More people lost to lockdown than to virus

The head of a public policy think tank believes it was a "massive mistake" to shut down America's economy in an attempt to mitigate the damage of the coronavirus.

The New York Times and The Washington Post recently led the mainstream media's headlines that the death toll from COVID-19 had reached the 100,000 milestone in the United States. But even as we move into June, only 326 for every one million have died, and a high percentage of the deaths have been confined to four northeastern states.

So David Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, says it was a mistake to shut down so much of the U.S. economy.

"Yes, it was a mistake for us to do the wholesale shutdown of the economy. Obviously there are people who are at risk when they become unemployed," he points out. "You have a spike in the number of heart attacks. You have a spike in the number of strokes. You have a spike in the number of suicides and overdoses. And by the time all is said and done, we will lose more people to lockdown than we will from COVID-19."

Ridenour adds that the actual death toll is massively exaggerated

"That's because hospitals get reimbursements with a 20-percent bonus on top of their ordinary fees if it's a COVID-19 death, and that gives them the incentive to call everything a COVID-19 death," he reports. "So, yes -- this was a massive, massive mistake."

Ridenour further submits that this was a crisis that should have been handled with a scalpel instead of a cleaver.