Action, or inaction, over the next two months will have life-or-death implications

PRIORITIES

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the nation was in crisis under a one-term president, James Buchanan. With Lincoln not inaugurated until March, the dissolution of the Union began unchecked by Buchanan, with South Carolina declaring secession in December, and seceding states seizing federal property and forts with no federal military response.

The divisiveness in politics today may not rival the passions that brought us to Civil War, but it’s intense. And we face an existential threat from a virus that only former President Trump has the power to address until Jan. 20. Much can happen between now and then. We may see at least another 100,000 Americans die of Covid-19 between now and the inauguration. Do those lives matter? To put such a death toll into perspective, the CDC estimated 22,000 Americans died from the flu during the 2019-20 “flu season.”

It’s maddening that Covid-19 has been so politicized that some claimed face masks would go away upon Joe Biden’s election, as if the virus was but a conspiracy to get him elected. Voters are not that dumb.

The same Granite Staters who favored Biden also installed Republican state legislative majorities and reelected our Republican governor. A rock-solid Republican in Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert, became the latest governor to impose a mask mandate and a two-week state of emergency. As he put it, “We cannot afford to debate this issue any longer.” Covid-19 doesn’t care which party you favor.

However promising one finds vaccine development news, we are at least several months away from any widespread vaccination. And the prospect of a holiday season explosion in communities is terrifying, especially for the elderly. That New Hampshire has been largely spared deaths in the broader community accounts for the nation’s highest proportion of deaths in nursing homes, especially as those facilities are serving perhaps the nation’s oldest nursing home population.

A second super-spreader White House event— an election night party — shows even a veritable fortress with the best testing is not immune to the virus. Thus the ease with which Covid-19 has entered even “fivestar” nursing homes is unsurprising.

While nursing home staff must wear masks while working, they must also go out into a society where there is much indifference to mask-wearing — even contempt for it. We can all support individual freedom yet still accept that freedom does not include the right to blow your hot, unfiltered breath on others in a checkout line.

How did we enter an alternate universe where the very people fighting Covid-19 are vilified? Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and senior counselor, suggested beheading our nation’s leading infectious disease doctor. Trump himself claimed doctors and other healthcare providers are inflating Covid-19 figures for profit, when Covid-19 is bankrupting healthcare providers, including those I represent.

Even with state and federal assistance, the state’s largest nursing home operator lost $63 million nationally in the third quarter. Independent providers, including family-owned facilities, face financial ruin.

A New Hampshire staffing crisis fueled by chronic Medicaid underfunding — New England’s worst — is now a staffing catastrophe. The state suffered a net loss of 1,276 licensed nursing assistants (LNAs) from June 2018 through May of this year, so if an LNA quits out of fear or is quarantined, no replacement may be available. Amid an outbreak, one rural facility recently pleaded on Facebook for staff.

These facts are immutable by partisan politics. Action, or inaction, over the next two months will have lasting, life-or-death implications. Combating Covid-19, not one another, must be our singular focus.

Brendan Williams is the president and CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association.