Political Gumbo: What We Go to Next Needs to Be Better Than ‘Normal’

You hear it over and over in the news:

“When the cases decline we can get back to normal.”

But why are we rushing to get back the way things were after we have been shown for 10 months that some of our most important systems are so frail they can fall apart in less than one month?

Instead of rushing back to where we were in January, maybe it’s time to come up with ways to make sure we are prepared for surges 3, 4 and 5 … or worse, a pandemic twice as bad that strikes twice as quickly and with more deadly force. 

Local hospitals simply don’t have enough ICU beds. It took the pandemic less than one month to fill up ICU beds at Huntington Hospital and other medical facilities around the region.

Now hospitals are being forced to ration care and in some cases place patients in gift shops and auditoriums.

Simply put, there is no plan to take care of people’s needs.

At the rate we are going, scores of businesses could close and millions of people could be unemployed or homeless when the medical pandemic ends and the social pandemic begins.

Who knows where they will get their food.

To make matters worse, the pharmaceutical industry increased prices on 300 drugs on Jan. 1, according to an analysis by health care consulting firm 3 Axis Advisors.

And reports are slowly trickling in of local residents receiving eviction notices.

And now we are seeing more local gun violence, some of it apparently just random, like the brutal shooting in Villa Parke. 

That’s the normal we are heading back to. A normal where most people cannot afford to live here and the homeless rate in L.A. County was already skyrocketing and more young people with guns. 

That’s not the normal we need to go back to.

Instead, we need a local plan for our residents, hospitals, schools, jobs, businesses, and not just restaurants, that will account for the aftermath of the pandemic.

The nation’s plan is a $600 check per person. Don’t get me wrong, 600 smackers won’t hurt anybody.

But what’s that supposed to do on a month’s rent in Pasadena? Yeah it works fine in West Virginia where the average rent was $727 in 2019.

That’s not going to get it done. Gavin Newsom or the L.A. County Board of Supervisors needs to write some checks.

Miss me with all that socialism stuff. If the country, state or county cannot take care of its people during this crisis, then it’s not worth anything. 

Trust me if those running the show on all levels don’t get it together. The social pandemic will be far worse than the virus.

The No-Game: Notre Dame coach Bryan Kelly threatened to boycott the Rose Bowl game if it were held in Pasadena.

Well, based on the 31-14 drubbing his team took, maybe the Fighting Irish shouldn’t have gone to Texas either.

A late game touchdown made it look far more respectable than it was. 

By the way is anybody ever going to report action from that closed session meeting. Was there a vote or not?