I will not die of stupid COVID-19 decisions

Someday, I’m going to die.

This, I grudgingly accept. I have no idea how it’s going to happen. Maybe I will die of having a tree fall on me, of eating tainted shellfish, or of being struck by lightning. But this much I guarantee. I will not die of having wagered my life that TV carnival barkers, political halfwits and goobers in MAGA hats know more than experts with R. N.s, M. D.s, and Ph.D.s after their names.

In other words, I will not die of stupid. Not that there aren’t plenty of opportunities to do so. Indeed, in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the question of when and how the nation’s economy should be reopened, we seem to have tapped the U.S. Strategic Stupid Reserve. The result has been a truly awe-inspiring display of America’s matchless capacity for mental mediocrity.

Surveys show, for instance, that a solid majority of Americans (63 percent according to a CBS News poll) are more worried about reopening the country too fast and worsening the pandemic than opening it too slowly and worsening the economy. Yet a noisy minority of protesters is furious at government for trying to keep them healthy. They demand their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of acute respiratory distress.

Meantime, there’s Dr. Phil, opining on Fox “News” that “45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that.” Turns out he’s off a smidgen on the number of drownings, which is actually fewer than 4,000. And who knew swimming pools, car accidents and cigarettes were contagious?

Then you have governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida rushing to reopen their states in defiance of medical advice. “COVID-19 is