I continue to be more worried about the response to the virus, than the virus itself. While it is still spreading, it is slowing, which is a positive sign. Fewer new infections each day than the day before, same with hospitalizations. But that has not led to the loosening of any of the virus related restrictions. Hopefully soon. Trump had a conversation with reports about how big of a decision it was, to determine when to re-open the economy, the biggest decision he has ever had to make. I could make the case that it is the biggest decision anyone has ever had to make. If we look at other big individual events, like D-Day, "only" 150K people were involved in that, and 3.5K died, at least that day. Many more over the next year of that invasion of Europe, but that was still small in comparison to 300M Americans, which could lead to up to 2M deaths if the virus is allowed to spread undeterred. Determining when to re-open the country is a big decision, but only because the government got so involved in shutting it down in the first place. That is a lot of responsibility, and it didn't have to be that way, and still doesn't. Re-opening can be as voluntary as closing down should have been in the first place. And the decision making can and should be done at more local levels, by states and counties, because they each have different situations, so they won't be prepared at the same time for the same steps. Trump could encourage areas that are less impacted to loosen restrictions, while leaving the specifics to local officials, and could override certain decisions making certain aspects of the response voluntary, or declaring certain things essential, and immune to local regulation. Church is the main one that comes to mind, as we are seeing the most conflict there, not because of the virus, but the response. He could also ban all enforcement of the health recommendations, telling people to follow them at their own discretion, but that they are responsible for the results.
It occurred to me while watching the county health directive video, put together by the county's health officer, who is "responsible for the health of all citizens in the county" that it would be good to have an official who was responsible for the freedom of all citizens of the county, who could weigh the recommendations of the health officials against the other interests that are impacted. Then I realized we do, or should. They are called mayors, county supervisors, governors, judges, etc. Their job is to protect our freedom, and they seem to have all been intimidated by the media into playing along with the "we should save lives from the corona virus at all costs" narrative. I came across a statistic that the government usually values a single human life at around $5M, which makes a $25K hospital ventilator that only saves 1 in 6 of the patients that are put on it, a bargain. But if we value a single life at $5M, and just spent $9T in the last month, so far, on the shutdown, we better have saved 2M lives to make it worth it. Ironically 2.2M was the number being thrown around when the federal government started taking this seriously, but I think that is inflated, and could have been easily lowered by earlier intervention. The total cost has yet to be scene, but I am confident that it would be best to start loosening restrictions in areas that are past the peak of infections, even though I recognize that risks increasing infections going forward. There is a balance that can only be found by trying. Different states can try different things, and learn from each other, as that is the benefit of the decentralized power of federalism.
I just hope that we can see certain restrictions loosened soon, which should relieve some of the tension of the situation. The instability and high tension is what has me concerned that it will lead to bigger problems. Certain social distancing techniques can continue with little cost, but we need people to get back to work, for their own good. Hopefully they can grow from the positive aspects of the recent pause to normal life, and recover from the negative aspects.
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