Joseph Sabino Mistick: Drastic changes ahead to save lives in the corononavirus pandemic

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” That is the advice that the Sicilian aristocrat Don Fabrizio received from his populist nephew in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard.”

During the late 1800s, the old don was struggling with changes in Italian society that were beyond his control, which was unfamiliar territory for a man who took comfort in the familiar. The old aristocracy was gone, as the Bourbon rulers were replaced by the new Kingdom of Italy.

Don Fabrizio saw this as a great disappointment, but his young nephew assured him that the only way to hang onto his old life was to change with the times. And we must do that, too, as we now know that only drastic changes can save the lives we have lived.

After all the denials and blame-shifting and whistling past the graveyard, the horrible truth is out about the coronavirus. Even Donald Trump finally had to show the public last week that he had been wrong all along — no small thing for him — and that the deadly coronavirus is not a hoax.

On Wednesday night, a solemn president addressed the nation and announced a series of severe actions that were unimagined up until then.

Two weeks earlier, Trump said that there were around 15 cases of the virus in the country and that soon there would be zero. Later, he said that “anybody who wants a test can get a test,” only to be contradicted by Vice President Mike Pence. Trump even tweeted that the whole thing was fake news designed to rattle the stock market and hurt him politically.

But anyone who does not trust science is likely to think that. The Trump administration’s own medical experts have contradicted him all along. And governors and mayors have had to step into the breach, often finding that the federal government is unprepared to help them.

And we all will need a lot of help. As Megan McArdle wrote in The Washington Post the day before Trump’s change of heart, “When something dangerous is growing exponentially, everything looks fine until it doesn’t.”

“Right now, the United States has more reported cases than Italy had in late February,” McArdle added. And all of Italy shut down last week, with travel restrictions, store closings, school closings and a ban on public events. By midweek, Italy had over 10,000 coronavirus cases and 631 deaths. By Saturday, those figures had risen to over 21,000 cases and 1,400 deaths.

We have to hope that those who have been elected by running against our government have not overplayed their hand. At times like this, we need government — and not smaller government.

Big and bold government has served us well before. We beat the Great Depression because government flexed its muscles. We have won the great wars because we have had great leaders. And now we look to government again.

We may never know for certain if this disaster and the resulting deaths could have been lessened by a properly funded, fully prepared and responsive federal government. But we have a pretty good idea.

And we better have learned that you do not wait for a fire before you hire and train a fire department.