Last time I mentioned Congressman Devin Nunes, it was in the context of covering a DOJ Inspector General report that largely vindicated the California Republican's widely-dismissed memo regarding the Russia probe and FISA abuses. He was broadly correct on the relevant points, and his mendacious Democratic counterpart was wrong. But a public official's correctness on one subject does not necessarily translate to others, so I'd invite you to very much ignore the advice he gave on Fox News during a Sunday morning interview, regarding social interactions during the coronavirus pandemic:
“If you’re healthy, you and your family, it’s a great time to go out and go to a local restaurant, likely you can get in easy. Let’s not hurt the working people in this country...go to your local pub” pic.twitter.com/jXdhOfwe9R
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) March 15, 2020
Nobody wants to hurt working people and service industry employees, which is why folks are figuring out creative ways to help local businesses during this difficult period of time. But the problem is that a lot of people who think they're healthy actually are not. Allow me to once again share this simulation, as well as this illustration of the problem:
Here’s something that’s absolutely terrifying: a comparison of the age distributions of Covid-19 cases in Italy, where they are only testing people who show symptoms, and S. Korea, which has broad testing. A whole lot of 20-29yos out there who feel just fine but are v contagious. pic.twitter.com/BU96h3VKUc
— Mark Byrne (@markwby) March 14, 2020
This is why multiple foreign countries who are "ahead" of the US in terms of the virus' trajectory have now entered near-total social lockdowns. The governments of Italy, Spain and Israel aren't imposing such restrictions for fun. And now some American jurisdictions are adopting increasingly similar approaches. The admirable and correct post-9/11 mentality of getting out there is contributing to the economy to demonstrate solidarity and lack of fear doesn't apply in this circumstance. We're talking about a highly-contagious disease that has a death rate ten times higher than the common flu. People in positions of power and influence should know better, which is why Nunes' comments (and similar sentiments from figures ranging from the Republican Governor of Oklahoma to leftist commentators like Matthew Dowd) are so irresponsible. This is amusing but true:
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Folks, if @AOC and @tedcruz agree on something, we should listen. pic.twitter.com/yFcfG1yQqv
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) March 15, 2020
May I remind you that the true numbers are much higher than the "official" statistics, which will start catching up when testing becomes far more widespread within the next few days:
“Don't believe the numbers you see... I think we have between 50,000 and half a million cases right now walking around in the United States,” Dr. Marty Makary, a medical professor at Johns Hopkins University. #CoronaVirusUpdates https://t.co/ZKnMgo2PQF
— Richard Hine (@richardhine) March 14, 2020
Many, many of the people who unknowingly have coronavirus at the moment aren't feeling sick. They are still contagious. That's why I wrote this post late last week. Apparent overreactions today won't look that way in the very near future. I embedded this clip in my post earlier, but please re-watch it and contrast its message with what Nunes and others have been saying. Dr. Fauci is President Trump's well-respected, hand-picked expert on this pandemic. His opinion is flat-out more informed and more important than others'. Pay attention to him:
"I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction we see in restaurants and in bars," Dr. Fauci says about the coronavirus. Young people are not immune: "There are going to be people who are young who are going to wind up getting seriously ill" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/iF5J2gccta
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 15, 2020
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