I read with sadness recently in The Tribune that our leaders in Utah have announced paltry goals for our COVID-19 metrics: less than 1% fatality rate and maybe decreasing the daily infection rate to 300-350. These goals stand in contrast to what most of the rest of the world enjoys. A goal of 300 cases per day equates to 100 new cases per day per million people. Compare this with Japan, which has five cases per million per day, or Germany with its 15 per million per day. Even Sweden, which took a laissez-faire approach, is now at about 20 new cases per million per day. One only needs to look to the internet (for example, OurWorldInData.org) to compare our miserable response with the rest of the world.
This even as we are missing the governor’s goal of less than 400 new cases per day, and this is triggering no action on the part of the government.
We know it is possible to do better. Our leaders need to step up, set aggressive goals and take action when we miss our existing goals.
Geoff Schrank, South Jordan