A couple of months ago, before the great reopening disaster, I did several interviews in which I was asked about the tradeoff between the economy and fighting the pandemic. I answered that there was no tradeoff; you can't recover until you beat the virus. 1/

But that seemed impossible for the interviewers to process: each time they would come back with, "Yes, but how should we make the tradeoff between the economy and fighting the pandemic?" 2/

But there really isn't a tradeoff. The US is now lagging behind other countries that didn't rush to reopen 3/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-26/europe-s-economy-set-to-outpace-u-s-in-upending-of-past-roles?srnd=premium&sref=qzusa8bC

Within the US, states that threw caution to the wind gained a short-term boost but are now falling behind 4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/21/arizona-struggles-neighboring-new-mexico-found-more-cautious-path-sustained-growth/

So we sacrificed tens of thousands of lives for nothing, or less than nothing. MAGA! 5/