Sep 22, 2020
Talking with John Tamny about his upcoming book "When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason." His premise, and I agree, is that experts aren't the answer to crisis, they are the crisis. What was needed at the onset of the virus was leadership wise enough to let sensible Americans figure out how to protect themselves.
Information coming from China in January and February made it very clear that the virus was/is many things, none of them remotely justifying the enormous health, social and economic costs imposed by our panicked political response to it.
Instead, our political leaders needed to provide information guidelines about the risks, take steps to protect the vulnerable and their caregivers, and otherwise let people take care of themselves and each other. Give them the facts and a little bit of guidance, and their intelligence and common sense will see them through. Pretty much what South Dakota and Sweden did.
John writes, "One-size-fits-all lockdowns have crushed the global economy, left us in a worse position to fight the virus and has pushed hundreds of millions back into poverty, which is the biggest killer of all."
We will be paying the price for years.