By Sam Homan
The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly exaggerated by the media and executive officials in the government. The government shouldn’t force mandates and shutdowns on its people but rather, give people options and make them aware of who is most at risk for the virus.
The disease protocols and practices are so ridiculous and pointless that many Americans are fed up with the decisions made by government officials. These decisions range from requiring people to wear masks (which don’t work all the time), social distancing measures, restrictions on the number of people allowed at Thanksgiving dinner, and shutting down the entire economy, potentially for a second time in upcoming months.
According to the World Health Organization’s website, elderly people and people with pre-existing conditions are most likely to be more affected by this disease than younger people with no pre-existing conditions who recover a large majority of the time with minor symptoms. In the United States the number of confirmed cases was 13,921,374; of those people infected 273,446 died, which means the observed case-fatality ratio in the United States is two percent as listed on Johns Hopkins University and Medicine’s website as of December, 8. That means that 98 percent of people who get this disease survive. The World Health Organization lists the world mortality rate as three-four percent but this also includes countries where only people with severe illnesses are tested which can result in a much lower death rate if the numbers included everyone infected.
The government should not be shutting down the country, causing job loss which can lead to poverty, suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse over a disease with a two percent mortality rate mostly coming from elderly and people with pre existing conditions. The government instead should set guidelines, and warn, not force or mandate, people of the risks involved and let the people of this free country decide if they’d like to risk their own health. These guidelines could include suggestions like: immune compromised people should social distance, wear a mask, stay at home, if they so choose. The government could also qualify these people for unemployment checks if they have to miss work because they’re afraid of getting sick by attending.
The flu is very similar to the coronavirus, according to Hopkinsmedicine.org, they both can be mild or severe “and even fatal in RARE cases.” So why isn’t there a government shutdown and mask mandate every flu season? A counter argument would be, there is a vaccine for the flu. The World Health Organization estimates that one billion people worldwide get the flu every year. The World Health Organization also estimates that 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year around the world.
The point is that even with a vaccine the flu still claims hundreds of thousands every year yet there is still no shutdown or social distance practices put in place so there really shouldn’t be one for a virus slightly worse than the flu.
The government needs to give the people the choice. Smoking causes cancer, eating fast food is unhealthy, yet people have the right to choose and take that risk, people who are elderly and immunocompromised need to take that into consideration and social distance, wear masks that actually work at stopping the spread, and not punish the rest of the nation who are mildly affected and recover 98 percent of the time.