Article by Thomas Lifson in "The American Thinker":
Despite the fantasies of the utopian left, there is no repealing the law of unintended consequences. Close restaurants and halt the flow of garbage that rats treat as their supermarkets while laying off the people who normally would be guarding against their proliferation, and rats get hungry, aggressive, and wide-ranging in their search for food. Who is going to stop them if nobody is working in a closed restaurant?
It’s so bad the CDC is issuing guidelines for dealing with rodents during the COVID 19 lockdown:
Jurisdictions have closed or limited service at restaurants and other commercial establishments to help limit the spread of COVID-19. Rodents rely on the food and waste generated by these establishments. Community-wide closures have led to a decrease in food available to rodents, especially in dense commercial areas. Some jurisdictions have reported an increase in rodent activity as rodents search for new sources of food. Environmental health and rodent control programs may see an increase in service requests related to rodents and reports of unusual or aggressive rodent behavior.
The
recommendations that follow make common sense, but assume that
restaurant employees are like government employees, able to receive
their paychecks even if their employers have little or no revenue or may
even be bankrupt at this point:
During
rodent-related service calls and inspections, environmental health
practitioners should advise residents and business owners to eliminate conditions that may attract and support rodent presence. Preventive
actions include sealing up access into homes and businesses, removing
debris and heavy vegetation, keeping garbage in tightly covered bins,
and removing pet and bird food from their yards.
If you have the stomach for it, Inside Edition has a report on the situation in New York City:
Bubonic plague already has started reappearing in the West, driven by homeless encampments. Factor in the lockdown of restaurants and other food sources ad an increase in rodent aggression, drive by hunger, and you have some industrial strength unintended consequences on the horizon. Think about mold developing in vacant businesses, burst pipes going unnoticed, and other problems resulting from a lack of ordinary prevention and the list of unintended consequences only grows.