Listening to economists for advice about ending public health lockdowns makes about as much sense as asking a nurse to run a central bank

Economists are now convinced that America needs to end the coronavirus quarantine lockdowns and “get America back to work.” They believe this because economists aren’t virologists, and to them the virus is invisible while the economic damage is abundantly evident.

But transmissible disease is a public health issue, not a finance issue, so relying on the advice of economists to make decisions about public health issues would be like asking a nurse to run a central bank. Nurses are experts in public health, not finance, and they wouldn’t know where to begin.

Obviously, when it comes to public health issues, we should listen to experts in virology and epidemiology, not economists and finance people who primarily only care about their own stock portfolios.

Yet President Trump has almost no public health expert in his inner circle of influencers, other than Dr. Anthony Fauci whom Trump mostly ignores anyway.

Like all the economists, Trump wants to get the economy moving again, so he wants to end all the lockdowns across America and reopen America’s factories, restaurants, cruise lines, airlines and everything else. The virus be damned. This is America!

Such a decision would be catastrophic on both the economy and public health. Although it would produce large stock market gains in the short run (for about 3-4 weeks), a new round of infections would explode across the working population, ultimately forcing many cities and regions back into a quarantine lockdown. Unfortunately, the lockdown clock starts from zero at this point, since you need about 7-8 weeks of an aggressive “hammer” lockdown to really break the cycle of the virus. If you cut it short because you don’t have the discipline or patience to endure the full two months, then the virus just picks up where it left off and resumes its exponential spread.

A two-week lockdown, in other words, might as well be no lockdown at all. That’s because people who carry the virus remain infectious beyond two weeks. So putting America “back to work” is really a kind of national suicide pact, and it will end the Trump presidency as the hundreds of thousands of dead Americans start to become too large to sweep under the rug.

And if you thought the disease progression shown above was bad, just wait until the economists pressure Trump to “get America back to work,” causing the spread to explode even more rapidly.

Those who are saying “the cure is worse than the disease” are people who don’t understand disease

I find it curious how the very people claiming “the cure is worse than the disease” (i.e. the lockdowns are more damaging than the virus) don’t understand disease. They aren’t doctors or virologists, after all, so we should not have any expectation that they would understand infectious disease in the first place.

How do they know the cure is worse than the disease when they are largely ignorant when it comes to infectious disease in the first place? In truth, none of these economists have yet faced the reality of how bad “the disease” is going to get in America over the next two months. If we get through June with fewer than 100,000 deaths, it will be a miracle.

But the position of these finance-driven individuals really speaks to the twisted value of modern-day America: Profits over people. Wall Street must be restored, regardless of how many people must die in the process.

That suicidal attitude was best captured by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick who declared that older people in Texas would “rather die” than allow the coronavirus to harm the Texas economy. Here’s how he described it to Tucker Carlson on Fox News, as reported by The UK Guardian:

“You know, Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

“That doesn’t make me noble or brave or anything like that,” he added. “I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me.”

Well, Mr. Patrick, no one is stopping you from sacrificing yourself for our economy, it’s worth noting. Lead by example…

But before you go offering up older folks as a kind of sacrifice to the gods of greed, you might want to check with the rest of the senior citizens in Texas first. I’m willing to bet most of them would rather not be eaten alive by a virus just so you can keep your GDP on track.

By the way, if you didn’t have half the elderly in the state hooked on multiple prescription drugs, most of them wouldn’t need to die in the first place. Big Pharma is just as much at fault in all of this as the virus, as the drug industry has spent decades teaching people to mask health symptoms with dangerous prescription medications rather than reforming their health habits to lead healthier lives without resorting to medication.

And we’re now finding out that blood pressure medications may be the single biggest cause of coronavirus deaths other than the virus itself. How many Texans (or Americans, for that matter) are on blood pressure medications? The AHA says 100 million Americans have high blood pressure, and there are likely tens of millions of Americans taking them daily. All those people are at higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, but no one is telling the public that blood pressure medications can kill.

Ever wonder why? It’s because Big Pharma has bought off all the lawmakers and politicians, of course. Including most of the ones operating in Texas.

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