Between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, there has been an increased wave of right-wing media figures calling for an end to the economic lockdown in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. As they’ve begun to explain rather openly, the cost for jobs and businesses is just too much for what they deem is a low death figure being reported.
Left out of all these discussions is a key detail: The reason that COVID-19 death predictions have been revised down from over 2 million to a (still horrific) figure of up to 240,000 is precisely because of the social distancing and stay-at-home orders. If that regimen were to simply be lifted, then the projected deaths would rise again — especially if the health care system were to become overwhelmed.
But as they miss this point, many of these right-wing media figures seem to think even this reduced level of deaths has come with too high an economic cost. Continue reading.