Expect a COVID-19 uptick when we re-open the economy

Democrats and their media flunkies are trying to set up a no-win position for President Trump.  They say that if he removes the lockdown on business and other activities too early, there will be an increase in COVID-19 cases – and deaths.  With that narrative, they are setting up a political ambush.

Once commerce, industry and entertainment are restored – no matter when – there WILL BE an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases – and therefore an increase in the number of deaths.  The Democrats know that.  The media knows that.  Even the doctors know that.

They also know that we cannot keep the economy shut down for too much longer without pushing America into the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression.  Suppress the economy for too long and we could find the world in an economic dark age.

The human impact of a prolonged shutdown would not just be economic.  It would be measured in human lives.  More people would starve to death.  More people would commit suicide.  More people would engage in – or be victimized by –  increases in crime and outbreaks of violence.  Desperate times trigger desperate actions.

Deaths due to economic collapse would be the harsh edge.  Our entire standard of living would suffer.  Our lives would become more like a Dickens novel.  It would be a different form of lockdown – not voluntary but based on our collective financial inability to spend on everything from good healthcare to a family vacation – even food.

In other words, the horrible fact is that in order to live what we consider a reasonable lifestyle in an opportunity society, some people will die.  They will die from infectious diseases … the flu … the common cold … staph infections … if we all stay at home forever.  But that is impossible.

Never in history has such a successful society across the world every committed economic suicide to save lives.  It is not a happy choice.  England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill faced the issue of lives and a greater good.  In breaking the Nazi code, he discovered that Hitler was about to attack Coventry.  If he warned the people there, Hitler would know that the code was breached – and the Normandy invasion would have been a virtual impossibility.  He literally had to sacrifice lives in Coventry to win the war.

In many ways, we are in that sort of predicament.  The residual of the COVID-19 virus will be around for a while.  Unfortunately, we cannot wait until it is entirely eradicated.  And that means when we ease our social separating and open public venues, there will be more cases of the virus.  It will not be the kind of spread that we experienced this Spring, but we will be more exposed to the virus – and more people will get infected.  More will die.

For sure, we do not want to restore some semblance of normalcy while the virus is in a dynamic growth mode, but to say that any increase in cases and deaths will be an indictment of the President’s policy is pure political b******t.

We maintain what we called our “normal life” as tens of thousands died in highway accidents.  We did not drop the speed limit to 20 miles per hour to save lives.  Tens of thousands die each year from the common flu, but we never shut down our lives to save them.

So … when the Democrats and the propaganda media spring their ambush because there will be an uptick in COVID-19 cases when we start to re-open America, remember that it is just a little bit of dirty pre-staged political chicanery.

So, there ‘tis.