Minnesotans are two days into Governor Tim Walz extended Minnesota’s stay-at-home order, which was set to expire on May 4. The current stay-at-home order is an extension of the previous extension of the initial stay-at-home order.
More people are beginning to question the necessity of continuing the stay-at-home orders. We now know that the virus is most deadly to the elderly and those with underlying health issues.
Here is some insight from a Washington Post article.
Kevin McCullough, a columnist for the conservative website Town Hall, wrote. . . . “Nearly everything we’ve been told about models, rates of infection, deaths, and recoveries was inaccurate,” he wrote. “The death rate in New York State isn’t 7.4%, it is actually .75%.”But the two numbers describe different things: The first is a case fatality rate, reflecting deaths among people with confirmed diagnoses of covid-19. The second is the infection fatality rate, extrapolated from the antibody surveys.
In other words, both numbers can be correct, and useful.
. . .
Moreover, the fatality rate of a virus, however it is defined, is not an innate feature of the pathogen. It depends on many variables, including the age and health of the population and access to health care. Timing matters, too: In China the fatality rate was high during the initial phase of the outbreak, when hospitals were overwhelmed and doctors struggled to cope with the crisis.
We can say with confidence that there will continue to be spread of the virus and deaths attributed to it. So by the logic of Governor Walz and his team, I expect the order to be extended again and again.
The last point of the Washington Post article gets to another point that is irksome: how the governor keeps moving the goalposts. The original order, which most people agreed with, was done with the expressed purpose of “flattening the curve,” which would allow the health care system to prepare for the wave of sick people. But extending the order and extending it again shows that the new logic is no longer to flatten the curve but to suppress the spread of the virus. This would make sense if we could stay inside for a month or even two months, and then the virus would be gone. But the virus could be around for another 18 months. At that point, what will be left of our society? I’ve never heard that any local media people have asked the governor about this change. I guess we’re just supposed to go along with it, and the people of the state have questions or concerns, the answer is the same as Darth Vader gave to Lando in the Empire Strikes back:
Lando: That wasn’t part of the deal!Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
Another point about “flattening the curve” is that it is meant to spread out the infections and deaths over a longer period of time, but I think that Walz and others are trying to mitigate the deaths, which comes at a huge social and economic cost, and it may not actually suppress deaths in the final tally. I am sympathetic to the governor feeling responsible for the deaths that are reported day after day, but the responsibility for those deaths are not on the governor or the president or any other official. They are only the responsibility of the Chinese that loosed this virus on the world.
To me, we either fight the virus now, or we fight it later. It’s not going away any time soon. Looked at this way, I can't help but compare Governor Walz to General George McClellan of the Civil War. McClellan was famous having a well-drilled army, for overestimating the strength of his foes, and for always looking for ways to not engage the enemy. Lincoln’s frustrations at McClellan’s dithering around so infuriated him, that Lincoln finally dismissed McClellan after he failed to follow up on the fighting at Antietam.
My preference in all this would be to protect the most vulnerable citizens, and then open up. There may be an initial spike in infections and deaths, but then we will be over and done with this, instead of having it hanging over our heads for the next 18 months.
