Posted on 04/18/2020 8:41:55 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Heather Mac Donald, New York Times bestselling author and Thomas W Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues that our fearful response to the disease – the total shutdown of societies – is more dangerous than the disease itself.
Brendan O’Neill: Do you think this is hysteria? Or do you think there is some justification to these extraordinary measures?
Heather Mac Donald: I am, of course, absolutely in sympathy for people who are losing family members to this virus. But to be honest, I wake up every day and think maybe this will be the moment when I understand the degree of hysteria, but that moment of enlightenment never comes. The numbers simply do not support the wholesale destruction of the livelihoods of billions of people across the globe.
And I am fed up with the argument that to be concerned about the utter gutting of the extraordinary complexity, beauty and creativity of our market economy is somehow heartless. It is compassionate to care about these shutdowns because people’s lives are being blighted, possibly forever.
But again, I just don’t see the numbers at all come to what we are doing here. And again, I ask the question, ‘compared to what?’. Society as a matter of course engages in implicit cost-benefit analysis. We tolerate about 40,000 highway deaths per year – that includes children, middle-aged people and elderly people. We could easily lower that number by half or by three quarters by mandating that nobody drive more than 25 miles per hour. But we have made an implicit collective decision to say we are willing to sacrifice 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 lives for the convenience of being able to drive faster to our work or to recreation.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiked-online.com ...
The argument about speeds on the highways is compelling.
Pass a federal law that no one can go faster than 20 mph anywhere. It will save maybe half a million lives in a decade and millions of injuries, quite a few severe.
or just ban driving.
And smoking.
And fast food.
And drinking.
Make touching illegal. That would decrease the surplus population, which is a goal of the left anyway.
But it will make for a lot of boring nights :)
Talked to someone (a friend who works in local government) on Thursday who says that the shutdown should continue until a vaccine is found.
I opined that the USG is not going to pay people to stay home for an indefinite period and that there are limits for even what the USG could do.
I also said that there are risks in everything that we do, and suggested that we can minimize risks, but not eliminate them by following President Trump’s plan for re-opening.
Nope. Wasn’t having any of it. Doesn’t like Trump for one, so anything he discusses is not considered, but mocked. Second, said directly there has to be no risk to workers who go back to work.
When I suggested that the level of no risk was not assured before COVID-19, and that vaccines are not 100% effective, her response showed me that the discussion was at an end.
A nearby county is going to start layoffs in the next couple of days.
If all these socalled experts were not getting paid there view of the world might change???
Many of them are IYIs
As I noted yesterday, a poll that showed that most Americans are not in favor with an early startup needs to ask how many of those people ares till diving income from a job, or other sources.
Layoffs and furloughs are coming to governments (federal, state and local). It is inevitable.
COMMUNISTS!
Here come the Democrat voting WuFlu refugees.
1,000,000 per day are losing their jobs right now. Every day.
Lift this idiotic lockdown completely! Each day counts!!!
Heather MacDonald nails it. Well done! (& thanks for the link). Most definitely a must-read for Flubros, Flubras and (forgive me) Fearpers alike. BTTT
What’s blighting so many lives is the tyrannical abuse of authority displayed by so many dem politicians these last couple months.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.