Why reopening won't have the negative effects that doomsayers predict...

The percentage of decedents in Minnesota who were in nursing homes or had preexisting conditions...

Let's be truthful and honest about this for a second. There is almost no real tangible discussions surround the age of the people passing away from Covid-19 and there is literally no real tangible discussions of the health of those people passing away from Covid-19. For whatever reasons, these discussions haven't just been ignored, but they have been considered almost taboo. For one to have the audacity to even bring the subject is akin to being immediately labeled as some sort of  "Covid-19 denier". 

Here in Minnesota, the subject only comes up because there are a group of conservative reporters who have demanded this information be provided during their daily briefings. For a short while this information appeared on the Minnesota Covid-19 website, only to be taken down. The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press provide almost no mention of this statistic. For the average Minnesotan (or American) who gets their information from the main stream media, they will believe that Covid-19 kills indiscriminately and that nobody is reasonably safe from it.

But believing something doesn't make it so. Covid-19 effects are not related to any poll, opinions, or misconception. Covid-19 effects are hard coded into the very essence of the virus. Whether people accept it or not, 97% of the deaths will occur with people over the age of 45 and almost all of them will have a serious preexisting condition that they understand will make them susceptible to harsh outcomes if they garner the disease. 

Now I know several people with these conditions. I have friends with autoimmunity issues. I have friends with preexisting lung damage. I obviously know many elderly people who live in the types of senior living communities that have been a risk. To a person, these people (as well as their families and close friends) understand that they are at risk and they are already taking precautions. Nobody is going to force them to go out to dinner, head out to a movie, or otherwise put themselves at risk. None of these people are going to risk it on their own. Moreover, as long as they keep themselves isolated and are careful about whom they interact with, the fact that other random people are out to eat is going to have no real tangible effect on them.

So, this is the factual reality, boys and girls. The healthy Americans who decide to go out in public and resume some normalcy of their lives are still at risk for catching Covid-19, but their chances of dying from the virus approaches almost zero. Statistics are suggesting that a healthy person under the age of 45 has less than a one in 10,000 chance of dying from Covid-19. Those healthy individuals in the 45-65 range have only a slightly higher risk of dying from this. 

So even if every last healthy person under the age of 65 caught this virus, and the statistics held, we would be looking at a maximum of an additional 10,000 to 15,000 deaths over the extended time that the virus was infecting people. More realistically we would see a fraction of that. While nobody wants to see anyone die from Covid-19, we also don't want to see anyone die from lung cancer, alcohol related health issues, traffic accidents, or slipping in their bathtubs. We certainly do not make smoking, drinking, driving, or bathing a federal crime.

Common sense and empirical data suggest that those people living in long term care facilities and those people with immunity problems and preexisting conditions are simply prone to catch this virus regardless of the actions taken by our Federal and State governments. They are catching the virus and dying at fairly consistent rates across the country, and it's actually worse (not better) in the states that are more locked down. We need a completely "different" plan to address that. 

Meanwhile allowing people who are not at the same sort of risk to start reengaging their lives is only a problem for those at risk, if those at risk decide to not take the necessary precautions. If you are elderly, obese, a chronic smoker, an alcoholic, have diabetes, have hypertension, or otherwise are immune compromised, then your life is going to be severely altered  until there is a cure or a vaccine. If you are not, then the chances of you dying from this virus is exactly the same whether we are under lock down or whether we have an open society again. The only thing that the lock down does is to help prevent you from catching a virus that has almost no chance to kill you.  

Time will tell how this plays out. But unless there is a serious change in the empirical data that currently exists, it's unlikely that releasing people from the lock down will do little more than create a rise in cases (which should happen with increased testing either way). But the evidence today suggest that a rise in cases will not lead to any real substantial rise in serious issues or fatalities. 

Will that stop the doomsayers? Unlikely. I predict that they will stop focusing on the hospitalizations and deaths, and just start plugging away at how the virus is spreading. But make no mistake. As much as they will scream and holler, contracting Covid-19 will be little different than catching the common cold for a vast majority of the population. The amount of cases mean next to nothing with young healthy people.