Plague Journal (35): the re-start question

So it seems that the rubber is hitting the road as far as "opening up the economy" is concerned. I'm reading about some states now planning a gradual return to something like "normalcy." This point in the progression of events is likely to be as controversial as anything we've yet seen. It looks like Republican governors are more likely to loosen restrictions early, while Democratic governors keep them longer. In other words, it's in part a political decision, and it's also an inflection point in the ongoing culture war.

Of course these restrictions have to be lifted sooner or later, and when they are lifted some people are going to come down with the infection who might not have otherwise. Democrats will call this cold-heartedly putting profits ahead of lives. The president, meanwhile, will continue to cue his base wherever Democratic governors reign to hit the streets in protest. He will depict the true divide as that between the common person and the elites (not to mention "real Americans" vs. Immigrants). Facebook memes will abound.

It is also a contest of sorts between science and economics. These Democratic leaders will cite science, and certainly many of the protesters have a penchant for citing faux science in support of their cause. But the truth may be that science does not provide a sure-fire answer to the question of when we should reopen. Economics won't either, because this issue is bigger than economics and bigger than science, but both disciplines do provide relevant data.

What I fear is that this all gets subsumed into an ideological culture war. I've heard from some that the folks who want the lockdown to end are being treated with contempt by media elites, and he likened their situation to the early stages of Germany's treatment of the Jews under Hitler. I think that's an absurd overstatement, but to say so only seemed to prove my insensitivity. The whiff of us-vs.-them was strong.

But none of this means that I don't think the protesters have a case. My point is that everything these days, including the decision about when to reopen the economy, seems too quickly politicized, too infected with partisanship, so that careful and rational thought is left behind. A sub-point would be that our president likes it that way.

Some of the concern about the re-opening of the economy in Georgia is discussed in the link below: