Remember when the Rhode Island National Guard went door to door looking for New Yorkers?
Yes. They did that.
Rhode Island Air National Guard Tsgt. William Randall, left, and Westerly police officer Howard Mills talk with a resident with a New York license plate as they look for New Yorkers to inform them of self quarantine orders, Saturday, March 28, 2020, in Westerly, R.I. States are pulling back the welcome mat for travelers from the New York area, which is the epicenter of the country's coronavirus outbreak, and some say at least one state's measures are unconstitutional. Gov. Gina Raimondo ratcheted up the measures announcing she ordered the state National Guard to go door-to-door in coastal communities starting this weekend to find out whether any of the home's residents have recently arrived from New York and inform them of the quarantine order. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
What?
The current United States Secretary of Commerce is Gina Raimondo. In 2020, as governor of Rhode Island, she took the unique step of sending the Rhode Island National guard door to door to inform New York residents, who had recently entered the state, that they must quarantine. Some other states, including Florida, had the National guard at airports reminding New York residents that they must quarantine for 14 days. Even without debating the legitimacy of quarantining healthy people, it was not seen as odd to require people from hotspots to quarantine early on. After all, the videos from New York City made it seem like the apocalypse had finally come. There weren’t enough ventilators and everyone who went to the ICU died—who wants such a thing in their state?
We now know that the iatrogenic effects of ventilating people, who can talk on the phone while breathing room air, most likely played a role in NYC’s disaster. ICU mortality was unprecedentedly high and did not repeat in other states.
Three quarters of people under 65 who were on a ventilator died early on—in pandemic gripped NYC. Covid is a disease not particularly deadly to young people, so, many of them likely would have survived if they had not been on the ventilator. Certainly more than those who were saved by the intervention.
But they only triaged the most ill to have the ventilators, so of course they died at a higher rate. Well, the absence of nasal cannula’s early on was noticeable. This will not hold up forever.
Death and destruction in the city’s hospitals was the story though, and New Yorkers have the disease causing it.
Rhode Island Air National Guard TSgt. William Randall, right, hands an information sheet to New York resident Reha Kocatas who is self-quarantining at his home in Westerly, R.I., Saturday, March 28, 2020. The Rhode Island National Guard started going door to door on Saturday in coastal areas to inform any New Yorkers who may have come to the state that they must self-quarantine for 14 days. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Was this allowed—legally?
Probably not. And it’s not like the New Yorkers who fled to their coastal homes in Rhode Island didn’t know about the quarantine rule. This was a show of force.
Will anyone be held accountable? Nobody has been so far, in fact, the people who instituted these policies often fail up—governor Raimondo was appointed secretary of commerce in 2021. Nothing says commerce knowledge like sending the army after people from out of state.
This serves as a historical reminder that they can, and will, send the army out, for what is now the flu. Or is it the common cold? It doesn’t matter. They brought a guy with a gun out (in these photos, only the cop was armed), to tell people they must remain quarantined. Maybe it would have been a bad look if the national guard member brought their gun while going door to door?
Around this time my work gave everyone an official looking letter in case we were stopped going to or from work as an essential employee. Imagine having a permission slip to be on the street as a tax paying adult trying to get to work.