I can remember when we were told we had “fifteen days to slow the spread” as if it were only 240 days ago.
Before we know it it’s going to be a year since we heard that phrase uttered, and while states have all opened back up to some extent, crippling regulations are still in place that are posing a major threat to America’s retail and restaurant industries. Both industries disproportionately employ low-skilled workers, and thus it’s the poorest among us suffering the most during this pandemic.
Red States have removed coronavirus restrictions at a faster pace than Blue States, and as a result, unemployment rates are nearly 60% higher in Blue States. Blue States also lead the nation in coronavirus deaths per-capita, perhaps because Red State leaders had the foresight to not mix coronavirus patients with nursing home residents. Many Blue States have kept onerous regulations in place even when they regularly go days without a single coronavirus death.
Cases are once again on the rise in America – and they’re rising even faster in Europe, which previously garnered media praise for supposedly defeating the virus among those in media looking to shame the Trump administration. This time around we have the benefit of hindsight, and know that it’s primarily the elderly and those with preexisting conditions who need to be protected from the virus. Over 50% more people above the age of 85 have died of coronavirus than those aged 0-64 combined. Fewer than 500 coronavirus deaths out of 217,348 recorded deaths (through the end of October) were people age 24 and younger.
When that’s the case commonsense would suggest that it’s those who fall into those venerable demographics that need to take extreme precaution, not society as a whole. Yet under a Biden presidency (God forbid) we’d return right back to a full lockdown – and this time they’re not pretending it’ll only last fifteen days.
According to CNBC:
Shutting down businesses and paying people for lost wages for four to six weeks could help keep the coronavirus pandemic in check and get the economy on track until a vaccine is approved and distributed, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to Joe Biden.
Osterholm, who serves as director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said earlier this week that the country is headed toward “Covid hell.” Cases are rising as more people grow tired of wearing masks and social distancing, suffering from so-called “pandemic fatigue,” he said Wednesday. Colder weather is also driving people indoors where the virus can spread more easily.
A nationwide lockdown would drive the number of new cases and hospitalizations down to manageable levels while the world awaits a vaccine, he told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.
“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that,” he said. “If we did that, then we could lockdown for four-to-six week.
I guess we’re supposed to ignore the fact that we already tried all this.
Osterholm somehow isn’t even Biden’s craziest coronavirus adviser. Biden picked Rick Bright, who was fired by the Trump administration for incompetence, to join the task force.
Also on the team is Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, who doesn’t believe that life is worth living beyond age 75. That’s an “interesting” perspective in light of the fact that the average person who dies of coronavirus is older than 75, and because it implies Emmanuel believes that Biden should’ve died two years ago.
