This is what happens when you give public health bureaucrats a little power.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease specialist and a member of Joe Biden’s recently appointed COVID-19 advisory team, thinks that the United States has a “big pool of money out there” and Biden could order a “4- to 6-week” lockdown while paying workers and small businesses all their lost wages.
And then we throw open the doors and everything goes back to normal, right? Sheesh.
“We have a big pool of money out there that we could borrow, at historic low interest rates by the federal government. We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers, losses to small companies and medium-sized companies, for cities, states, county governments,” Osterholm said in the interview.
He continued: “If we did that then we could lock down for four to six weeks, and if we did that, we could drive the numbers down, like they did in Asia, like they did in New Zealand and Australia.”
What we saw with the “Paycheck Protection Act,” which gave $750 billion to “small” and “medium-sized” businesses was that there seemed to be some confusion about what was meant by a “small business.” When 100 publicly traded companies get small business loans, I’d say we have a problem.
Aside from the massive waste, what happens when the country opens back up? How long before we have to lock down again?
Many states are already locking down, long before Inauguration Day.
In response, a number of states and cities have re-imposed lockdowns. Minnesota has restricted in-person gatherings and implemented a curfew for bars and restaurants. New York imposed 10 p.m. curfews on gyms, bars and restaurants. Utah, where the positive test rate is nearly 20%, declared a state of emergency this week and required all residents to wear masks.
Dr. Osterholm told Yahoo! Finance that the country was entering a period he referred to as “COVID hell.”
As opposed to “Lockdown Hell”? If it’s “pick your poison,” I choose to be responsible for my own health, thank you. For me, that means wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, maintaining social distancing, and staying indoors as much as possible. My conditions make me susceptible to serious illness if I contract COVID and I will do everything I can to avoid it.
Shutting down is not the answer. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci agrees.
Top U.S. virologist Dr. Anthony Fauci said he does not favor a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19.
In an interview Thursday with Sinclair’s Jan Jeffcoat, Fauci said he “would like to not see us have to resort to a lockdown.”
“You can get a lot done without necessarily locking down if you adhere to the fundamental principles that many of us, myself included, have been talking about for quite a while now,” Fauci said.
The idea that we can continue to print trillions of dollars in cash to sustain 330 million people indefinitely is insane. If Dr.Osterholm is serious about locking down, he should be shown the door by Biden, who knows that announcing a lockdown soon after the takes office would be political suicide.
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