Reopen and Never Close Again

I was tempted with two titles for today’s article. The first was “Herd to Control or to Heal?”

Some experts believe herd immunity helps us to heal (fight disease) naturally. They think it would have been the wisest response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Others, in the name of health concerns, are using the virus to “herd people” under their control. That’s what will happen in the Last Days when a charismatic global figure will deceive the masses of the world for evil purposes.

I talked about a “trial run” for tyranny last week. Today I want to focus on dealing with the COVID-19 lock down with a title that states the obvious:

Reopen the economy and never close it again.

Reopen the Economy and Never Close It Again

There are honest opinions on both sides about our response to the coronavirus. Some believe it was right to lock down the world six weeks ago to battle the novel disease. They now propose we should only gradually–if ever–return to normal.

The other side believes we made a mistake in February, falling prey to group think and unnecessary fear which has caused a global Depression–of our own making. They assert we should reopen quickly yet wisely.

After studying the data carefully, I concur with the latter and add a caveat: Reopen the economy and never close it again.

We need to admit we did the wrong thing and never repeat it.

Let’s first start with the science.

Some now believe we made a tragic mistake by not allowing “herd immunity” to be the main weapon against the coronavirus. Herd immunity happens when so many people in a community become immune to an infectious disease (build up natural anti-bodies) that it stops the disease from spreading.

That’s the body’s normal way of keeping us healthy. Some voices of that view:

• Dr. Knut Wittkowski, epidemiologist. and chief executive officer of Asdera LLC: “With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity. About 80 percent of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children…If there had been no intervention, the epidemic would have been over, like every other respiratory disease epidemic. We’re now prolonging it by lock down and social distancing.”
• Dr. David Katz, the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Connecticut: “The collective resistance to a virus that grows naturally by many people having the disease, recovering, and developing antibodies. If all you do is flatten the curve, you don’t prevent deaths or severe cases. You just change the dates.” Katz says the two ways to deal with the virus are to develop a vaccine (takes time) or “build the nation’s herd immunity…It finds it harder to get to a host where it can survive, and it dies out. That’s herd immunity.”
• Emergency Room Dr. Dan Erickson: “I don’t want to stay in my home and develop a weak immune system, and then come out and get a disease.” Another ER doctor on the front lines in New York says “we need to end the lock down and get back to work.”

The nation of Sweden (my half ancestry) applied a measured approach to the pandemic. While they canceled large events, schools, gyms, bars and restaurants remained open, relying on citizens to do what was necessary to keep safe. The government banned gatherings of fifty people and barred visits to nursing homes. It also banned non-essential travel to Sweden.

But they didn’t cripple their economy.

Swedish Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s senior epidemiologists, shared the following points on why we should have used herd immunity against COVID-19:

• The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only.
• This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product.”
• The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying as much as the lock down.
• Covid-19 is a “mild disease,” like the flu, but it was the novelty of the contagion that scared people.
• The actual fatality rate of COVID-19 is the region of 0.1%.
• At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available.

The growing facts show that COVID-19, though highly contagious, will produce similar results to flu epidemics. It also arrived earlier than we thought, was never a threat to the young, is being over-reported in death statistics (due to money considerations) and would have been better fought through God’s natural means of herd immunity.

So why did the world shut down to combat this disease?

Power and control–fueled by a fear-mongering media.

According to Systems Biologist Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D.:

“The elite in this country want to create a fake problem and a fake solution to consolidate power…You create massive amounts of fear so people will be willing — because they’re under economic stress, under what they think is a health [threat] — to give up their rights…This is an interesting convergence of economic attack, attack on people’s health, [and attack on] people’s autonomy and freedom. Truth, freedom and health are all under assault.”

Walter Williams agrees:

“The absolute worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possibly its most unrecoverable damage, is the massive power that Americans have given to their federal, state, and local governments to regulate our lives in the name of protecting our health. Taking back that power should be the most urgent component of our recovery efforts.”

Senior Fox News policy expert Brit Hume said recently, “I think it’s time to consider the possibility, that this lock down – as opposed to the more moderate mitigation efforts – is a colossal public policy calamity. Businesses are closing. Many may not reopen. Those incomes will be lost. COVID-19 is a major health challenge, but it is also now a major economic and financial crisis.”

Through the unwise or selfish choices of our leaders. 

Star Parker points out that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now equal yearly auto accidents. She states with some irony:

“It’s no mystery how to reduce those 40,000 auto accident deaths to zero. Simply prohibit driving. But how many Americans would agree to this? Not many. Most Americans prefer their freedom and the benefits they get from driving and are prepared to accept the risks associated with it.”

The same must be true for infectious diseases. Here are my practical suggestions:

• Continue to be conscientious with personal hygiene.
• Practice social distancing with common sense.
• Keep the parks and beaches open. (Thank you, Orange County.)
• Wear a mask–if you choose.
• Quarantine the sick–not the healthy (which we’ve never done before).
• Protect the elderly and vulnerable (shelter or quarantine for a time).

And allow God’s natural process of herd immunity to keep the majority healthy and prosperous instead of producing economic depression and all the societal ills it brings (poverty, depression, suicide, child abuse etc.).

Never forget that our three unalienable human rights are under assault. In all socialist revolutions the elites attack the God-given rights to life, liberty, and property (pursuit of happiness). That’s true of China, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba right now. It happened in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia two generations ago.

A free economy is to a nation what the flow of blood is to a body. It’s the chain of life and well-being. If you limit its flow or stop it, even for a while, the entire organism begins to shut down.

Or even die.

We made a mistake. Time to admit it and repent (change course).

Reopen our economy and never allow it to be controlled from the top down again–even if that means civil disobedience.