When the world sneezes, Nevada gets pneumonia. So what happens to Nevada when the world gets pneumonia? 

The answer, as always, is never pleasant. The Great Depression wrecked Nevada’s economy badly enough for the state to consider legalizing, well, just about anything it could think of so it could tax the proceeds and stay afloat a little longer. That, incidentally, is how we got legalized gambling. The Great Recession, meanwhile, wrecked Nevada’s economy badly enough for the state to consider subsidizing, well, just about any business it could think of so it could tax the sales purchased by their workers. That, incidentally, is how we got Tesla and the Raiders. 

Now we have nearly a quarter of a million Nevadans filing for unemployment out of the nearly million and a half Nevadans in the labor force, in addition to however many were unemployed before all of this started. That means at least 17 percent of all working Nevadans, if not more than one in five, are no longer working. In the midst of such a catastrophe, it’s natural to ask - could we have avoided all of this pain?

In a word, no.

As Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle recently pointed out, we never had a choice between doing nothing and government-imposed social isolation, with all of the economic dislocations that’s caused. Essential services, like New York’s Mass Transit Authority, are demonstrating to the rest of America what happens when you try to work your way through a pandemic:

At least 41 transit workers have died, and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined. Crew shortages have caused over 800 subway delays and forced 40 percent of train trips to be canceled in a single day. On one line the average wait time, usually a few minutes, ballooned to as high as 40 minutes.

If the human cost alone, the dozens dead and the thousands sick, aren’t compelling enough, note that overall service declined by 40 percent. If that 40 percent decline was felt in every other industry, we’d be looking at a loss of economic output that would make the Great Depression look like a mild recession. That’s why economists, seldom united on anything, have said with crystal clear unanimity that, if we want the economy to come back, it must wait for us to halt the pandemic.

To be clear, we are facing a pandemic. By this point, it is irrefutable. Yes, there were some people who disagreed for various reasons, both good and bad; if you’re looking for a charitable dissection of those disagreements, J. D. Vance’s thread on the subject earlier this week is a good place to start. The statistics are out there now, they’re not subtle, and, when competently interpreted, they’re all saying the same thing: We truly are living through a horrifying pandemic that demands changes in our behavior if we want to avoid mass hospitalization and deaths. 

Even now there are people who still wish to debate this, just as there are people who still wish to debate the reality of the Holocaust or the Holodomor. None of those people should be anywhere near positions of responsibility or power for the same reason you wouldn’t want to be in a plane flown by a pilot who thinks up is down or in a car with a driver who thinks “Do Not Enter - Wrong Way” is an invitation. Though there might have been room for honest disagreement before COVID-19 landed on our shores (“might” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, to be clear), there certainly isn’t now that we’re seeing firsthand what this disease does if given half a chance. 

But what if Nevada got lucky for once? Yes, a few thousand Nevadans have tested positive for COVID-19, but that’s nothing compared to what we’re seeing in New York City. Our neighborhoods certainly aren’t as dense and far fewer Nevadans rely on public transportation to get around. Perhaps the steps taken in New York are overkill and are doing unnecessary damage to Nevada’s society and economy.

Even if that were true, we have to recognize that we live in a society — and our society is wisely shutting its doors and staying home. Even Greenland is socially distancing itself from the rest of the world. Countries that have tried more limited methods of mitigation without adequate testing and tracing protocols, like Sweden and Japan, are experiencing more deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19 than their neighbors. James Peron at the Moorfield Storey Institute recently observed that California’s considerably more aggressive COVID-19 strategy has thus far produced fewer deaths and fewer hospitalizations per capita than both Sweden and the rest of the United States. Since California’s considerably more aggressive COVID-19 strategy includes strict travel restrictions, where, exactly, are Nevada’s tourists supposed to come from, then, if many of them live in jurisdictions, like California, that don’t allow them to leave their homes? 

Even if we take government action out of the equation - let’s pretend, solely for the sake of argument, that we lived in a state of leaderless anarchy - private individuals and organizations are also taking steps to protect themselves and their loved ones. Burning Man, for example, is canceled. Several trade conferences became online-only conferences months ago; Microsoft Ignite, which is scheduled for September, will be an online conference this year and Google Cloud Next is being postponed. Nevada’s businesses can’t host events that refuse to host themselves, and it can’t serve customers who refuse to visit. 

What’s bad for Nevada’s tourist economy, however, is good for both our medical, economic and political health. When private individuals and organizations voluntarily choose to take steps to reduce COVID-19 exposure, our governments don’t feel compelled to do as much. Vietnam, for example, despite not having a large enough budget to perform the sort of extensive testing and tracing employed in South Korea or Singapore, has enjoyed enviously low infection rates due to the willingness of the Vietnamese people to voluntarily change their behavior to reduce the spread of the pandemic. Because of that cooperation, as former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Jared Lord noted, the Vietnamese government’s response has been far less heavy handed than Nevada’s. 

The key, however, is we have to be willing to voluntarily work together to end this. Pretending that, since you’re covered in Jesus’ blood, you’re somehow exempt from the need to shelter-in-place (a dangerously and heretically antinomian position) will not protect you or others from a pandemic. It might arguably be true that restricting the size of in-person religious services may be unconstitutional, but it also rather misses the point. South Korea’s outbreak was limited to 31 people but the South Korean government didn’t successfully test, trace and quarantine the 31st person. That person, it turned out, came in contact with more than 1,000 churchgoers, who, in turn, spread it to more than 200,000 fellow churchgoers. Any religious person in a position of authority within their churches should look at that example as a warning against thinking their faith somehow exempts them from the moral and social obligation to stop the spread of disease when empowered to do so. 

Lest anyone think I’m unfairly picking on the religious, a pair of infection clusters in Chicago were traced to a single guest at a funeral. Closer to home, a large party was responsible for making Humboldt County the second-most infected county in the state. The record is clear — wherever there are public gatherings, regardless of the reason or “essentialness” of them, there is a well-documented chance to spread this illness to everyone in attendance. That’s why, regardless of what the government says or does, we should all voluntarily take the steps required to control this pandemic and protect our health.

That’s why we need to stay home for Nevada, even if it’s a special occasion or a holiday. I know it’s hard, but so is being the 31st infected South Korean, or the funeral attendee in Chicago, or the guest at the party in Humboldt County who all have to live with the knowledge they spread illness and death to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands. For your sake as much as ours, choose to do the right thing. 

David Colborne has been active in the Libertarian Party for two decades. During that time, he has blogged intermittently on his personal blog, as well as the Libertarian Party of Nevada blog, and ran for office twice as a Libertarian candidate. He serves on the Executive Committee for both his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is the father of two sons and an IT professional. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [email protected].