Our Dangerous Illusions About Risk | Frontpagemag
- The most formidable risk we are facing isn't the coronavirus.
"The coronavirus pandemic and the
draconian lock-down responses to it have given us an object lesson in just how irrationally we evaluate and compare risk.
For all our pretenses that “experts” have enough reliable knowledge to mitigate risk based on facts,
we still make policy decisions based on fear, self-interest, or ideology.
...There’s no doubt that the current shut-down of the economy and public spaces is a consequence of
bad risk assessment.
These policies were based on lethality models that
lacked sufficient data such as the rate of infection, and that projected numbers of dead later reduced significantly.
Stoked by panic and incomplete models, radical self-quarantining was mandated even for the healthy young, and open-air activity proscribed even though a viral load necessary to sicken us requires enclosed, crowded spaces and prolonged exposure to a carrier.
...And
diminishing our freedom is the greatest risk we run when we demand security from discomfort or fear.
Nor does it help that today’s progressives and their media hirelings actively stoke the fear and hysteria as a tool for increasing their power and damaging Donald Trump.
...If we don’t start resisting more widely the
petty Mussolinis in state governments and federal bureaucracies, the biggest victim of the coronavirus will be
our freedom.
That is the most formidable risk we are facing.
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