As a general rule, the earlier you recognize someone is trying to kill you, the better off you’ll be.

The tide has turned on coronavirus projections and the officially ginned up numbers. Unfortunately, it’s just going out on the economic damage from the response to the coronavirus. There’s a widespread propaganda ploy when the media refers to the carnage: they attribute it to the coronavirus and not the draconian measures enacted to address the coronavirus. So 26.5 million Americans filing jobless claims in five weeks is due to the coronavirus and not the decrees destroying the economy, closing businesses, and putting millions under house arrest. As if 26.5 million Americans are out sick rather than forcibly prevented from earning a living.

It’s not like these measures even work. There is not an inverse relationship between the severity of isolation policies and severity of the disease. Keeping those with the disease isolated (the true definition of quarantine) makes sense, house arrest (the true definition of lockdown) doesn’t. Some countries that do not house arrest have death rates per million far lower than countries that do. Confining people to their homes keeps them away from sunlight and fresh air, whose therapeutic benefits have been known since the Spanish flu a century ago and were used to fight it. House arrest also makes it more difficult to exercise, another proven immune system and health builder.

Isolation of the healthy also slows the development of herd immunity. Most people who are infected by the coronavirus will have few or no symptoms and will develop antibodies to it. To the extent home confinement actually prevents exposure, it also prevents herd immunity, potentially setting up a second wave of new cases during next autumn and winter’s flu season. The coronavirus will be a gift that keeps on giving to the Ruling Caste.