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May 22, 2020 - Jim Bakker Show
06:00
Thoughts on the Country's COVID 19 Response - Gordon Pennington
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Michigan's Pandemic Response 00:06:00
But what do you have to say, Gordon, first of all, about this whole pandemic and even this let's just start with this news report that Mondo brought.
Well, this is happening around the country as we're responding to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
We've never been down this road in terms of all the implications.
And certainly no one is indifferent to human suffering.
We all want to be compassionate.
We all want to be responsive.
We all want to be responsible.
But what does that look like as we work through more and more information, more and more understanding of what this virus is all about?
And certainly it's a very serious virus for a very, turns out, a very small percentage of the population.
Here in Michigan, we've had some hot spots which were devastating in the Detroit area, but they were limited to three counties and only a handful of hospitals.
In the midst of that, making guesses about what kind of resources would be needed, medically speaking, and to provide hospital care for people who would be affected was based on faulty models.
So I'm not judging anybody's motives.
I don't know people's motives.
I assume people are compassionate toward their fellow human beings.
But the mistakes that were made cost many lives, cost many jobs.
And in the Detroit area, for example, because the COVID-19 outbreak was so intense in a few hospitals and especially affecting certain populations that were very vulnerable, the resources weren't managed well.
And there will always be finger pointing because I think no one was really prepared for this.
Certainly at the federal, state, county level, local levels, hospital care systems weren't providing sufficient PPE, personal protection equipment for their staffs regularly.
I know this for a fact.
So it's very difficult.
But regarding the governor here in Michigan, she made decisions that she said were dictated by the input of experts.
And she said she wanted to be led by science.
But we all understand that science is only as good as the empirical method and the disciplines regarding it.
And those disciplines require constant monitoring of the data and the details, the medicine, and the response levels that we're learning about every day.
So what's happened here in Michigan in a nutshell is the governor has acted on an act that goes back to 1945 toward the end of World War II where there's fear with the atomic weapons that were being developed that there might be extraordinary circumstances that government would have to respond to at the end of warfare.
So in that regard, this is called Public Act 302.
And 31 years later, another public act was enacted, giving the governor executive emergency powers.
This was Public Act 390 in 1976.
But the governor was required to go back to the legislature.
This is perfectly sensible and understandable after 28 days to assess the needs of the state on a district by county basis and local levels so that the legislature could determine if the governor needed these powers.
Now, these are extraordinary powers because they suspend other constitutional and civil liberties.
And our governor has gone beyond this now in spite of, and you could say some call it a dereliction duty because she has essentially ignored the legislature and said that she can do what she wants.
And now our numbers have flattened, so to speak, flattening the curve of COVID-19 here.
It's been very serious, but half of our, over half of our 83 counties in Michigan have not had any problems.
And many counties are having very small problems.
In one of the counties here, it's very, very small indeed.
It's less than a one-quarter percent, much less than that.
So, what has happened in the meantime is it has put a strain.
Well, it didn't put a strain, actually, it's put a strain on our preparation because now we have hospitals that are operating at under 60% occupancy, some of them 40% occupancy, even less, and thousands of healthcare workers have been laid off.
So, in the midst of what we thought would be a coronavirus pandemic crisis, which lasted for a very short time, and then we passed the apex, and now it's flattening.
And now, as we have more science, we realize far more people have been exposed to COVID-19 than we previously thought, and far fewer people are being affected.
Now, let me say it again: anytime you lose a loved one, that's something precious, and nobody's discounting that.
But there are many people being exposed to risks of all kinds.
More people die from many other causes in this state than COVID-19, and they weren't getting exposed to screenings, chemotherapy, diagnoses.
So, there are all kinds of problems related to this that's basically impaired our health care system and caused many people to be, including physicians.
So, we have critical resources now because this wasn't managed well, and the data was incorrect, and the predictions were incorrect.
And now, this just compounds itself because the governor refuses to allow people to go fully back to work.
And many people believe this can be done very safely, not perfectly.
Life is never perfect, but it can be done safely enough to merit that instead of people risking losing their entire businesses, especially mom and pops.
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