Jonathan Chait:
“Right now, all people are hearing about are the deaths,” Republican Senator Ron Johnson told the New York Times last week. “I’m sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive.” The problem with this line of reasoning is that “the vast majority” is not a useful standard when measuring a pandemic that is projected to infect at least half the population.
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Johnson is comparing the virus to auto fatalities. Around 37,000 people die every year in car crashes, which is certainly a lot. But losing 1 to 3.4 percent of people who get the coronavirus would mean millions of deaths. So no, we don’t shut down the economy to prevent 37,000 deaths, but we might shut down the economy to prevent 100 times that many deaths.
(click here to continue reading GOP Senator: ‘No More Than 3.4% of Our Population’ May Die.)
Wisconsin is not sending their best to the U.S. Senate.
Wikipedia:
The United States is the third-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 329,227,746 as of January 28, 2020.
(click here to continue reading Demographics of the United States – Wikipedia.)
2% of 329,227,746 = 6.5 million people. If 2% of the US population died in a month or two, that would be a hell of a car crash. 3.4% is 11 million people, by the way.
Wash your hands…