want to thank you for taking the time to interview me for the Planning Committee. I understand one reason I was not picked is probably my lack of knowledge about the workings of Routt County. And, that is fair. I will find ways to get involved in the community in the future. So, as to get a better understanding of the inner workings of the county, I decided to watch my first commissioners meeting last week when you were deciding on what to do with the state’s elimination of the dial system.
I don’t intend to debate Covid and the seriousness of it. I won’t change your opinion, and you won’t change my opinion. Plus, I am not a scientist or medical professional. But, what I am is a CFO of a medium sized pharmaceutical company with over 30 years of pharma experience, including understanding finance, markets, and statistical analysis. I have been doing analysis of prescription data for over 20 years on many products in many therapeutic areas. I deal with hundreds of thousands of TRx’s a week.
To start I found the conversation with your public health team concerning because they were reporting to you weekly case data, but not correlating it to anything. This is a main issue I tell my data analysts all the time. “Provide analysis, and don’t just report data”. Cases have clearly been the main factor in the decisions during this crisis. At the beginning hospitalizations and deaths were reported, but then the Pilot stopped. I asked and they said. “Well, there are little or no hospitalizations. So, we don’t report.” I believe this was very important to disclose. Routt County is the 4th healthiest county in the country. So, its not surprising that healthy people are less effected by a virus. I strongly feel you can’t make a decision on levels without recognizing that cases went up, and cases went down in Routt County, but people weren’t going to the hospital. It’s a very important correlation. Also, I am pretty sure this is the first ever virus where cases include people who are not sick.
Also, I understand these issues are probably not why you signed up to be a commissioner, and who would have thought you would have to deal with this mess. You also had some cover of being constrained by what the state tells you. However, now deciding to make your own judgements becomes more problematic to continue these ruinous lockdowns. There is a strong argument that the crisis was by government’s actions and not the virus. I strongly believe history will judge this time as one of the greatest man-made disasters of the 21st century. The lockdowns and not the virus. Since when is economic contraction and poverty the answer to any problem. And, poverty is the biggest public health issue in the history of the world.
Some would say: “Isn’t a pandemic precisely the kind of threat calling for strong, coordinated government response?” Its really the opposite. The worse the issue the more information you want. You want 330 million people trying different approaches. Some will be more careful and some will be less. Same with businesses. People don’t need to be forced to keep themselves safe. And, businesses don’t need government to tell them how to protect their business. Free market capitalism is more of an information system than an incentive system. One-size-fits all government plans blind us. It is not that doctors, scientists, and politicians are bad, but they are constrained by the present and past view. While the markets and many companies are looking towards the future and how a problem can be solved. Like the vaccines, it’s the free market that solves problems and moves us forward. Not a strong armed government. Central Planning never works.
Also, there is a saying “More people are killed by good doctors, than by good generals”. No one is an expert on a new virus. Things are tried and some fail and some succeed. Science is never settled. With this virus, the CDC now says that being outside is very low risk of getting Covid. Also, there is less than 1 in 10,000 chance of getting Covid from touching a surface. These are recent findings by the CDC. Not me or someone else. If you want a great example of this issue, then look back at AIDS. The CDC, and Fauci said AIDS was airborne initially. My wife worked in San Francisco during that time. She went to a hairdresser that was homosexual and the business was owned by a homosexual. Their business went under because people were afraid they would get AIDS by breathing the air inside with them. They believed what the CDC told them.
In conclusion, I believe you should not take these measures to continue the lockdowns since its now your sole responsibility. Also, I believe your public health director has an interim role, and focusing almost all your time on this one issue, when many much longer lasting public health issues, like poverty, mental health, addiction, etc. are happening because of these lockdowns is not good. Once again, I say when has economic contraction and poverty been the answer to any problem.
Thanks for listening and take care. I recognize this has been a tough time for you also. But, we all have to ask ourselves: Would we have done these lockdowns if it was our job that would be lost. If this was 2000 instead of 2020, then this could never happen. There was no Zoom or Amazon or all the amazing businesses that have developed over this short 20 years to improve all our lives. Trust free market capitalism.
Best Regards,
Joe DeFeo
