Conservative author and researcher Heather Mac Donald explained why “irrational” coronavirus “paranoia” can also cost lives as governments sacrifice their economies to combat the ongoing pandemic.
Appearing on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” on Wednesday night to react to pushback to White House advisor Jared Kushner’s comment about the “eternal lockdown crowd,” the Manhattan Institute fellow began with the concept of “virus paranoia.”
WATCH:
“The degree of paranoia that I’m observing, which is completely irrational,” Mac Donald told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum after describing her own experiences in New York City’s Central Park. “You are not going to get infected in the wide outdoors. Dose matters in the transmission of viruses.”
“It’s going to mean that the economy will not come back to life if people are so terrified about engaging in normal human behavior,” she continued before blasting the “self-righteous dichotomy that you either care about public health and thus want the economy locked down, or you’re some evil capitalist who only cares about profits.”
“The reason that I am terrified that another month of lockdown in New York state is going to destroy the economy is because I care about lives,” she said. “It’s because I care about public health. The economy is the way that people survive. It not only gives them meaning it gives them basic sustenance.”
The conservative researcher explained that when people don’t get needed hospital treatment, defer procedures, or are scared to go to hospitals, things can break down in other ways, including more drug abuse and “deaths of despair.”
Calling the economy the “very essence of life,” Mac Donald called the shutdowns a “massive overreaction” when most people “face almost no risk.” (RELATED: Brit Hume Cites Two Reasons Why The Case For National Lockdown Is Getting ‘Weaker And Weaker’)
“We know that this is targeted at a vulnerable, tragically vulnerable set of populations which is elderly 75 and older, people in nursing homes and those with pre-existing conditions,” said Mac Donald. “Everybody else, it’s really not much worse than the flu.”