Fauci: Relax "Social Distancing" Only When There Are "No New Cases, No Deaths"
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My layperson's view is that, if Fauci is right, we might as well start relaxing the measures now and prepare to deal with the consequences. It seems--again, as a layperson--that what he said is nuts. Does he think we can keep the economy shut down because there's one active case? Or one death per month? I suppose his response would be that there can't be one active case or one death per month--it'll have to be none or a lot. Which could be true. But then the answer would seem to be: ok, we'll take a lot.
I'm not encouraging anyone to believe me. But in the nightmare world in which I have to make the decision, there is no f*cking way I'm going to watch the economy grind to a complete halt. We'd be dead anyway when the food ran out. Not that we'd let it get that far. People--regular people, anyway...maybe not academicians and suchlike--would simply go back to work and take their chances. Nobody's going to try to stop 'em. Especially if the pattern holds up and the people dying are mainly old, infirm, or have other serious underlying conditions.
Through most of human history, people faced more danger than we'd be facing from this virus, and they didn't huddle in their houses.
No serious public argument has been made for the conclusion that--basically--we all need to sit in our houses and starve rather than taking the risk and getting on with life. I'm willing to listen. But even the worst case scenario is about 2 million deaths in the U.S. That's horrible. But if someone can show that that's worse than complete economic collapse, they'd better come up with the argument and right quick. Because if we have to take the plunge anyway, I suppose we might as well do it now before the economic toll is any worse.
Perhaps Fauci merely meant relax all "social distancing" only when there are no more cases. That's fine. Maybe we have to stay 6' away from each other and wear masks for a year. But there is absolutely, positively no f*cking way on God's green earth that we're going to keep the economy shut down until Fall, especially not over this virus. If it had a 75% mortality rate, we'd be facing a much, much tougher problem. But not different in principle. People would just take more precautions and get back to work.
Ok. Fauci's suggestion sounds so utterly daft that I can only conclude that I must not understand him, or I'm ignorant about some relevant facts.
As a footnote, it's entirely unacceptable that he is receiving threats. Apparently the right is going after him and the left is going after Birx. The lunatics on both sides are despicable.
My layperson's view is that, if Fauci is right, we might as well start relaxing the measures now and prepare to deal with the consequences. It seems--again, as a layperson--that what he said is nuts. Does he think we can keep the economy shut down because there's one active case? Or one death per month? I suppose his response would be that there can't be one active case or one death per month--it'll have to be none or a lot. Which could be true. But then the answer would seem to be: ok, we'll take a lot.
I'm not encouraging anyone to believe me. But in the nightmare world in which I have to make the decision, there is no f*cking way I'm going to watch the economy grind to a complete halt. We'd be dead anyway when the food ran out. Not that we'd let it get that far. People--regular people, anyway...maybe not academicians and suchlike--would simply go back to work and take their chances. Nobody's going to try to stop 'em. Especially if the pattern holds up and the people dying are mainly old, infirm, or have other serious underlying conditions.
Through most of human history, people faced more danger than we'd be facing from this virus, and they didn't huddle in their houses.
No serious public argument has been made for the conclusion that--basically--we all need to sit in our houses and starve rather than taking the risk and getting on with life. I'm willing to listen. But even the worst case scenario is about 2 million deaths in the U.S. That's horrible. But if someone can show that that's worse than complete economic collapse, they'd better come up with the argument and right quick. Because if we have to take the plunge anyway, I suppose we might as well do it now before the economic toll is any worse.
Perhaps Fauci merely meant relax all "social distancing" only when there are no more cases. That's fine. Maybe we have to stay 6' away from each other and wear masks for a year. But there is absolutely, positively no f*cking way on God's green earth that we're going to keep the economy shut down until Fall, especially not over this virus. If it had a 75% mortality rate, we'd be facing a much, much tougher problem. But not different in principle. People would just take more precautions and get back to work.
Ok. Fauci's suggestion sounds so utterly daft that I can only conclude that I must not understand him, or I'm ignorant about some relevant facts.
As a footnote, it's entirely unacceptable that he is receiving threats. Apparently the right is going after him and the left is going after Birx. The lunatics on both sides are despicable.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:52 PM
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