By RICK NEBEL
Los Alamos
This is a response to Richard Skolnik’s recent article on the COVID-19 pandemic (link).
Like most bureaucrats, he discussed leadership and policy at great length at the national level and compares us to other countries. It’s the typical “dump on Trump” narrative. While this sounds impressive, the COVID-19 situation is really a whole lot simpler than that.
Take a look at the latest statistics on the age distribution of COVID-19 patients in New Mexico:
https://cvprovider.nmhealth.org/public-dashboard.html
Notice how skewed it is towards young adults. It didn’t used to look that way. Now take a look at the Los Alamos distribution by clicking on Los Alamos County. It’s even more skewed towards young adults. It didn’t used to look that way either.
Now take a look at the people’s political identity distribution by age:
Note that those identifying as liberal also peak with young adults. Yes, we do have a leadership problem. Our liberal “Progressive” governor can’t even get her most ardent supporters to do what she asks them to do. She’s trying to lead, but they aren’t following. Instead of enforcing her edicts, her response is to continue beating up on small businesses.
I disagree with the Governor on many things, and I disagree with Donald Trump on most things.
However, I do understand that if we are going to get this pandemic under control we all have to be on the same page, and it’s the Governor’s responsibility to set that policy. You can’t freelance your behavior and have a successful outcome.
The irony of the present situation is that the data suggests the Governor is probably getting better compliance from her political opposition (largely older people) than her political supporters (largely younger people).
