It seems impossible to me that someone could do what I did, over and over again, and feel zero remorse.

Believe me, it’s possible. :-)

(I suspect my own lack of remorse comes from having an absolute ban on cable TV news in my home. Also, I am not statistics illiterate. That helps too.)

It doesn’t matter that the epidemiological data doesn’t support reopening.

This is really the most interesting phenomenon we’ve seen from the pandemic.

I read the data every day. The DATA. I don’t read what people tell me the data means, I look at it myself and KNOW what it means. I am not a doctor; I’m just a person who plays with statistics (having a couple of university level courses in it) and who has experience in life sciences.

I don’t agree that the data doesn’t support “re-opening”. I think the data is telling us that anyone who is healthy and under 55 has very little to fear (from a mortality standpoint) from this disease, and if those in that age group are masking and avoiding congested space and washing their hands frequently, there is no reason not to engage (otherwise) in “normalcy”.

I would suggest a look at this chart from The Netherlands, who got *hammered* by COVID19, but has now taken the time to do some analysis on what-the-hell-happened.

So, a little math. For the oldest millenials (not quite 40 yet), the chances that COVID19 makes them ill enough to be hospitalized are 3/10 of 1%, which translates to 1 in 700, and their chance of dying from the disease .007%?

And then…..add to that equation the fact, from other studies, that 90% of those who actually died in that age group had complicating medical factors, like lupus, diabetes, or some other immunodeficiency disease.) That makes the chance of dying from this, for a 30 something without a pre-existing condition….pretty close to nil. It’s NOT nil, because we know that there are indeed healthy (or people who we thought were healthy) people in that age group that did die of it…..but it’s a pretty small group.

I think it’s riskier to walk across the street in downtown Chicago during rush hour. (For readers who have never had that experience, pedestrians in downtown Chicago view pedestrian traffic signals as quaint suggestions to be observed or ignored depending on circumstance. You never know when a pedestrian is going to jump off the curb and head across the street.)

Life, folks, is a series of risk-adjusted decisions.

I am terrified for everyone I know and love who lives in Ohio, and will be subjected to the spike in cases this experiment will undoubtedly cause.

Hmmmm. Define “spike”. I think what we’re actually seeing from these re-open states is that their case load is simply not dropping as it did. I know down here in Texas, despite re-opening, our 7-day moving average of cases and deaths has *not* spiked, despite a couple of outlier days, and is at least remaining flat.

So, I think your use of the term “undoubtedly”…..well, there actually is “doubt”.

All over the country, people have been taking up arms and protesting for the right to be so reckless.

Are they? Is your view of your fellow citizen really so low, or perhaps do you have an overinflated opinion of your own understanding of the data?

In short, have you ever considered the possibility that you’re wrong?

One of the other oddities I’ve noticed during this is a resurgence of American parochialism. In other words, “American experts are the only ones we should listen to.” Which is odd, since the results from our “lockdown” haven’t been anything to write home about. Have a look at these two charts, drawn today from the full_data.csv dataset at worldindata.com:

Qatar has more cases than anyone, on a per-capita basis. Now, find Qatar on THIS chart:

Doesn’t that scream out at you, and make you want to ask “What are they doing to keep their people alive?” Same for Singapore and Kuwait. But there is almost a total lack of interest in what those countries are doing from the US Press: They seem only interested in what another country is doing if suits a political narrative.

But, anyway, larger picture is this. Enough of the US population has been out of total lockdown for a long enough time for the US mortality rate to spike if it was going to. But, it hasn’t. We’ve been stuck in that 5.8% ish to 6% ish range for a month now.

You can argue, if you like, that mortality would be DROPPING if we stayed strictly locked down — there’s no way to prove or dispute that opinion. But our situation hasn’t gotten worse from opening.

Let’s understand something. Nobody, unless they’ve had a court order saying “open everything”, has gone back to business as usual. Texas’ “reopening” was that establishments could begin operating at 25% of prior capacity. So, what “reopening” means is very different from place to place.

Further, a lot of the “protests” about re-opening have to do with choices vs legal restrictions. I am of the opinion that government has no rights to order you to *not* go about your business past a 30–60 day window; however, they are welcome to *recommend* all they want, and I encourage them to do so.

Worry, over time, will kill more of us than COVID will.