Act now: Missouri must close schools, restaurants and bars to contain coronavirus

Gov. Mike Parson said Monday in Kansas City that unlike some other states, Missouri isn’t closing restaurants and bars to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Missouri also hasn’t closed its schools during this global pandemic, though even President Donald Trump, who has at every point downplayed the threat posed by COVID-19, said Monday that the current crisis is likely to last until July or August. We’re not even looking at any kind of lockdown or mandatory quarantine, the president said. But new national guidelines do recommend home schooling, and say people should avoid discretionary travel, gatherings of more than 10 people and eating out at restaurants.

After the new federal guidelines came down, Mayor Quinton Lucas also suspended all gatherings of more than 10 people in Kansas City, limited restaurants to drive-thru, pickup and delivery service only and announced school closures. That was welcome news, especially since just hours earlier, Dr. Rex Archer, Kansas City’s public health director, said at a City Hall news conference with Parson that schools are still open in Missouri because young people don’t tend to get sick with COVID-19, and school closures would cause all sorts of other disruptions and problems: “We really need to get past what I would almost call a mass hysteria of some of these decisions and think through what are the positives and negatives of this. Each school district can independently make these decisions.”

Public service in the time of this global pandemic is a heavy and unenviable responsibility. But our state officials in particular still have not gone far enough.

Officials have repeatedly said they’re listening to scientists, but there’s nothing scientific about keeping bars and restaurants open; that’s an economic decision, and not the same one officials elsewhere are making.

Illinois is among the states that are only allowing bars and restaurants to be open for takeout and delivery, and that’s the model all of Missouri should be following, too, because socializing is too risky right now.

Both Illinois and Kansas are among the states that have closed their schools, and though it’s true, thank goodness, that most children aren’t getting sick, they can still transmit the virus, so whatever the downside — and yes, it’s huge — it’s still safer to close schools. Now.

And social distancing is crucial rather than a matter of personal preference. It will save lives, so those who can stay home should, period. San Francisco is telling residents there to shelter in place, and that’s not an overreaction.

We have only to look at what’s happening in Italy, which is a couple of weeks ahead of us in experiencing this pandemic, to know that we still aren’t being nearly aggressive enough.

Writing in the Boston Globe, an Italian journalist described overrun intensive care units where “doctors were being forced to start making difficult triage decisions, admitting people who desperately need mechanical ventilation based on age, life expectancy, and other factors. Just like in wartime...Some of the people who can’t get medical care are dying in their homes.”

Italy has one of the most advanced health care systems in the world, in case you’re thinking that has nothing to do with us. And here’s the other thing we have in common with Italy: Neither its officials nor the Italian public took the threat posed by coronavirus seriously enough until it was too late.

Rome-based Mattia Ferraresi wrote in the Globe that “I, and too many others, could have taken a simple yet morally loaded action: We could have stayed home.”

Parson again said that the government can’t solve this crisis, and that’s true, but it’s also truer than it has to be. “At some point,” he said, “there’s going to have to be some common sense use, and there’s going to have to be some personal responsibility of how we deal with this issue.”

Yes, we do have a grave personal responsibility. But ordinary citizens can’t close schools, bars and restaurants, and that is what needs to happen. We’ve got to see more common sense from officials, too.

This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 4:41 PM.