YANG: That’s what freaks me out about the whole thing. What we’re doing is saying things like ‘keep your social distance' and trying to stop the spread that way, which is fine. But we have shit for data. Like, we don’t know what the infection rate is. And so, there’s no reason we would ever be able to give the ‘all-clear.’ If you don’t have any data, this whole thing is a nightmare that doesn’t end. When you close schools, what gives you the all-clear to say, ‘Okay, open them again?’ Nothing. There’s no data to compare it to. This whole thing is a fear-based approach with no end in sight. There’s no catalyst to ever sound the all-clear. This whole thing is so fucked up.
[...]
ALBERTA: [...] So, if you were president right now, is there any one immediate action that you would take that the president has not yet taken?
YANG: I think the nature of that guidance has to be different, personally. I think they need to be transparent about what kind of data we’re relying on, to give people a sense of the timeline. Right now, our sense of the future is so cloudy. And you get the sense the president went from not taking this seriously to suddenly realizing its seriousness, and now we’re reacting in various ways to slow the spread of the virus. But then what? I would be clearer as to what the timeline looks like, what data we’re going to rely upon, how we’re going to get that data, what steps we’re taking to increase testing capacity, and just give people a sense of the future.
We need to know now what the future can look like under different scenarios, and then be presented with what scenario we’re in when that time comes. We’ve been on lockdown for half a week. Right now the American people don’t have any visibility into whether it’s going to be four more weeks or four more months, and we don’t know how those judgments are going to determined. As president, I would say, ‘Look, here’s the information, here’s the dashboard, here’s what we’re lining up, here’s what we’re hoping for, here’s how circumstances could change, and thank you for doing your part—if you proceed with like the rest of the country in flattening the curve and keeping things under this level, then we can look forward to this.’ You know, so we could actually have a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
From the interview:
[...]