At his blog, Buchanan.org, Pat Buchanan notes that 100,000 small businesses have been permanently shuttered by government-mandated coronavirus shutdowns. The plan argued for by Dr. Anthony Fauci seems to be pandemic and depression. Buchanan writes (abridged):
“We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” said President Donald Trump Monday, as he supported the opening of the U.S. economy before the shutdown plunges us into a deep and lasting depression.
Tuesday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, made clear to a Senate committee his contradictory views.
“If states reopen their economies too soon, there is a real risk that you may trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” said Fauci
Fauci is talking of the real possibility of a second and even more severe wave of the pandemic this summer and fall, if we open too soon.Yet, there is a case to be made for the risks that Trump and red state governors are taking in opening up sooner.
Hospitalizations and ICU occupancies are not as high as they were. Hospitals put up in Central Park and the Javits Center seem not to have been needed.
Not all states are suffering equally.
There have been three times as many COVID-19 cases in New Jersey as in Texas, though New Jersey is a fraction of the size and has a fraction of the population of Texas.
There are twice as many cases in Massachusetts as in Florida.
It is the nursing homes filled with the elderly and ill that have proven to be the real killing fields of this virus. According to The New York Times, one-third of all deaths from COVID-19 have come among residents and staff of nursing homes.
Beyond these are the meatpacking plants and the prisons where social distancing is almost nonexistent.
According to The Washington Post, economists already project that 100,000 small businesses have shuttered, never to reopen.
Originally posted May 15, 2020.
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