A friend wrote,
“Sweden has three times the death rate of their neighbors! Its “herd immunity”
has failed.
Actually,
the number of Sweden’s Covid-19 deaths is more than three times higher than that
of its neighbors. But Sweden recognizes the damage caused by lockdowns. Its
efforts have not failed.
Last
year, Sweden had 13,757 influenza deaths, 3.7 times greater than Sweden’s
current Covid-19 deaths. You weren’t disturbed by the influenza number, were
you? I didn’t think so.
Lockdowns
damage the whole society, but especially the poor. A recent survey by the
Federal Reserve Bank found that the layoffs have hit low-wage U.S. workers the
hardest. Among households earning less than $40,000 a year, a damaging 40
percent experienced at least one job loss in March. Among households earning
between $40,000 and $100,000, a considerably lower 19 percent suffered one job
loss. And for households earning more than $100,000, a piddling 13 percent had
one job loss.
Yes,
lockdowns are another wonderful way for government to help the poor.
Unfortunately,
President Trump so far has given voice to government epidemiologists who have
created panic and focused on saving lives at all costs from the beginning. This
plays into the hands of Democrats and the media, who want the economy to
deteriorate so they can defeat Trump in November. To them, nothing else comes
close.
There
are other epidemiologists who have not been given voice, Knut Wittkowski and John
Ioannidis, for example. They believe that only older people should be isolated.
Everyone else should go to work and to school, mingle, and develop immunity.
After a time, they can immunize older people as well. In the long run, this saves the most lives, not
to mention, the economy.
In
1968, during a flu pandemic that killed 100,000 Americans, people didn’t think
of locking down. They went to Woodstock instead.
Out
of the 328 million U.S. population, fewer
than one hundred people under 24 have died from Covid-19. Why the absurd school
closings?
Night
after night, TV news programs show deceased
persons being trundled to morgues. Rarely mentioned is the average age of
death: over 80.
People
understandably want to preserve lives. But they have far too little desire to
preserve liberty. Lockdowns decimate liberty.
