Just to keep track of the nonsense that has wrecked our economy and generally made our politicians run around as if their fool heads were on fire, each day I publish the corona virus total death toll in the US based upon the latest data I can find. A single death is an immense tragedy if you love the person. However, we are not talking about love, but rather public policy, which should always involve a sober analysis of risk and cost. Please recall that in a bad normal flu year our death toll in the US can be as high as 90,000.
Note: this will be a total death toll since the beginning of this bad farce, and not a daily toll. As of the beginning of July 22, 2020 the claimed, as suspect as that claim is, death toll is 144,958.
What’s so tiresome about all this is the ever moving goalposts leading to perpetual restrictions. When there are explicit goals listed, such as “flattening the curve” to lower hospitalizations, they become irrelevant as soon as they are met. But now it seems like we don’t even get that. In the press conference on the new mask mandate Governor Walz admitted that he has no schedule for lifting the restriction and doesn’t even have an idea as to what metrics would indicate that it was a good idea to lift it.
But of course if you imply that these restrictions could go on for years you will get accused of attacking a strawman. Just like the strawman of suggesting in April that lockdown restrictions might continue for more than a few weeks.