One curious aspect of the federal program to ensure that all governments can still function if we were to experience a flu pandemic is the term “essential government employees.”
Understandably, many people are probably thinking that I’m going to say that “essential government employees” is an oxymoron. But I’m not. After all, I do believe that government has its place … if only it could find it.
Why I find “essential government employees” an interesting choice of words to describe who would receive medication if we all succumbed to the flu is that government itself is suggesting that many of its employees are, well, nonessential.
In other words, some government employees provide the public with services it can’t do without, while everyone else, apparently, is taking an online course in taxidermy or something on company time.
This is probably why local and county governments rejected the state’s offer to provide them with a supply of symptom-relieving medicine for their essential employees.
They would actually have to reveal who is and who is not essential, which could lead to some seriously hurt feelings:
“We’re sorry, Bob. We know it’s important, but civilization is not going to swirl into a deep, dark mass of moral decay if the Office of Barnacle Control and Permitting is closed for a few days.”
Or, “Mary Jane, we know you’ve been with us for 35 years now, but frankly we never have known exactly what it is that you do … Oh, you’re an Employee Picnic Coordinator II? Yeah, well, go home and try a little dry toast. And yes, if the need for an emergency picnic arises, we’ll get you back in here ASAP.”
The truth is if everyone got the flu all at once, we’re not going to need much of anything except trash collection seven days a week and ambulance service. No meetings, no roadwork, no zoning, no inspections, no nothing, because we’ll all be too sick to get out of bed, much less commit a major crime or build a condo without a permit.
It almost goes without saying, of course, that we would still need a few good people to be on guard just in case radical elements slithered in and tried to take over while the rest of us we’re reading “101 Ways to Prepare Dry Toast.”
Government would have a well-medicated crew on standby. The proud, the few, the young and the retchless.