ACHTUNG: This is not a fair and balanced article. It is an editorial by the editor.

 “The excitement is contagious — and so are the Red Cross volunteers, as they wander through the crowd, pausing now and then to touch a child’s head.” — The Firesign Theatre, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him.”

 “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” — Attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153)

Events and developments of the last month have convinced me that the United States must take the painful, but necessary step to shut everything down, just like Europe did months ago, to slow and then halt the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, all future public policy on the Coronavirus should be driven by health experts rather than know-nothing politicians. A third part I want to see is the U.S. treating this pandemic just like a war, as President Donald Trump has called it, and confront it on one united front, not 50 different ones.

I’m sorry, folks. Despite our hubris and boasts of American exceptionalism, our response to the COVID-19 crisis has been the worst disaster in our history. We look horribly smug, feckless and incompetent when compared to successful countries, such as New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, Germany, France, Denmark and Finland. Our economy has collapsed as well because the private sector will not help average workaday stiffs unless they risk their lives by returning to work.

We have failed. And now it’s time for a reboot and do it right. We’ve already lost 150,000 citizens, and no other country is even a close second.

The icing on the cake came as a result of a video of the Wayland High School graduation July 30. I am certain school officials had the best of intentions and genuinely tried to avoid behavior that could help spread the virus. But they failed.

All Board of Education members, though they showed up with masks, spent the awarding diplomas portion of the ceremony almost entirely without masks and in every case, they were closer than six feet to the recipient. Six feet apart os six feet under. And worse, some hugged the maskless students.

To be sure, commencement was held outdoors and students arrived in cars and trucks at the parking lot. From what I could discern in the video, they too often got too close to one another and weren’t masked up. It was true as well when they lined up to receive diplomas.

I conclude that if customarily intelligent people with no intentions of not masking up for sinister political reasons cannot avoid slipping up too often at a large gathering, what are the chances of such slip-ups with students, teachers and staff in every day life in school, indoors with even more people involved?

Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked by CNN why the U.S. has done so poorly in the global he war on the virus. He replied, “If you look at what happened in Europe, when they shut down or locked down or went to shelter in place — however you want to describe it — they really did it to the tune of about 95% plus of the country did that.

“However, when you actually look at what we did, even though we shut down, even though it created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50% in the sense of the totality of the country.”

We had a half-hearted, slipshod and politically controversial shutdown in March and too many states reopened too soon with disastrous consequences. So we’re No. 1 all right, in numbers of Coronavirus cases and deaths.

The only way I see out of this horror show is to take the virus seriously, don’t reopen schools for in-person instruction yet and stay at home except for emergencies such as buying food. Meanwhile, the government should do what Canada did and give every family a livable temporary wage each month until we have the problem licked.

Last, but not least, Democrats and Republicans — finally create a Medicare for All law so nobody loses health care because they lost their job. Republicans and Democrats alike have done nothing for the working masses since this mess was dealt. It’s time government step in and solve the problem when the private sector can’t or won’t. But will the people hold them accountable in the only way possible: The vote?