STEVE HILTON (HOST AND FORMER ADVISER TO DAVID CAMERON): There's a much better way to flatten the economic curve. Doctor Fauci says he's fine overreacting.
(CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI (IMMUNOLOGIST AND HEAD OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES): I like it when people are thinking I'm overreacting because that means we're doing it just right.
(CLIP ENDS)
HILTON: Well that's easy for him to say. He'll still have a job at the end of this, whatever happens. Our ruling class and their TV mouthpieces — whipping up fear over this virus. They can afford an indefinite shutdown, working Americans can't, they'll be crushed by it.
You know that famous phrase, 'The cure is worse than the disease'? That is exactly the territory we are hurtling towards. You think it's just the coronavirus that kills people? This total economic shutdown will kill people. A UK study calculated that 130,000 people died avoidably from austerity there between 2012 and 2017. The years of austerity for America to pay the cost of this shutdown will be worse. Adjusting to the size of our economy, it's over a million deaths. But the family thrown out of their home, the mom gets sick, the kids are orphans — her death won't be counted. The dad who's been out of work for 30 years and finally got a job last month and now he's back on the scrap heap and turning back to drink and drugs. His death won't show up in a neat little box on cable news.
Poverty kills, despair kills. This shutdown is deadly. The president announced a 15-day plan to beat the virus. After that, let's say right, We came together to slow the spread, now let's come together to protect the vulnerable, get the ventilators, get the beds, get the equipment for our heroic nurses and doctors. Keep the ban on large gatherings but stopped the total shutdown for everyone and start the total protection of the elderly and those most likely to need hospitalization. Don't turn a public health crisis into America's worst catastrophe.
