People want to take their chances on COVID

The simple truth is that people are sick and tired of being careful.  Trump knows it. Oregon Republicans know it.

People will die. Other people, probably. A lot of people think It's worth the risk.

Headlines:

"Oregon Republicans blast Governor's two-week coronavirus freeze."

"Business organizations oppose Brown's new COVID-19 restrictions."

Oregon has joined the nation in seeing a big spike in the virus caseload, with a record 1,122 cases on Thursday. In Jackson County--my home area that includes Medford--cases went to 429, up from 246, up from 174.  If this were a stock, I would say it has "gone parabolic," and if I owned it I would be thrilled. 

What this measures is something I had seen in markets: a value  feeding on itself. It was going up because people were buying it because it was going up. In the case of a virus or a nuclear reaction, it means a chain reaction. More people are catching it because more people have it, so more people catch it.

Going parabolic

Wake up call to Democrats: There is a reason Republicans at the national and state level are resisting Democratic governors and seizing political opportunity. Masks, social distancing, travel restrictions, business shutdowns, occupancy restrictions, and warnings about social gatherings are unpopular with a giant set of people roughly similar to people who voted for Trump, plus some others. 

Some are skeptical of the significance of the virus itself. They hear enough about it from enough people who say it is all a semi-hoax and overblown, just the flu. This is their basis for questioning whether we ought to do anything. They are skeptical, too, of the motives of leaders they don't support for other reasons, i.e. party affiliation, so they are happy to protest whatever measures are taken. Why close restaurants and not Thanksgiving dinners? Why restrict bars more than stores. Some of these are judgement calls. There is plenty of opportunity to criticize where lines are drawn. It is always politically safe harbor to criticize the application of lines in gray areas.

But there is a big underlying problem that makes skepticism possible: Enough people aren't all that worried about getting sick, getting hospitalized, or dying. And the truth is--the science, the data--that most people who catch COVID apparently don't get terribly sick and don't die from it, not immediately anyway. Some do, but not anyone most people actually know. People get killed in car accidents, but they drive cars anyway. People want to take their chances. People do risky things. They know people will die, but it won't be them.

Biden and Democratic officeholders are going to be pressured by their own beliefs, prior words, and constituents to pursue more coercive measures to try to stop the virus and gain time before the vaccines are ready. It might be the right thing to do--I personally think so--but they should not expect to be thanked for it.

They will pay a political price. No good deed goes unpunished.