The parade of terrible Democrat governors attempting to out-tyranny each other continues – and there is a new contender for the Worst Governor of 2020 Award. It will be tough to beat New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo in this contest. Especially after the public learned that New York was sending sick virus patients to nursing homes, which caused the disease and the death rates in New York to skyrocket.
But the latest challenger who thinks that she can put other restrictive governors to shame is the Governor of Oregon. Kate Brown has just extended her state’s economic shutdown until July 6.
According to all the latest medical news and science, that is crazy.
We now know beyond any doubt that the statewide lockdowns, for the most part, did not work at all. Now that more widespread testing has become available, we know that the Chinese coronavirus is far more contagious than the experts thought it was. We also know that it is far less deadly than predicted.
Cities, counties and states can now accurately project that the number of actual, asymptomatic cases of this virus is as much as 50 to 85 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. Many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans have already had the Chinese virus and never knew it. They never developed symptoms, passed it along to others, and got over it without ever feeling the least bit sick. Some had it and had symptoms but shrugged it off as if it was just another seasonal flu or cold.
By the way, we still don’t know how the virus is transmitted, despite the best guesses of the experts. We were initially told that touching an infected surface that a sick person had drooled on and then touching your face was the main way that it was transmitted. Now we’re being told that it’s airborne and you can catch it if you are downwind of a sick person, and maybe it can travel 8 feet or 37 feet or 16 feet or… actually, we just don’t know. Is it from touching surfaces, or breathing, or a combination of those two, or something completely different?
We still don’t know, but what we do know is that it is really, really contagious when compared to seasonal flu or other illnesses. Except for the fact that children don’t seem to show symptoms or transmit it.
The science is telling us, really, that we don’t know anything of substance about this outbreak yet. It may take us years before we really start figuring it out. But in the meantime, should we continue the unprecedented stretch of human misery that is caused by throwing people out of work and shutting businesses down?
Oregon Governor Kate Brown says her state definitely should!
After shutting down many states for a month and a half, America now has at least 30 million and possibly as many as 50 million people on unemployment. This has never happened before in US history. We won’t be able to rebound quickly, but there’s no question that rebounding won’t be possible at all until states reopen.
Is the Chinese virus situation in Oregon so terrible that it warrants shutting down the state’s economy for two more months?
Not according to any of the numbers. Oregon ranks 40th out of the 50 states in total coronavirus cases. Oregon has only had 2,600 confirmed cases and 104 deaths from the Chinese virus, compared to an annual average of 600 flu deaths. Five counties in Oregon have yet to record a single case of the virus. (Interesting fact: No county that borders the Pacific Ocean in Oregon or Washington has recorded a single coronavirus death.)
Eastern Oregon, a geographic area larger than many other US states, there have been only two recorded deaths from the Chinese virus. Yet Governor Kate Brown has decided that she enjoys her shutdown powers too much to let them go. Two more months of misery for you peasants!
“Quarantine” comes from an Italian word that means “40 days.” We’re way past 40 days and counting now. 40 days for a quarantine seems to be about the limit in which you can lock people in their homes before they decide to come out with pitchforks and torches. The Democrat governors who want to keep their states locked down indefinitely are about to find out that there are, in fact, limits to their powers. Americans are universally patient when it comes to being wronged, but we’ll only take so much more of this before major civil unrest occurs.