The lockdown-based approach recommended by our Federal government public health leaders[1] and imposed by state governors has been excessively restrictive because[2] it…
    ⦁  Requires the same behavior of everyone, regardless of the risk to each individual that they will die from COVID-19.
    ⦁  Is based on the presumption that the government (or even a person’s employer) should make the decision about how much risk is acceptable for each of us and our families, when the approach becomes the basis for state or local laws or executive orders or employer policy.

This lockdown-based approach ignores the facts that…
    ⦁  Those risk levels vary immensely for different, easily identifiable groups of people. The risks are much higher for those with certain pre-existing medical conditions[3], especially the elder. Those conditions include diabetes, lung disease, cancer, immunodeficiency, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, kidney disease, gastro-intestinal/liver disease and morbid obesity. The graphic on the right indicates the frequency with which those conditions occurred among those who have died from COVID-19 in one jurisdiction (Louisiana).
    ⦁  COVID-19 large scale antibody tests in April in New York, California and Florida, indicated that many more Americans have had COVID-19 was previously reported. At that point in New York City, the number of confirmed cases was about 150,000, but the anti-body tests indicated that about 18 times as many (2.7 million) residents there had been infected and developed antibodies. Since about 11,000 COVID-19 related deaths had been reported up to that time in NYC, it means that the estimated infected death rate is about 0.4%, much closer to the 0.1% death rate for the annual flu than the grossly inaccurate 3-4% for COVID-19 confirmed infected death rates that were being hyped by many in the media at the beginning of the crisis.
    ⦁  The vast majority of working people are in age and medical categories for which the risk is very low.
    ⦁  There is no valid reason to insist most working-age people to isolate themselves and socially distance to the extent that the Federal medical establishment recommends, and many states and localities have required by executive order.

About 50% of those who contract COVID-19 will exhibit no symptoms. About another 40% will suffer only symptoms that are not serious enough to require hospitalization. Those who do require hospitalization and/or die because of COVID-19 are very disproportionately among the elderly and therefore also strongly tend to no longer be in the work force. This does not imply that they have less inherent worth as people.
    ⦁  Most people of working-age and even many healthy elderly people can work and fully participate in the economy (go to restaurants, bars, and gyms) with minimal risk of death from COVID-19. Many industries and companies that have been designated as essential by the government (such as UPS and FedEx and those involved in the distribution of food, such as Walmart and major grocery store chains) have continued to operate without their employees being isolated at home. These companies have not had a significant number of COVID-19 casualties among their employees, at least in most parts of the country.
    ⦁  The state of South Dakota never implemented any mandatory isolation requirements, and it has not become the COVID-19 hotspot that many predicted.

All these factors indicate that we need not fear increases in COVID-19 related deaths if we abandon…
    ⦁  Indiscriminate mass personal isolation and
    ⦁  The insufficiently tailored restrictions on businesses that are being imposed by many states as conditions for reopening.

 Much of the American public has been told falsely that they are much more at risk of death from COVID-19 than they really are. An example is the Federal government’s dependence on and news reporting about the mathematical models that were run at the beginning of the crisis and that…
    ⦁  Exaggerated hospitalization rates by up to a factor of 10
    ⦁  Were used to justify the lockdowns, and
    ⦁  Predicted deaths in the 1.5 to 2 million range.

Shifting to the strategy described here and publicizing it, as well as the justification for it, will give the American public confidence that the restrictions that have been imposed on them are no longer needed and were largely ill-conceived from the beginning.

Responsibility for continued economic destruction and snail's-pace recovery will lie squarely at the feet of politicians and public health officials who do not correct the record and break out of the status quo.

 Even though this excessively restrictive approach has just been “recommended” by the Federal government, severe and largely unnecessary economic disruption and destruction have been caused by:
    ⦁  Many commercial companies and individual Americans obediently implementing these guidelines voluntarily (they were not given better options), and
    ⦁  Many state governors and state health departments issuing executive orders that define compliance (often in absurd detail) and impose large monetary fines for violators.

Key examples of the  largely unnecessary economic disruption and destruction include drastic…
    ⦁  Increases in unemployment (about 30 million new unemployment claims in the past six weeks)
    ⦁  Decreases in travel (especially business travel), which has more than decimated the airline and hotel industries.
    ⦁  Decreases in the extent to which Americans patronize restaurants, which crippled the restaurant industry (many restaurants will not be able to reopen).

 

The Federal government’s recommended plan for states to reopen their economies is for states to gradually relax the extent to which this excessively restrictive approach is implemented. The plan is called Opening Up America Again[4] and was announced on April 16^th.

 Opening Up American Again appears to be a compromise between President Trump and his senior Federal medical administrators, such as Dr. Fauci. President Trump has pushed to get the economy open again as quickly and as safely as possible. Dr Fauci, for example, has resisted that push and has…
    ⦁  Joined in public criticism of state governors who have not imposed his excessively restrictive, economy crippling approach by executive order.
    ⦁  Suggested that we need to not abandon indiscriminate mass personal isolation until all COVID 19 hospitalizations end.

The Opening Up American Again plan does not correct the fundamental problems that made Dr. Fauci’s recommendations excessively restrictive and economy crippling in the first place. The plan just allows states to take a phased approach to relaxing those restrictions.

 

[1] These leaders include the directors of the Center Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The most prominent of these has been Dr Anthony Fauci, who has been the NIAID Director for about 50 years. Dr. Fauci has also advised and often speaks for President Trump and his White House Coronavirus Task Force. The NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

[2] That is, regardless of whether it is implemented by individual Americans voluntarily, by state or local mandate, or by private company/organization policy.

[3] This list of pre-existing conditions (with the exception of morbid obesity) comes largely from the New York City health department’s website.

[4] The link here is to the Whitehouse website page which explains the Opening Up America Again plan.