William J. Bennett
and Seth Leibsohn at Real Clear Politics have a better prescription (h/t Instapundit):
We are trying to stave off and
arrest a pandemic. Given what is being recommended, we think we need some
second or third opinions. This pandemic, now that it has reached America, has
taken 3,173 lives here. This, from a tested population of 164,359 cases.
That’s a mortality rate of 1.9%. But immediately, questions must be
asked. We record every case of death from the coronavirus, but we have no idea
how many people have had the coronavirus. Clearly, there are more than 164,359
cases because not everyone has been tested. That would put the mortality rate
at less than 1.9%. That rate could be far, far less.
. . .
We truly are shutting down America
and harming a great many Americans, based on the worst fears that have not been
true and are not on the horizon. We are scaring the hell out of the
citizenry. A few additional statistics help counsel a lowering of our national
temperature: The vast majority of deaths from the virus are of people
over the age of 70 with underlying frailties. The focus on New York
where, of course, most of the media is based, is also flooding and distorting
the picture for the rest of the country. Of course we need to pay attention to
ground zero, which is New York. But what happens there is not what is
happening everywhere.
Read the rest here.
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