Fine the Bastards for Excess Deaths
Given that the negative effects of premature exposure cannot be accurately predicted, I suggest that the appropriate judgement for ANY corporate entity putting its workers at risk in the current crisis should be along the following lines:
Until firther notice, you are required to report all Covid related infections and fatalities amongst workers you require to attend your premises. Your reports will be cross referenced against public records and any under-reporting will be a criminal offence unless a court is persuaded that the failure was a genuine accident or oversight and does not form part of a pattern of failure to disclose.
In 12 months time (and, if necessary, every 12 months thereafter), your cases will be analysed and compared to the State records. If your statistics reveal a Covid related death rate more than 1% in excess of the rate for the State in which your activities take place, you will be fined $10 million per excess death. The total fines will be shared out amongst all the families of your employees who died during the period and were required to work at your premises.
That should concentrate their minds
I have specified the State as the comparison target, rather than the Nation, given the colossal disparity in the way States are responding and the likely effects of that disparity on their local death rates. I accept that this means employees in the most reckless of States will be more exposed and less compensated by this arrangement than in the more cautious States because the aberrant employer will be more "normalised" by what is going on in their State. I also accept that some States (eg Florida) are already trying to hide their Covid related death rate. But these factors can be partially mitigated by reference to Excess Deaths generally and, in any case, are not directly the fault of the employer. These political issues require a parallel but different policy to deal with the aberrant States' political leadership; the most obvious of which is the rather weak but reasonably effective recall of such politicians and their subsequent, preferably permanent, exclusion from power through action at the ballot box, by the survivors.
For commercial offenders, however, a court ruling such as the one outlined above would certainly deal with the likes of the Muskrat going out on a limb within one of the more cautious States and could form a template for similar reckless behaviour around the world. The description above is US centric but the principle could be adapted fairly easily for any country with a reasonably independent judiciary.
Just a thought...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
