I think the garbage that people like Limbaugh and Hannity have been pushing about COVID-19 are just that. I think Trump was very slow on the uptake. But I can’t help thinking that we seem unable to respond in a measured way to anything. Overreaction is seen as a sign of sincerity and concern. Yes, you can make an argument that closing down the world is the “safest” thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessary. You can be concerned about the danger for exponential spread of the virus without concluding that all public contact must halt. We run the risk of causing far more damage than the virus ever could because we can’t balance cross-cutting concerns. It must be all or nothing.
One response to “The best reaction to the coronavirus panic”
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. . . again, a politically oriented comment, about a public health concern. The comment is critical of the current administration and wastes all of our time. Would the author make the same comment if Obama were still President? I doubt it. Yesterday, the chattering class was critical of the U.S. for shutting down travel from Europe; today, according The Telegraph out of London, Denmark shut its borders. Vietnam imposes automatic 14-day quarantines on arriving traveling. Why aren’t the chattering class complaining about other countries doing the same thing the U.S. is doing? Maybe it is time to take a few deep breaths, to stop trying to second guess everything and everybody, to stop seeing the world through partisan political eyes, and to understand that we are all people trying to do the best that we can with the information we have. It might also be time to spend time seeing what the rest of the world is doing to try to prevent or limit the affect of the coronavirus.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
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