“Shelter in Place” Orders Are Stupid & Cannot Possibly Work

By US Politics and News Last updated Mar 24, 2020

The morning after California’s governor – Nancy Pelosi’s nephew – issued a “Shelter in Place” executive order for all of the state’s 40 million residents, nearly every single person in California rushed out to the grocery stores at the same time. The only thing that these possibly unconstitutional orders are accomplishing is scaring people and spreading the Chinese coronavirus to more people.

If you happen to live in a state that has not yet issued one of these dumb and pointless Shelter in Place orders, you’ll want to get in touch with your state lawmakers and urge them to keep your state’s economy open. This is really, really dumb.

At my first attempt at getting into a grocery store that first morning, the line stretched around the side of the building and then across the street, more than a block away. They initially allowed about fifty people into the store and were letting five customers at a time in after that. When five customers left, five more got to go in. The line was crawling at a snail’s pace and it was 36 degrees outside.

I went to a second store where they were just letting everyone in. Eventually, as I was shopping in those thick crowds, they had to call security to prevent more people from getting into the store because it had become a fire hazard.

I was finally a “one percenter” at something in life – part of the one percent of shoppers who were actually considerate enough to wear a mask to protect others. No one could “socially distance” themselves from others because we were all packed into the store like sardines, wondering if this is the last time we’ll be allowed to shop for groceries for our families for the next several weeks.

Every grocery store in California, New York and other places becomes a giant Chinese virus petri dish the morning after these idiotic “Shelter in Place” orders are issued. Has it occurred to anyone that we’re going about this coronavirus plan totally bass-ackwards?

Other than “essential” businesses like grocery stores and gas stations, all other businesses are being shut down to deal with a virus that isn’t even as dangerous as the seasonal flu. Millions of people were thrown out of work overnight in states and counties where these dumb orders have been issued. People seem to think that an economy is like a light switch that can be turned on and off at a whim. It can’t.

The fallout from this stupidity is going to be catastrophic. Governor Cuomo in New York deemed that hedge funds are “essential businesses” and allowed them to stay open. But if you’re a waiter, a hairdresser or a clothing retailer whose name isn’t “Walmart,” well, tough.

We’re taking extraordinary measures that are harmful to the entire population in order to protect the elderly and people with secondary infections who are at most risk from the Chinese virus. Couldn’t we have approached this problem from the other direction, rather than destroying millions of lives and businesses? We can’t tell who has the virus and we don’t have sufficient testing available because the CDC lied to the Trump administration multiple times at the start of this outbreak. But we do know who our elderly and sick people are.

America could have easily mobilized its people to protect those at-risk people while keeping the rest of our economy safe. We could have done that at a cost of about 1% of what we’re going to spend bailing out airlines, hotels and other industries that we have crippled to protect people over the age of 70. We could have called for brigades of proven-healthy-through-testing volunteers to deliver food and other essentials to the elderly and the sick while wearing hazmat suits, while keeping everyday Americans who face a nearly zero percent chance of dying from coronavirus at work.

The fatality rate for people under 40, worldwide, is about 0.03% according to the latest numbers. No one under the age of 30 has died from the virus in Italy. For 40- to 60-year-olds, the mortality rate is around 4%. Another 10% are in the 60-70 age range. The remaining 85% of fatalities are over the age of 70. Worldwide, only one person under the age of 20 has died from it (in Wuhan).

One final note: The conservative CPAC conference ended more than three weeks ago. The “Patient Zero” at that event shook hands with hundreds of attendees, including US Senators and Congressmen. Those people potentially shook hands with additional thousands upon thousands of people and then went home to their families. How many have died as a result of that? Oh, right. Zero.

Food for thought as you’re sitting at home and being prevented from working over a virus that just doesn’t seem to be hurting very many people in America.