Two things.

First, this thread from Bethany Mandel, on an issue I’ve discussed before:

And of course, #GrandmaKiller is trending. The preening self-benediction from some of the people making this trend on social media is vomit-inducing. I’ll be frank: Have any of these hypocrites had any food delivered? Packages? Have they ordered takeout? Have they gone to grocery stores? Used electricity? Relied upon their area’s sewer system? By doing any of this all of these people have admitted that they are perfectly cool with risking lives just so long as it is convenient for them. Unless these people haven’t left their homes since the lockdown began and are entirely self-sufficient with farms and compost toilets, they’re all murderers, too, by their logic. Most of these people are elitist one percenters still pulling a paycheck from the comfort of their sofa (others are making more money through unemployment and CARES to not work, but what after that? Those businesses may no longer exist). If you express a desire to leave house arrest and generate an income so you and your family can eat too, these sanctimonious loons call you a murderer because your need to generate income is less worthy than their desire to have their pizza delivered. If you want to have a real discussion about class warfare, there it is.

They’re all risks. Stop acting otherwise. There is no such thing as an absence of risk, which dovetails with my second thing:

Progressives are trying to shame Republican governors as reckless murderers who are risking lives to reopen:

From the piece:

“How do we know reopening businesses won’t result in faster spread of more cases of COVID-19?” Abbott asked during a Friday afternoon phone call with members of the state legislature and Congress. “Listen, the fact of the matter is pretty much every scientific and medical report shows that whenever you have a reopening—whether you want to call it a reopening of businesses or of just a reopening of society—in the aftermath of something like this, it actually will lead to an increase and spread. It’s almost ipso facto.”

“The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission,” Abbott said on the call, which a spokesperson confirmed was authentic on Tuesday. “The goal never has been to get transmission down to zero.”

Siegel and the author of this piece seem to think that “flattening the curve” was about killing the virus. Killing the virus was never the intent of this lockdown. Ever. No one ever said this. The point of the lockdown was about reducing the number of people infected at the same time and avoid overwhelming the medical system. Furthermore, the idea that government needs to assure us of zero risk before reopening is insane. I discussed this on my program today:

We know what will happen if we stay locked down. We know that we will be much more successful if we incorporate a balanced approach to reopening. “But the risks!” say the people who write articles like the one above. That’s just it: There is always risk in freedom. Freedom isn’t a guarantee of happiness, opportunity, or comfort. Freedom means you are at liberty to pursue these things yourself, for yourself. Watch the full video, it’s short.