We all know that the COVID-19 coronavirus is contagious and deadly to part of the population. We know we don’t have a vaccine or a definite cure yet. 

But that shouldn’t be an excuse to destroy our way of life. Nothing is going to change between now and the end of the year unless we get a miraculous cure. Social distancing might have helped most places from exploding numbers of cases and deaths but it hasn’t appeared to produce consistent numbers that have gone down significantly. The lockdown order has bought us time so that hospitals are better prepared with ventilators and PPEs. 

There are some who want to wait and wait and wait. For the promise of what? A vaccine or treatment that may never come? Are we going to base our decisions about the future on models and guesses and hope? 

As sad as the number from deaths of COVID-19 are, the numbers are not even close to what was predicted by the models. Those models were used to justify the shutdown. And more than 1/3 of the deaths are coming from one place – New York. In the case of Michigan, the whole state is being shut down even though 85% of the confirmed cases and deaths are in the southwestern Michigan area near Detroit. 

Everyday we take risks driving our cars, eating food, walking on the street, and flying in an airplane. We have no guarantees in life and still, that is what some are looking for with the pandemic. Letting the government decide what risks we take instead of us is not the answer. 

Fear and politics are driving decisions right now and the unfortunate thing is that we’re not even operating from a place with “real” information. 

The confirmed case numbers aren’t correct because it’s just a sample of people who think they might have the virus. And obviously, the more testing that is done, the more cases you have. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have more cases today than the day before. It means we know about more cases. 

The death statistic isn’t something we can rely on either because we have information that it’s being inflated and manipulated. It was bad enough when we learned the CDC was allowing a death to be documented as a COVID-19 death if you had the disease even though it might not be what actually killed you. Now they are letting hospitals include deaths statistics of PROBABLE cases. That is not science. 

There is also something else to consider. Hospitals are getting paid for uninsured patients with COVID-19 and also being reimbursed by Medicare with a minimum of $13,297 per patient. This, obviously, could act as an incentive to code someone as a possible COVID-19 patient. Therefore, I don’t think that the death rate numbers are reliable either. 

So that leaves us with hospitalization numbers, which are hard to find, inconsistent and not fully documented. So do we really have truthful data to make informed decisions during all this? No. But our governments are making decisions anyway based on this information as they destroy other areas of our lives. 

Besides the deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are three other tragedies going on right now that we should stop – or at least minimize. 

The tragedy of Americans not getting health care because of COVID-19 

Elective surgeries aren’t being done. When we heard the phrase “elective,” most people thought they were talking about cosmetic surgeries and other medical procedures along those lines. 

We never thought it meant that doctors and hospitals wouldn’t be doing cancer treatments, stents, amputations and other needed surgeries and treatments. What’s going on in the medical community right now it outrageous. People are not getting care they need. Important care. And in the meantime, because of this, hospitals are laying off staff because they aren’t busy. COVID-19 seems to be the only condition deemed medically necessary to treat. 

Are these hospitals going to survive? Are the people going to survive, waiting for brain surgeries that their doctors won’t perform? Every day I hear more and more stories about someone who can’t get treated for an illness. I think that this is one of the most egregious things going on during the lockdown. 

The tragedy of destroying the economy, jobs and businesses and the future of Americans 

This isn’t the 1870’s. Most of us don’t build our own homes, hunt for our own food, provide for our own light and heating, grow our own vegetables, ride horses for transportation or sew our own clothes. 

How many of you will be able to live without readily available food at the grocery store? Can you fix your own car? Can you take care of your medical problems when your local hospital closes? Are you prepared for poverty and a breakdown in society worse than the Great Depression? 

We pay people to provide products and services so we can live our lives. What happens when those businesses are gone? If the lockdown go on much longer, many businesses will go under. Many already have. 

Towns will be destroyed and so will your local services like fire and police because your cities and counties won’t have a tax base to pay for services. Same goes for the state governments who will be laying off police officers they can’t afford. It’s already happening like this story points out in Ohio. 

Instead of focusing on where the outbreaks are, the governors are imposing blanket rules for entire states and they are destroying our livelihoods. Opening up our country should be decided on a regional, if not county-by-county basis, by local politicians who know about what’s going on in their own areas and can be held accountable for what they do more easily. 

Extended unemployment and stimulus payments are stop-gap measures so that people won’t revolt while businesses go under and lockdowns are extended. But spring is here, summer is coming and I don’t think civil disobedience is far away. Most people probably don’t think they have much to lose if they open their businesses against governor orders. What is the alternative? 

The media has sufficiently put everyone into a state of panic so I think it’s safe to say that most businesses and individuals will continue to stay safe, wear masks, wash their hands, stand apart from each other and do what they can to reduce the risks to themselves and others. If the government is telling the truth about how the virus spreads, then we can handle the risks. If the government is lying to us, then we are screwed anyway. 

Our future financial situation is also at risk. People are dipping into their savings and are getting behind in bills that were already hard to keep up with. COVID-19 is also having an effect on Social Security. The system isn’t taking in enough cash from payroll taxes and will collapse sooner than expected. Are all the people who want to stay at home for another year going to be able to live on $500 a month when they retire? Or nothing? 

The tragedy of losing out freedoms and constitutional rights 

Governors are oppressing their citizens with their emergency powers and overreaching executive orders. When those citizens respond in protest, they are called heartless and accused of not caring about people dying. I could argue with these people that we care MORE. We care about the whole person. We care about your life, your rights, your health, your mental health, your job and your town. 

Even though there are more people in a Walmart in a day than at most protests, we are supposed to believe that going to Walmart is safe but protesting outside is not. Things aren’t “safe” or “unsafe” because politicians and the media deem them to be so. 

When the governors start opening the economy again, it’s not going to be any safer on that day than it is now. It’s just going to be “government approved” which means nothing. We’re going to be acting in the same manner we’ve been acting for the last month or two so that we live our lives as safely as possible. We’ve already been doing it. 

It’s up to us to take precautions and manage our risks. No one is stopping anyone from staying at home or working at home if they have that option. Not everyone has that option. Not everyone is willing to let their family business collapse when their county doesn’t even have one case of COVID-19. 

We want our freedoms back. We need to be able to live our lives and adjust to our new reality. We need the right to provide for ourselves and our families. If we have no job (and unemployment isn’t forever) we can’t even buy masks or soap or cleaning supplies to protect ourselves, not to mention food or prescriptions. 

The bill of rights has no exceptions for wars or pandemics. Governors and mayor are not allowed to take away our religious freedoms, the freedom to assemble, petition and the right to bear arms. The 10th amendment didn’t give any of these states the power to take away our constitutional rights just because they declared a state or emergency. 

The people have followed the rules in good faith and the government has deceived us on how long they intend to lock us down, used faulty data to do so and are using their powers to threaten and intimidate Americans all over the country with their unconstitutional edicts. 

I believe that if the governments don’t come up with a reasonable plan to restore the economy, give back Americans their constitutional rights and the ability to get medical care, the people will restore their own rights.