Debunking Liberal Hysteria About Wisconsin's Reopening

[mikegriffith1]

In their typical illogical, uncritical, emotion-based fashion, some liberals are crying doom and gloom over Wisconsin's court-ordered reopening. There is now a thread in this forum that claims that the state supreme court's decision, issued two weeks ago, to void the governor's lockdown has caused a massive amount of new deaths. This is nonsense.

In the last two weeks, May 15-28, there have been a grand, whopping total of 116 COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin. That equals 8.2 deaths per day. If we were to assume that this death rate will continue for the next 365 days, that would equal 2,993 deaths--2,993 deaths out of the state's 8.2 million residents, or 0.0365% of the state's population. 0.0365% is 28 times lower than 1%.

So, again, even if the death rate for the last weeks of 8.2 deaths per day were to continue for the next 365 days, the number of deaths would be 28 times lower than 1% of the state's population.

Liberals just can't seem to grasp the simple point that most people are unwilling to continue to destroy our economy to save a tiny fraction of the total population. That is why we don't shut down highways and roads to stop traffic deaths. That is why we don't close hospitals and clinics to prevent the 250,000 deaths caused by medical errors each year. That is why we did not impose drastic lockdown measures in response to the 1957-1958 Asian Flu pandemic, even though it killed the current-day equivalent of 216,000 Americans (116K, or 0.66% of the population at the time, which equals 216K today).

Liberals scream that the number of cases in Wisconsin has risen since the state reopened. Yes, of course, because the state is no longer forcing people to be cooped up in their homes and apartments for most of the day, seven days a week. The number of cases is meaningless. The number of deaths is the key statistic.

 

[mikegriffith1]

And just for further perspective, 2,993 COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin in one year would rank far below the three annual leading causes of death in the state (anyone can Google these stats):

Wisconsin Leading Causes of Death
1. Heart Disease 11,680
2. Cancer 11,318
3. Accidents 3,746

And 2,993 deaths would make COVID-19 very similar to other causes of death:

4. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease 2,834
5. Stroke 2,513
6. Alzheimer’s disease 2,428

And, again, this is assuming that the COVID-19 death rate for the last two weeks were to continue for 365 days, a very unlikely scenario.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Yikes, major typo regarding WI's population. I meant to type 5.8 million, not 8.2 million. Baffling typo. Anyway, 2,993 deaths out of 5.8 million would be 0.0516% of the state's population, or 19.5 times lower than 1% of the state's population.

It is worth shutting down half the state's economy and causing massive job losses in order to prevent 19.5 times lower than 1% of the state's population from dying from a virus? Most people in the state seem to think the answer is NO.