Privileged pandemic policy-maker Ron Johnson asks for 'perspective.' Glad to oblige.

4:20 p.m. update - - Ron Johnson voted "No."

3:15 p.m. update - - The Senate passed the House aid package 90-8. An amendment to strip mandated paid leave provisions which Johnson offered was defeated.]

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Among the deficits revealed by the coronavirus is that one of Wisconsin's two critically-important representatives in the US Senate is a cold-hearted cipher who represents only himself and a handful of the similarly-protected-and-privileged.

That would be Tea Party remnant, Republican and-Fox-News-inspired Ron Johnson, poised to vote (feels like 'No' is coming) on a bill which would offer some temporary relief to a nation left unprepared by phony 'homeland security [Sic] officials' like Johnson himself for a pandemic.



Yet he has put words to a cold, empathy-free calculus for constituents who are stressed, sick, suddenly going broke and may be facing death.

At the heart of his heartless words and world view is this truly banal suggestion

...put this all in perspective... 

which I'll offer in just a couple of grafs.

You can read his entire 'explanation,' H/T to the Journal Sentinel's Craig Gilbert, and no matter how hard he tries to make rational his irrational Ayn Randian 'philosophy, Johnson cannot hide from what he really believes: 

Johnson acknowledged that coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, but said, “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less,” he said.

So, for the 'perspective' which Johnson is looking for, consider:

* 3.4 percent of the US population of about 330 million people is 11,200,000 - - which is a giant number of fatalities if everyone caught the virus, and over time that's not an unreasonable scenario, as this post by University of Chicago physicians about everyone being at risk of infection caught my attention:

Is everyone at risk for catching COVID-19?

Yes. It doesn’t appear anyone is naturally immune to this particular virus, and there’s no reason to believe anybody has antibodies that would normally protect them. However, children appear to be among those least likely to have a bad outcome from contracting the disease.

The lack of previous experience with this virus is part of the reason public health officials are working so hard to contain the spread of this particular coronavirus. When viruses are both new (which means the population is highly susceptible) and can easily pass from person to person (a high transmission rate), they can be very dangerous.

Why do some people with the COVID-19 get sicker than others?

It looks like only about 20% of people who contract this novel coronavirus need to be hospitalized. The other 80% get what feels like a bad cold and recover at home. A lot of this has to do with underlying medical conditions. People who are more vulnerable to any kind of infection — because of their age or chronic health conditions — are more at risk for getting really sick from COVID-19. 

That said, some otherwise healthy people do seem to be getting sicker from this infection than we would expect. 

So, OK, feel free to downsize the death toll - - if we're lucky, successfully employ self-care measures after Trump wasted weeks of valuable preparation and response time, and a vaccine emerges more quickly than predicted.

Let's say the infection rate is only a tenth of the US population, but the 3.4& death rate holds.

A million+Americans is a lot of dead young people, parents, grandparents, co-workers, friends. 

* That maximum number is eight times the total number of US military personnel fatalities - - from battle and other causes - - in all US wars, according to the VA.

Get the picture? 3.4% of the entire country gets pretty overwhelming really fast, so here's a local perspective.

* It's 19 times the population of the City of Milwaukee.

Want a number based on 3.4% of X that's so big it's incomprehensible?

* Worldwide, think 261,000,000 human beings out of 7.7 billion. Here's a chart and map that suggest "pandemic" is the absolute correct worldwide word.

And yes, the number of the afflicted will probably be lower. Say it's half: Would Johnson take a victory lap if the US death toll was a mere 5,600,000. 

A tenth? Is that the mass-funeral tolerable fraction?

And the numbers might stay high persistently, as the virus is predicted to diminish, and then re-appear, perhaps seasonally for a long time.

A vaccine would be welcome, but we know that's months away in best case scenarios, and as we've seen with flu shots, vaccines are not 100% effective. 

Any way you slice it, the number of dead Americans now at just over 100 is going to spike. Wisconsin's will have a share.

Stop trying to tie bows on it.

And by the way, as we're remembering that Johnson opposes remedial federal financial aid because of 'unintended consequences' - - like his pathologically stupid fear of promoting laziness - - and I'd say Wisconsin needs to take a really hard look at the consequences of electing this Tea Party hangover to the Senate - - this is not the first time Johnson has displayed his indifference to people and constituents.

He has gracelessly confused commerce for compassion, shrugged off other people's pain and dismissed basic human needs - - health care, food, shelter - - of people with less power, privilege and plain old good luck than he's been enjoying enjoying

...we pay the married-into-wealth Tea Party Republican millionaire Johnson $174,000 a year so he can try and try and try again and again to strip people of their health care. 

And then we pay again to fly RoJo home so he can insult the intelligence of students at the high school in the deep-red Waukesha County community of New Berlin where he made his robotically ideological and heartless stand - - and even alluded to a Rand Paul position on health care equating it to slavery, according to WISN TV 12:

Do you personally consider healthcare as a privilege or a right?" one student inquired.

Wisconsin's junior senator did not hesitate: "I think it's probably more of a privilege... Do you consider food a right? Do you consider clothing a right? Do you consider shelter a right? What we have as rights is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Past that point, we have the right to freedom. Past that point is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us to afford those things."