, Columnist
No, We’re Not All Going to Have to Stay Home for 18 Months
Coronavirus doesn’t present an either/or between pandemic and permanent lockdown. We’re buying time for better choices.
The square will fill again.
Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
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Remember a week and a half ago when CNBC’s Rick Santelli said that “maybe we’d just be better off” if we just infected everybody with the coronavirus now? His reasoning:
Unlike his most famous rant, a February 2009 tirade against mortgage bailouts and in favor of a “Tea Party,” this one probably won’t help launch a political movement, given that Santelli apologized soon after and political sentiment here in the U.S. seemed to shift firmly in favor of a tougher virus-fighting effort in the days that followed.