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Is Our Response too Draconian?
What have we done? I live near Charleston, South Carolina. It is a beautiful tourist destination. The biggest industry here is tourism — hotels, restaurants, carriage tours, walking tours, shopping, cabs, and rickshaws. My wife and I went downtown tonight to walk. It was an absolute ghost town. Nearly deserted.
I am not questioning the motives of government officials. No one wants lots of people to get sick or die. But this seems like madness to me. How are people going to pay for groceries, rent, mortgages, car payments, water and electric bills? Will mailing checks to people save us? Where will that money come from?
It seems to me that we have to weigh risks against costs. Heather Mac Donald wrote an article recently reminding us that no one would drive if we looked at driving the way we are looking at the Coronavirus.
What if there is another virus right after this? What then?
What are we afraid of? Couldn’t we quarantine the most at-risk people and get on with life? What we are doing seems unwise to me.
I’ve heard both sides of this. Again, I don’t want to impugn the motives of those who are cheering on this policy — but I have, I think, noticed something. Those who can work at home or who don’t have pressing financial need seem to be very much in favor of draconian “distancing” policies. I wonder what the people who have lost their jobs or been laid-off think of it.
Published in General
From Mark Steyn;
“As readers and listeners and viewers know, for a fortnight or so I’ve been tracking the death toll of the Chinese coronavirus in Italy: When I first mentioned it on television, just over a week ago, the cumulative fatalities were about 1,200. Now it’s near 5,000, and the daily deaths have accelerated – 200 per diem, 250, 350, 475… Today, the grim toll of the last 24 hours hit a new record of just under 800. A national tragedy is befalling Italy.”
Meanwhile, a police friend from Paris says that cops there are working without masks and gloves, else doctors and nurses would run out. The peak of the epidemic has not yet come (projected, yes) and already the hospitals are overwhelmed.
It’s true that the news will show us the most appalling picture. I get that. But I have all sorts of medically vulnerable loved ones. I definitely don’t want them to end up triaged into an agonizing death that could’ve been avoided if only we’d been willing to do our bit to flatten the curve, so that when they get sick, there’s an open bed to receive them. As my ICU nurse daughter pointed out, if I have to go to the store, I should go to the store. But if I don’t—if I’m just restless, or stir-crazy, or fretful because I’m low on mayonnaise or something…can’t I just stay home?
The cops in Chicago at least are getting equipment. It leaves something to be desired. [CoC warning: Second City Cop doesn’t have one.] In short, the kits they have been getting are being assembled by police recruits, one of whom may have been infected.
EDIT: Left out the link.
Oh lord!
Gotta get those restaurants back open first!