Then how do you explain the fact that South Korea and Taiwan beat the virus without extreme lockdowns? They kept most of their schools and businesses open. Instead of draconian lockdowns, they used aggressive contact tracing.
Panic peddlers peddle all kind of lame excuses for ignoring the success of Sweden's moderate approach. Sweden's COVID-19 crude death rate continues to be among the best among European nations. And Sweden's COVID-19 numbers are better than Michigan's, which is revealing because Sweden and Michigan's populations are almost identical in size. Michigan imposed an extreme lockdown in mid-March and yet saw a large and long spike in deaths more than 3 weeks after the lockdown began, which should not have happened if lockdown measures save lives vs. moderate measures.
Cold hard statistical fact shows there is simply no correlation between extreme lockdown measures and a reduction in COVID-19 cases and deaths:
As of May 18, some 8 weeks after the lockdown began, states that imposed severe lockdowns to combat COVID-19 were the states with the highest COVID-19 death tolls.
STATE ----- COVID-19 DEATHS ----- POPULATION
NY ---------- 28,097 --------- 19.5 million
NJ ----------- 10,249 --------- 8.9 million
MA ----------- 5,705 ----------- 6.9 million
MI ------------ 4,880 ---------- 10 million
PA ----------- 4,403 ----------- 12.8 million
IL ------------- 4,129 ---------- 12.7 million
States that imposed mild lockdowns had lower COVID-19 death tolls (I’m only showing states with large populations to make the comparison as apples-to-apples as possible):
STATE ----- COVID-19 DEATHS ----- POPULATION
FL ----------- 1,964 ----------- 21.5 million
GA ---------- 1,592 ----------- 10.6 million
TX ---------- 1,305 ----------- 29 million
See also https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/david-stockman/the-three-nations-of-covid-and-a-windbag-named-fauci/
Taiwan and South Korea wore masks and didn't refuse to obey the orders their respective countries implemented.
You can't compare Europe to any of our states since COVID-19 is worse in most states than it is in any country in Europe.
The fact is, Michigan had the best numbers of any state in the country at one point. Other states greatly improved their numbers as well. As soon as Governors started to open we have had cases explode.
You use right wing buzzwords like "panic" trying to diminish the severity of COVID-19 for politicization efforts.
Florida and Texas hospitals are in a panic because all the ICU beds are full and they have no room for new patients as cases grow by the tens of thousands each day. They have nowhere to put these people.
3,546,278 cases nationwide
The other day it was 3.4 million.
