In the years when the United States fought Nazi Germany and
Imperial Japan in World War II, life became radically different for
everyone. Food was rationed. Supply chains were interrupted.
Manufacturing plants, that previously made things Americans wanted, were
turned into armaments producers. Millions of young men were drafted and
sent off to fight. Hundreds of thousands would never return, and many
more would be changed forever by the physical and mental toll. Many
women who might have previously stayed home went to work to replace the
men on the battlefield. Society was altered and life was different in
countless ways from the way things were before December 7, 1941, and yet
most Americans were on the same page, reading and acting from the same
playbook, united in one common goal.
Today,
America faces an altogether different kind of enemy, and our leaders
hope to garner the same national spirit we had back then. The way they
have chosen to fight the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has certainly
altered society in similar but arguably even broader ways than Americans
experienced during the Second World War. Yet, today there are strands
of unrest, of pushback that only promises to increase the longer things
continue. Despite what the media claims, these protests against
draconian stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and closures aren’t simply
based on the desire to get out of the house, get a haircut, and eat at
one’s favorite restaurant. At the root, they’re based on perceived
governmental overreach that doesn’t seem justified as data rolls in
telling us the “enemy” isn’t all it has been cracked up to be.
Surely, even those who have lost their livelihoods
and their freedoms in one fell swoop could understand and abide by
measures, even draconian ones, that made sense in light of the best data
available. But for those of us who study this issue and keep track of
more than just the hysteria and fearmongering, little about the ongoing coronavirus response
makes sense, and that unsettling reality only continues to grow as each
day of our continued imprisonment passes. In fact, there are so many
inconsistencies on so many levels that attempting to explore several of
the most blatant will take two columns instead of one.
Here are the first three:
Let’s fight this ant infestation … by burning down the house
If
the literal black plague were sweeping through America wiping out wide
swaths of the population, everyone would understand that draconian
preventative measures would need to be taken. When people were falling
over in Wuhan, Italy’s weak hospital system was getting overwhelmed, and
people thought the kill rate for this thing was up to five percent of
those infected and that millions could die, few argued with the initial
shutdown response, even if some quibbled on the specifics.
However, now that those death rates have been revised down
to between .01 and .05 percent of those infected, or slightly higher
than the flu, we’re CONTINUING to act like it’s the literal black
plague. As the great Walter Williams writes in this brilliant column,
there are cost/benefits to every action. We don’t have a five mph speed
limit even though it would save tens of thousands of lives because too
many other key cogs would be negatively affected. We don’t shut down the
country for the flu for the same reason. Yet, somehow, this virus
merits an entirely different reaction, one based on our initial
apocalyptic beliefs.
The best way to ‘fight’ this enemy, we’re constantly
told, is by maintaining strict social distancing measures and shutting
down every possible aspect of our economy, then printing and
distributing trillions in handouts to ensure compliance. Do this for an
indefinite (and seemingly ever-expanding) period of time, we’re told,
and we can beat back the coronavirus and “save lives.” But what about
the increasing evidence
that such lockdown measures do not actually save lives? And what about
the countless lives that a second Great Depression would ruin, and the
inevitable deaths that occur in a poverty-stricken nation? Apparently,
those are simply collateral damage.
Let’s get hospitals ready to fight COVID-19 … by bankrupting them
I’m
no Richard Burr, but when all this started I do remember thinking how
awesome it would be to have a few extra thousand to put into healthcare
stocks. Surely, even if everything else tanked, the one industry that
would be hopping everywhere would be anything healthcare-related, or so
the line of thinking went. As things turned out, maybe it’s a good thing
I didn’t have that extra cash. While hospitals in New York City and
other large hard-hit metro areas were strained to the brink of capacity,
the rest dropped everything to prepare for an onslaught that never
came. “Essential services,” including pain-relieving and life-altering
joint replacements, were banned, resulting in budget shortfalls and
massive staff layoffs that will have devastating long-term effects on
the rest of the nation’s health. Indeed, as Rick Jackson opined for Newsweek,
many could end up closing for good. Apparently, Obama was wrong.
Catching the ‘rona is the only way any of us get to keep our healthcare.
Sure,
the people affected by these government-enforced shutdowns should be
made whole, but when legislators added an additional $600 per week to
almost everyone’s unemployment benefits, several senators (and at least one plucky Townhall columnist)
warned that this could have dire consequences to getting things moving
again. “Let’s pay people more than they would be making at work to stay
at home,” our overlords told us. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Already, one small business owner has spoken out
about her own employees’ resentment after she took out a PPP loan to
keep them on the payroll. By daring to try and keep her business afloat,
she’s costing them money. How hard will recruiting be for everything
from restaurants to manufacturing facilities when hundreds of thousands
are on the couch ‘till the end of July ‘making’ more than they ever
would have actually working? As things begin to reopen, we’re about to
find out.
There are plenty more where these came from. I’ll get to those next time
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