Letter: Increased deaths from ‘opening up’ aren’t worth it

Graphic by Lori Deaton

[Regarding “Asheville Is Dead Forever Unless We Wake Up,” Sept. 30, Xpress:] Wow, someone has really been drinking a lot of Kool-Aid during the lockdown. There are many statements in your letter that I could respond to, but instead I simply want to ask you to take some time to get your news and science from real news sites and real pandemic scientists. Or are you focused solely on Asheville and therefore can’t see the increased numbers in the Midwest and upper Midwest? Do you not see the increased positivity rate and the fact that hospitals are being overwhelmed and that the deaths continue to multiply in the nation at an alarming rate?

And my guess is that you don’t get real news from outside the country and therefore don’t know that most of Europe is in a second wave, and several countries and communities are about to go to total lockdown again.

The new pandemic czar (a radiologist, by the way) touts just going ahead and “open up” to reach herd immunity; but if you just look mathematically at the 55%-60% of the population needed to be infected to get to “herd immunity” and suppose a death rate of 2%, it means that of the 327,239,523 population of America (in 2019) at a 1% fatality rate, we will need 3,272,395 people to die; if we can only lower the rate to 2%, we will lose 6,544,790. That is really unacceptable to me. If you want to volunteer to be one of them, go ahead, give it a try.

We are suffering, we are facing changes at every level of society and are doing as best we can to survive and move forward. But I, for one, think that the increased deaths from “opening” up are not worth it. As a nation, we have survived worse in history, and if we work together, mask, social distance, sanitize and listen to real experts, we will pull through this with far less deaths.

— Michael E. Beech
Asheville

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2 thoughts on “Letter: Increased deaths from ‘opening up’ aren’t worth it

  1. dogperson

    If I catch covid and die, at least I won’t be an American anymore. Americans can’t push me to vote and drag me down to their level if I’m a corpse. If you vote in the USA you arent voting upward, all votes are aimed downward regardless of party or faction, because America is a drag =you down to it’s lower level reality. What american isnt in someway trying to drag fellow Americans down to their level? Even when trump says make America great again, he basically wants people to lower themselves before him. That’s the reality of being an American, a continual asaault on the individual to lower him or herself to a political situation. I say in death at least you have self respect. You arent alive trying to surivive in the nation of “blond who want to bring you down to their level”, because face it: blonds are not on a higher level above you. They are always pulling you lower.

  2. Lou

    Donald Trump has lowered all of AmeriKKKa to his level…about third grade I think. It is time to bring in leadership so we can survive. Also, IMO, anyone in this town who STILL refuses to wear a mask for fifteen damn minutes at the Ingles should be LOCKED UP.

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