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well aloha mai kakou everyone and welcome today I'm Kili Akina president and CEO of the grassroot institute of Hawaii and we're delighted that you're joining us for our webinar I'm excited because today is an auspicious day for many reasons it's June 5th 2020 for one thing it's my first day back actually working from the office and so it feels a little strange to be in a building that is half deserted but glad that we're in the midst of transition and I think all of us are experiencing that transition from a full lockdown to one that is less full whatever that may mean it's also an auspicious day because today June 5th in history is the 100th birthday of the Merchant Marine act of 1920 known to us affectionately as the Jones Act and we're going to be celebrating that birthday with many reports that come out this month I've written enough a chapter in a book by Cato Institute that will be released this month and you can get a copy through the email will notify you if you sign up for our newsletters in addition to that the grassroot institute is going to present a long-awaited study on the actual economic costs of the Jones Act to Hawaii and the surrounding region that'll be coming out this summer but let's go straight to what we're going to talk about today our topic is striking a balance has Hawaii's locked-down been worth the cost and I am just so delighted today to have a friend who is one of the clearest thinkers in the state of Hawaii and one of the best writers with us cam net napier cam has been writing for well he's been writing since the day he was born I think he's excellent about ideas together and putting him down on on paper in 2014 he began with Pacific Business News as editor in chief which is the post he has today but prior to that I think many of you recall cam was with Honolulu Magazine for 19 years he was known for among other things starting the evaluation process of public and private schools something which made him a bit nor notorious because people in our state don't necessarily like evaluation but one of the things I've really appreciated about cam is that he's been able to say what is rational and clear without being becoming political and I don't know how he's navigated that but I'm gonna ask him about that as soon as we bring him on board what we'll do today is basically chat with cam on the topic and then what we'll do is open to questions so I hope that you will prepare and use the Q&A feature on your software to be able to participate in the questions and answers cam thank you so much for being on our program today we welcome you Aloha glad to have you on board well good morning thanks very much for having me on and having pbn represented so it's a great way to wake up in the morning a little live video webinar action well cam one of the things I've admired about you is you've been a very bold writer you say what you think and that's not always been appreciated in a town where a lot of times people like to have a group mindset how you manage to do that and yet remain non-political I don't know I mean I I try to just think very carefully through what I'm saying and my my my goal is to try to reach people who may not agree with me so they can at least see where another perspective might be coming from and and that that might that with that goal in mind maybe that's where the discipline comes from to try to write in such a way that people feel like it's it's fair and and and coming from a good place now you know not from reader feedback I can tell you probably not everyone feels like it's all been completely neutral but I mean well I mean neutrality is a funny concept right everyone has right when it comes to a controversial issue such as the handling of the corona virus pandemic worldwide and certainly here in Hawaii there's been a certain perspective you've had because you're not government you're not an actual player in terms of meaning what government will do your I'm sorry your the Fourth Estate your journalism so you know what I'd really like to know is what you think journalism brings to the table at a time like this well ideally it's bringing good questions to the table questions that elicit facts questions that elicit historical perspective and analysis questions that that help our readers understand what's going on in the world you know Pacific Business News is part of American City Business Journal's our mission is to help people grow their business advance their career and simplify their professional lives and I think over the last two months maybe that mission became helped businesses survive help people protect their careers and reinvent their professional lives and the pbn newsroom has been working harder than I've ever seen them from home we do to virtual staff meetings a day that look just like this webinar as the team works on their web stories every day all day and we still get the paper out every Friday without interruption just giving people news they can use there's been a lot of articles about PPP and and how to get the most out of that a lot of articles about what businesses have been experiencing what they've been learning some successes along the way you know businesses that have managed to hold steady or grow despite everything going on and and then you know part of that mix but but separate in a way is my own column so that's that's where and then my disclaimer is any opinions expressed or our mind right official stance on anything obviously Pacific Business News is dependent upon its subscribers and its advertisers but yeah in some leeway in your column and maybe that's one of the reasons your publication is popular because you speak which you really believe and feel in your heart and a lot of people resonate with that one of the things you've not held back on is being critical of government government during times like this during emergencies yeah and you have raised some criticisms of government what caused you to begin questioning the government's response to the pandemic well you know when this thing first was in the news as an international event it debuted very dramatically with news out of China with news out of Italy and and I had simultaneous concerns one about the pandemic itself as a health threat and and the other that a concern that people would over react because I think you know if you were going to place a safe bet on human nature and behavior you could safely bet that they're likely to overreact to some new threat and and and maybe that's not even necessarily a bad thing because this looked like a very quick moving crisis and decisions needed to be made quickly but but then you know where it becomes a problem is if people get locked into that crisis mode longer than is necessary and then as far as like the the local government response one of my first sources of concern was was in March when we were already like voluntarily social distancing and a lot of businesses were sending people home even before the official stay at home work from home orders which were set to begin at the end of at the end of March and and in in the midst of telling us that it was essential that tourism stopped for a month that most of our economic activity stopped for a month the plan at that point was still to let the schools reopen that they they were set to reopen after an extended spring break weeks before everything else was supposed to reopen and I thought well though if the logic of the shutdown is is that we need to assume that any of us could have it and in fact anybody at any time why is it okay for you know over a hundred thousand schoolchildren who are notorious vectors for disease every parent I know seems to be sick with a cold half the time you know why is that safe from a public health standpoint given the argument for shutting down everything else so that would that was my first my my first sign that there might be something to worry about in in the local response you know there were several instances in which the government upped its game so to speak yeah take a a more draconian approach toward dealing with the corona virus what was some of those milestones along the way that you commented on I I had to do some homework last night to remind myself about these things because I don't know about you but the last two months three months feels like a blur like it ought to be 2025 already as much as gone by and every day seem to bring some new stuff but let me see if I can quickly find that I did pull together a quick timeline here and just a mainly cam just want to see your thought process here as well yeah I mean the big the big transitions in in the in the narrative underpinning the lockdowns and their extensions was originally planning the ICU curve okay right good by the way let's just pause for a moment here to explain that you're talking about a certain narrative that had to do with right the curve the the initial models from a variety of sources which were predicting as many as 2.2 million deaths in the United States suggested that that that the pandemic would spread at such a speed that the intensive care units would be overwhelmed and and so what people meant by flatten the curve was flattened the demand curve of ICU beds of ventilators right and and spread that out so the the initial explanation for a limited one-month shutdown was that nothing could be done to change the total number of people who would inevitably be sick what we wanted to do was make sure that nobody's cause of death was lack of an ICU bed so let's slow down the spread of transmission so that the inevitable illnesses don't overwhelm the the hospital's ability to handle them and and we were quite successful at that I don't think we even came close to stretching the potential of our awesome icy use here in Hawaii the the measures we took flatten the curve quite successfully and as we were nearing the end of the April shut down under the flatten the ICU curve logic the the the language from from EJ and Caldwell and and nationally as well from from governors and mayor's across the country shifted to slowing the transmission entirely or stopping the virus entirely which was not originally presented to us as reasonable or realistic or even possible and now and let me just pause with you here a moment sure you're saying that there was a shift in the fundamental narrative yes in the the premise that was being offered to the public right to why government was taking the actions it was taking right from flatten the curve to now slow down the transition or even try or stop it what is your concern about that shift taking place without it clearly being stated to the public or having without it actually being the original without with it being the without necessarily changing our original premises on this right well I I think my concern is that this was done under the auspices of the emergency powers declarations right so while while it looked to me and maybe to many others that the initial urgency that justified the emergency powers was no longer justified the emergency power stayed in place the narrative was shifted within its context and and and there was no meaningful opportunity for public input and and there remains none you know the the emergency declarations continued to get updated and and so it it's a situation where we just have to trust while being asked to make for the big sacrifices now you mentioned that there was no meaningful opportunity for public input right that's a little bit of a segue here taking you off topic a little bit into the subject of the governor's suspension of the open meetings laws and the Freedom of Information Act implementation here in the state of Hawaii do you think that was a wise move at the time and I know that you expressed concerns about that right right and and you know credit where it's due Civil Beat has covered this very well there on top a lot of a lot of the the governmental accountability aspects of this situation was the League of Women Voters I think who wrote the letter of concern about the open meetings and so that was common cause what common sorry common cause you're right along with the Sigma was five years ago in kovat time fine in grassroot institute was glad to participate in the oh yeah so so so you know people were on that and and and I mentioned it in my column maybe a month ago because I wanted readers to know that it was a thing that was going on and and who was helping to to address it but you know I mean it's still a fact that with with the executive branch's of state and county governments using the authority of these emergency declarations you know the only real checks on that ultimately could be the legislative branches of our threeway system or the judicial branch I'm not seeing locally a lot of interest on the part of the legislative bodies to rein in these powers which may leave people with only the courts now it's very difficult I understand to question emergency powers through the court during an emergency well right right generally historically any review of the courts takes place years after an emergency happens so what recourse does that leave to citizens in Hawaii who who are concerned about loss of civil liberties during a time like this and perhaps the abuse of emergency or police yeah well whatever whatever people's concern they need to reach out to to our elected representatives directly you know people have been doing that with protests in the streets they've been doing it with emailing and calling their legislators and you know I mean it to be fair if there are folks out there of the opinion that we need to stay locked down forever by all means call your representatives and tell them that too but but I've been encouraging folks all along who who feel like they have not been listened to that well you got to you got to try to speak out in the first place and and represent their their concerns now cam I know you've not called for throwing caution to the wind in terms of the the health care situation and protection of the public but at the same time you've had some very serious concerns about the economic impact and the long-term ramifications of the lock down could you explain some of those economic or other both go ahead well with the economy but I think in a way the economy and public health are one in the same I think they're inseparable I think that the best way to take care of the greatest number of people is to be prosperous and and secure and and successful as a society and and we've seen this has been quite an experiment right you push a button and stop almost all of the economy and suddenly everyone's broke and the federal government has to reach into the national credit card and put three to three trillion dollars on it in relief to the states in the cities to to cover just March in April as a reminder the cares Act and another federal relief so far so we're in a period now where we're making local decisions that are well past the safety net that was created to try to accommodate the specific public health threat of of kovat 19 it's it's well known though you know when when an economy is bad when unemployment is high when people are losing their businesses those are public health threats as well UPI just this morning in my inbox was the press release about depression and anxiety cases tripling nationwide over the last couple months Joe Kent with grassroot has just had a piece at Civil Beat and quantifying some of the other health risks and everything from screenings that are missed I mean so if someone's been too afraid to see their doctor for the last two or three months and they missed a screening that might detect the cancer well you know there's a public health cost and and will that be measured at any point in in some analysis after the fact of all of this I don't know how do you balance on one hand the concern for public safety and health and on the other hand concern over the economy I know you said earlier that they're not actually separate from each other they go hand-in-hand right but we're in a process of moving from a state of virtual lockdown into one in which we're trying to restart the economy right right how do we maintain and strike the appropriate balance for moving forward yeah well people are gonna argue about an a
propriate balance I think for some time to come there was some research from Duke University surveys that they took nationwide through the month of May and found that nearly a quarter of American adults were what they would call openers that they were willing to accept up to a 16 percent increase in their own risk of contracting coronavirus for the sake of getting open you know going going back to work but there was more than thirty nearly forty percent of respondents who were willing to take no risk whatsoever and there are demographic differences between them now there were the survey paid particular attention to political affiliation so the the closer it's the people the risk-averse folks you have both Democrats and Republicans the openers were more likely to be politically independent and more likely to be self-employed so people are reacting to what is scaring them the most at the moment and and you know in a large complex society you're gonna have people who are still most afraid of contracting or passing along coronavirus and you're gonna have many others who are most afraid that they're they're losing their life's work that they're losing their business they're losing the manner in which they sustain themselves their families their employees their clients that whole vast network that that is what we we mean when we say economy and and policymakers are unlike me quality makers are stuck with the the horrible task of trying to satisfy mutually exclusive demands from different parts of public but in my my column today I brought about this survey just thought you know at some point at some point it should be obvious that that we're as safe as we could possibly be in an uncertain world and and and that the anxious people will have to learn to manage their anxiety on their own and policymakers maybe some of them are in that camp they'll have to learn to manage their own anxiety and and stop making it policy you know we're with journalism and with social media there's been no lack of data points so to speak data if there is such a thing but you and I both know that data is only as good as the theory by which that data is interpreted okay so we're looking at certain figures such as a very low incidence of qur'anic covin 19 in hawaii as well as stream Leeloo incidents of any deaths from that right now how do we interpret that do we say that shows AHA there was a tremendous overreaction on the part of government and it was not necessary to go forward with the level of lockdown that we experienced or the loss of civil liberties well people are on the other hand you heard it no that shows that we were successful right with the lockdown and as a journalist how do you come up with the correct interpretation of the facts what just keep asking questions even if no one answers them or even if they're unanswerable one of the things that I've have pointed out in the column is that the economy was not shut down 100% there are essential businesses that were allowed to operate with a great deal of social interaction and and it seemed apparent from the lack of continued spread of coronavirus throughout the things that were open that mask-wearing hand-washing stay home with your sick stand a little bit further away from people all of that seemed to be sufficient to account for our success and because if those things weren't sufficient the numbers would be higher and they would be hired specifically in those areas that that have not been closed and and so one of my frustrations just as a citizen and a writer is that I wasn't seeing officials recognize that and and and change their mindset from we're all going to die anyone could get it anyone could pass it along assume you have it we were told assumed you could infect everyone I think that that reality was showing us very quickly that that wasn't the case but the the policies were not changing on that on that same timetable well let's go to the audience questions and answers in just a moment but I'll let you answer one summary question was the level of lockdown that we've had in Hawaii worth it well you know when I saw that in our emails about about this webinar I winced because that's an enormous question and and people are going to be debating was it worth it I think for years to come locally nationally internationally this is an international phenomenon that's one of the amazing things about it and it you know it may play out with the local variations everywhere but but there was essentially like a global panic and a global pandemic simultaneously for me personally I was I was completely comfortable with what we were doing for April that it looked worth worth the risk and it looked like there was some admittedly very very expensive policy interventions to try to help afford that response but with each each week past April with each extension me it's harder to accept the the worth it and I know that's there are people who think well Napier just doesn't care if people die that says absolutely not true people people will die as a result of our intervention as well and and and those deaths are just as real you know I mean you think about so the high-risk demographic is senior kid and we've been I don't know what our senior care facilities in Hawaii have been doing but they've been doing fantastic because elsewhere around the world fatalities have been concentrated in senior care facilities they represent 42% of the American fatalities people living in senior care facilities but they're less than 1% of the population but then you know how many and and and and so and they say well they died of coronavirus sooner than they would have otherwise had they not caught it but how many have been dying sooner than they otherwise would have because they're lonely and no one can visit them and and who's measuring that is anyone is this in the calculus of was it worth it for anyone I don't know well this is a good place to pause and go to questions especially with that two sides of the coin and multi sides of the diamond I think that we have a lot of people who are interested in asking you about things such as the 14 day quarantine at the airport or whether the herd immunity thesis is valid I'm gonna hand it over to Joe Kent and say to the others that we welcome we welcome your questions at this time and we're going to devote the next half hour to answering them can the only thing I'd like to request is that since we've got so many people putting forth some questions now you can really great if you yes and we will look forward to seeing you write a little bit about this perhaps in Pacific Business News Joe Kent our executive vice president once you take it away with the Q & A sure well we've got a lot of people asking about tourism when will tourism open and how should you think how do you think tourism should open one person says he's concerned that by welcoming visitors again we open the islands up to more kovat 19 exposure but other people are worried about you know the loss of business and everything so how do you see tourism reopening I wish I knew the answer to that everyone's waiting for for government to issue its permission right you know but when EJ put out his I'll try to keep this brief he recently did the 8th extension of his Proclamation and issued a four-point plan for the reopening of Hawaii and accommodations in that plan technically have the green light they're totally open right all they have to do is make some minor health accommodations but we'll arrest their customers if they step foot outdoors so they're not really open right as long as the 14-day quarantine is in place the visitor industry is not open and I totally understand concern like we feel like we dodged a bullet maybe in part by shutting the borders so to speak and and keeping Outsiders out but I would just encourage people to look at the fact that that case counts have been declining everywhere and that even though even the most pessimistic models are predicting very low fatalities nationwide by the end of summer so if we maintain the quarantine as long as September which is one of the hints I've seen from a debug report we could be keeping out something that's over even if already a related question someone asked even if tourism opens and let's say all the quarantine zone and everything how long do you think it would still take for tourism to recover to what it was before Hiro's estimate is up to six years and and that's based in part on things like how quickly the larger national and economy is rebound and there's a lot of things that are out of our control you know Hawaii could have theoretically stayed open for business and every way imaginable and tourism was gonna collapse because people were afraid to get on a plane they're afraid to leave their homes and and we have no control over that so the the recovery to some extent is out of our hands in that regard right do people feel like they've got the money the security and the safety to travel um another question out Kent School in points that we you had a transparency discussion earlier in this and he points out that China was very criticized for a lack of transparency during this process yet Hawaii's government you know it waived the transparency rules and everything so you know any comment there well I do think that the way this whole thing started with with China's intense reaction to a public health threat subconsciously somehow set a precedent in the minds of policymakers around the world that this pandemic was so dangerous only an authoritarian response would be sufficient and I don't I don't think that was even a conscious thing I think it set a template I think the way media was covering it internationally reinforced the idea of you know weld the door shut on the apartment building right that was one of the things they were doing in China now we didn't go that far but we've been we've been under a kind of gentle house arrest and that was that was one of my initial concerns was that there wasn't enough thinking of like okay we can see how China and Italy are responding now what are the ways in which we are not like China or Italy that's interesting another one can school and ass is he thought the emergency powers lasted only for 60 days without legislative action you know is that true and aren't we passed the 60 days yeah I had a great conversation with ACLU Hawaii about this because I was looking into well honestly I was I was looking into the laws about recall elections there were protests were going on people were expressing that they weren't being heard and policies were not matching reality or their preferences and and I was well what can people do right what can what meaningful action could people take and in the course of that I ran across the the Hawaii Revised Statutes about the proclamations emergency power proclamations and the law literally states that they expire automatically sixty days after their issue so issued March for expired May 3rd but clearly no one thinks that that's okay no one issuing them things that there's a limitation and no one in a position to say hey they expired is is saying so right so and and I had an off-the-record conversation with the senator who said that the legislature is unlikely to do so because the existence of emergency proclamations is helpful in getting federal aid which is why the proclamations say for the flooding on Kauai have been extended for now nearly two years but those are not proclamations that required anybody to stop making a living so no one no one no one cares really if the emergency proclamations for the flooding or for the volcanic eruptions on Big Island if those get extended over and over there's no impact but this this time there's an impact and and and it it might be worth a challenge by the legislature or by the judicial branch to say you know if not now in legislation in the next session of like do we really really want extensions to just be automatic so what someone else a different topic someone else asks about you know can hawaii cover if we don't start letting visitors in back soon and I would just add what do you think about diversification a lot of people are saying well let's just diversify to to kind of replace that that industry one of the things that really caught my eye with that eighth extension and the four phase plan was that at an unnamed industry was was described as the highest risk industry and it was necessarily under the latest version of the plan to diversify the economy as a precondition to opening this unnamed highest risk industry the same plan manages to not mention by name Hawaii's number one employer tourism now people have been talking about diversifying our economy my entire life without success right I mean because how realistic is it for for government in particular to say well we're gonna replace this economy with another an economy as the result of 1.4 million separate individuals in Hawaii interacting with each other exchanging money with each other and with the outside world with their own interest their own their own desires at play their own possibilities their own training this is to say we need to wait for government to figure out a diversified replacement for tourism before we can reopen tourism they can't they can't do that they like they don't even have the capability of doing that because we're the ones who make an economy another question what do you think the effect of this will be on real-estate prices in the long term Janis Megan or senior editor has been talking to commercial real estate brokers and and the residential real estate side so there's there's two worlds and you know the commercial real estate side may see some really big changes if worked from home becomes something that people liked and want to do and they want to keep on doing then then a lot of office oriented businesses may want a smaller cheaper footprint and and that could really change the market and free up a lot of space you increase supply demand drives prices drop etc residential real estate so far seems unaffected the volume of sales has been down because of work from home stay at home and the Realtors have been hustling to find ways to sell their homes online without having to meet each other in person people have been very inventive with all of that sort of thing but you know I have on the back of my mind you know Hiro's projection that if if it takes up to six years you know somewhere between two and six years for Hawaii's economy to recover that we could lose 30,000 people in the next two years well that could solve our housing shortage that's one way to do it is is people just leave and put their homes on the market and I don't know what if what effect that would have on home values if and when there's there's a flood of homes for sale you know the shortage was so bad before all of this though that that the home prices may may simply plateau that's that's been a historic pattern and residential real estate is that home prices will spike they'll double as they did like in between when I graduated from high school and when I graduated from college home prices doubled in the late 80s in Hawaii but then they were flat for a decade then they kind of doubled again and flat so I don't know oh we've got a lot of questions yeah apologize if I'm not getting to your question but I'll try to control myself and be really sorry excellent um EJ's solution is to keep borrowing from the feds to balance the budget and to increase the state's debt how will he deal with now there's a two billion dollar budget shortfall you know what's the best way to deal with this your perspective I'm familiar with the hope that the feds will bail out states and cities I think the line of states and cities hoping for that money is pretty long and and the the national government already put three trillion dollars on the credit card what's our national debt I said up to now six trillion nine trillion right that that's not endlessly sustainable so and and it is out of Hawaii's control whether or not that throw toll money will ever ever come so it would probably be better to look for solutions that are within our control the the faster recovery can happen the faster tax revenues will go back up to normal that's one way they can solve
the two billion dollar hole but then also if we have a population who's fleeing the islands that hurts that that tax revenues I guess to base you guys have chronicled pretty pretty detailed how the cost of government locally in Hawaii has become much more expensive per taxpayer than even an inflation accounts for I've got a lot of questions about what you know how do we reach out to the governor you know are there business groups that are doing this so what about the unions shouldn't the hotel unions sue the government to open and basically how do we there's a lot of people who are frustrated and trying to figure out how to talk to the government to either open or or make it a better reopening yeah you know all the chambers are involved the petitioning for for clear communication and a plan there's the House Select Committee where business and the chambers are well represented but but business has been represented in the process for months now and and the process seems immune somehow to their input janice megan has a cover story in in this week's paper that's just coming out today about it's been all these months and there's no plan and there's no plan to communicate a plan in a in a meeting last week of that House Select Committee Peter Howe with Bank of Hawaii expressed the urgent need for for this plan and a communication plan to tell four million people about it and the the result of him bringing it up was the committee decided to talk about it at the next meeting June 15 so there's a certain lack of urgency so I don't know what it will take to for citizens and business to get the attention of people moving at that speed few people or a few people have asked about banning vacation rentals so why are we banning vacation rentals but allowing hotels to operate and it just seems like there's a there's a big crackdown right now still about banning vacation rentals yeah yeah I'm rusty on the policy details of that particular dispute now all I know anymore is coopered stuff okay definitely a crackdown and and in in the past with the hotel industry has asked for it said their interest in is is that their competitor be held to the same regulatory standards they're held to okay all right I can see the logic of that right if there's certain fire code things that a hotel has to meet and a home doesn't but the homemakers making resort money mm-hmm all right I'll do the fairness argument there for for that but but yeah sorry I'm rusty on that world that's alright please comment on the economic implications of the Department of Education announcement that virtual education will be offered to grades 6 through 12 next year how will parents go back to work if someone asks that is I'm not a parent I know a lot of people who are it's a it's a it's a it's been quite a disruption for working parents to become home schoolers all of a sudden to be at home that's a huge that's a huge thing and and I don't know how you coordinator simultaneous revolution in home-based education delivery without a simultaneous revolution in and where people work for a living how can the we're getting a lot of questions about the legality of this is this legal what they're doing how can a mayor a governor's Proclamation negate the Bill of Rights and the Constitution things like that so how do you view whether or not this is legal well it's legal until somebody Sue's in a court says if it's legal or not and a lot of I heard rumblings of a lawsuit in the works I don't know that it's been filed yet by by one particular group I can see potential legal arguments that if you if you've lost business as a result of the policies you could maybe make a claim for damages that began when the proclamation expired under the law to say that from this point on my losses were a taking that I was not compensated for but I'm not an attorney I'm not a constitutional law scholar I just read a lot of stuff on the internet um what is the cost of mental health and from this lockdown do you think that's a good question and and I'd like us to look into that more one of the things I'd like PBM to to look at as soon as we can is is the health care industry you know one of the one of the surprising and ironic outcomes of all of this is we frighten people away from hospitals so successfully that the hospitals we were worried about overwhelming actually were financially dying for lack of business and revenue the cares Act included a hundred and twenty five billion dollars in relief for hospitals nationwide and that didn't include only the cost of them caring for kovat patients which in most cities were lower than expected in some cities much much worse it also covered lost revenue so I think it'll take a long time to add up the bill on mental health and physical health costs coming out of all this another question of just the testing has any study been done regarding the number of tests performed versus the number of positive results for kovat it seems like the numbers in Hawaii are very very very low and and we're testing a lot and to that I'd also add seems like Josh Greene had a proposal to randomly test visitors coming in and I think would be voluntary you know every 20th visitor or something like that um yeah how do you view you know the role of testing in in this and are we testing enough or are not enough or what you know it's that that's out of my expertise what I can say is that I noticed as the as the narrative shifted week by week or month by month that that testing became the most recent obsession on the policymaker side and you know I I don't know I mean it there's a lot of things I got brought about for my column today like the Universal mask-wearing well New England Journal of Medicine says outside of a clinical setting it's really more of an emotional support it makes people feel safer if you're not within six feet of someone with active symptoms according to the New England Journal of Medicine the mask is there just to cure your anxiety well and anxiety is valid right I mean there's real economic outcomes of people feeling anxious and and doing things so that they they they don't behave fearfully and so if testing is is for some period of time the thing that makes people feel better you know whether or not it's medically valid I yeah I don't know I mean I'm open to learning more about that a lot of people are asking about the arbitrary nature that government kind of picks win winners and losers in this process Stephen bond says is the designation of a central business really just the government picking winners and losers and someone else also says you know some policymakers are wanting to allow Japanese visitors from Japan and New Zealand and Australia yeah but but not from other places and so on so yeah just comment on the arbitrary nature of all this well it's I've been writing about it in my column to me it's one of the things that that undermines the idea that that these policies are guided by science when they're trying when they're telling us they can somehow divine the health risk difference between grooming pets and grooming humans between restaurants that serve drinks and bar restaurants that also serve drinks and bars that also serve food that they can tell which ones more dangerous than the other I don't know you know where's where's the evidence for this Messines like a retroactive justification of the initial response to then parcel out the openings as if the level of danger was still what it appeared to me in February or early March another actually a Robin stupor asks has the makeup of Hawaii's workforce essentially shifted toward a heavy dominance in government and union employees because their jobs were protected and what does this mean for the future of Hawaii politics and I actually I saw a graph that during the last recession all the other industries in Hawaii lost jobs whereas the government grew jobs and I'm curious if the same is going to happen in this one if the recovery is slow of 30,000 people from the private sector because that's who's going to leave actually leave as uhero projects or more my concern is 30,000 is a low estimate then then then inevitably fewer and fewer taxpayers are supporting the same or a growing number of government workers with their security and their and their tension I pointed out early on that despite nice rhetoric about we're all in this together it was obvious from the beginning that there were two hawaii's there was the Hawaii that was gonna be put out of work in the Hawaii that wasn't Civil Beat to their credit chased for more than a month an answer from state government on how many employees of theirs were sitting home getting paid but not even working and I don't know that that question was ever answered it may be it has to be fair but that was something I was I was following it at Civil Beat so and you look at the the response when when EJ floated the mere idea of a 20% pay cut of state workers to afford the policy response to Cove it 19 and the the hit the private sector took and then in turn the hip there while it took the response was immediately no I don't think so let's talk about that you know the the incomes we have they keep the economy going well didn't ours I don't know okay few other questions I'm trying to group questions together the lot of questions actually about tourism again and just the Aloha it seems like everyone is very afraid of tourists and you know they're somewhat vilified how can we shift the culture to bring Aloha back to island culture and towards visitors David Lum asks I don't know I mean people got to help each other get over their anxieties or have it be realistic right one of the things I'm chasing is information on these these quarantine breakers that we've been resting naming and shaming which I wrote about I'm appalled by that to me that seems like borderline fascist you're you take these people who have essentially violated are a kind of immigration law and and and then our authorities send the media I get these press releases with their name and their photo where they're from and and I'm expected to publish this what so people can harass them in the streets my gut response to the first one of those press releases was I'm not helping you do this but I feel like these folks don't care about our safety they don't care about our health they deserve everything that's coming to them and they say well I hope but nothing fine about this is it's a continuum folks there's no on/off button once you start naming and shaming people and saying that their presence is a threat to to us all right their presence is a threat to us all once you're in that mindset right there's no on/off button to aloha either you know it's hard to build that that trust I someone else asks a related question what doesn't tracking monitoring temperature scanning wouldn't that scare away tourists and delay the recovery yeah I mean of course if you make things inconvenient compared to other locations right then then it can make it it can make a difference on people's travel plans I don't know you know what at the moment off the top of my head what other destinations are doing in comparison in terms of testing or self quarantine all of that and and and it depends to on how much the outside world feels like they believe those those interventions are necessary and valid and fair and and and reliable I mean we were told that asymptomatic carriers were the big threat but then we're told that taking everyone's temperature is the answer but temperatures are symptom okay let's do a speed round okay I've got a lot of small questions and I try to answer in 30 seconds here okay first can virtual tourism be successful I don't know what that means I mean I think I know what you mean but I've never heard of it either but virtually toward all kinds of cities through Street View and Google I didn't pay anybody for that okay do you anticipate legal issues from the Department of Education plan to rely on distance learning given the fact that there's a large number of families who say they don't have the ability to access distance education yeah there's a social equity component there that could be a big challenge for for the DA we for state government why has there not been a demand for those who deny us to work to also not get a paycheck let them feel our pain I guess Rick Thompson asked that I'm all I can say isn't and I'm sympathetic to why people feel that way I've written the same myself you know it just and and I think maybe policy responses might have been a little different if there was some law that said if your intervention causes 25% you know or near what's our high has been a quarter million people at the highest unemployed in Hawaii you know you have to take a commercial hit to government workforce if that was like a requirement in law the policy response might have been quite different how do we counteract the narrative that holds that we can only stop the virus with draconian measures is this narrative a threat to Hawaii's people and culture the only solution is to look at reality you know look at what you see with your own eyes locally nationally internationally about the numbers of infected the numbers of the numbers of active cases where are there places where health care is overwhelmed is that even a concern anymore where the fatalities been and what if the conditions been that make New York City for example turn out to have been a much more dangerous place to be than Hawaii California there's a lot of people who are just kind of upset saying thing just venting their frustrations one person says you know a seven our economy was shut down for 17 deaths you know can we believe it and so there's a lot of those types of questions someone else asks I wonder if the governor knows or cares how much the delays impact our tourism he works for a major airline and they're feeling concerned about opening up a lot of people are citing the question about or just studying the stat that there's a 98 percent recovery rate and 17 deaths and all that so I guess what do you make what do you make of all that well that's that's why I said one of my frustrations as just a citizen and a writer along with so many of you all is is that the policy response is not modulated it is not softened in response to reality you know I mean but now now we're near the end right there's certain things are opening up tonight's restaurants the 19th according to the announcements yesterday the 19th is bars and a whole other range of business so you know one of the things that might happen that is his business always complains to me about local government right they tax us too much they regulate us too much they don't want us to succeed and I say well what are you doing about that you get involved do you talk to your elected officials do you run for office no no I'm too busy well for the last three months they weren't busy and they were super motivated so one thing that could happen is the business community gets back to work in June and then loses all interest in the accountability that they that they wanted and and deserve so badly for the last three months and and the policy makers elected or in the bureaucracy then go on as if oh everyone was cool with all this I'll just say what I didn't get to all the questions here I'm sorry about that but one person asks are you running for office we need your voice and stay coverage so but anyways I'll go back to Kelly thank you very much everyone give a virtual applause to cam Napier and his presentation today thank you cam for joining us and and grassroot institute thank you very much for doing this I appreciate it yes and at grassroot institute we thank all of you for participating today great questions and if you didn't get your questions answered will forward them to cam and you can decide like to go ahead and respond to you yeah I hope you've got a copy of our latest report roadmap to prosperity there are many voices out there that are saying the way to get back into a blooming economy is for the government to spend more money and to go into greater debt we believe the exact opposite is true and we have a formula for getting the economy back into a prosperous state called roadmap to prosperity go to our website grassroot institute o-r-g and
ou'll get a free copy of that stay tuned we'll have many more webinars like this in the weeks to come so glad you're all with us today at the grassroot institute Aloha and have a great weekend
