Okay, first, let’s make the necessary assurances: all life is precious, every death, whether from coronavirus, flu, or other cause, is a tragedy in some respect. My heart breaks for those who have lost loved ones, friends, and colleagues to this virus. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be.

Next, let’s stipulate to the main and first argument that anyone who dares question current conventional wisdom on the coronavirus response is assailed with: no, I’m not an epidemiologist (doctor of infectious disease); nor am I a medical doctor of any kind. I’m not a scientist either.

However, it does not take a scientist or a doctor to look critically at a situation and notice that some of what is being said (by the same experts noted above) does not seem to add up. I’m not saying they are wrong, but I am saying, I need help understanding why they’re right.

I have heard many news reports that describe scientists’ continued search for the so-called “patient zero,” i.e., the first person to acquire the virus (from a bat they think) and from whom the pandemic sprung, officially infecting (as of 10:35 a.m., EST, on May 1, 2020) some 3.3 million people worldwide, including almost 1.1 million here in the United States.  Almost a quarter million people have died—more than 60,000 of them Americans. Preliminary research suggests the actual number of infected may be much more—perhaps as much as 10 to 50 times more (the so-called orders of magnitude).

Still, as we near the halfway point of our second month in national lockdown, nearly 31,000 new confirmed cases were reported just yesterday (almost 4,700 in New York alone).  Yet, we are told we are “flattening the curve” and that our businesses and institutions will begin reopening very soon. Indeed, many have already started, joining the many businesses that never shut down at all in beginning to draw us back to something resembling normalcy.

So, pardon me for asking, but how exactly is this going to work? If 3 million cases sprung from a single patient zero case in Wuhan, China, how is it that we can start to return to normal when tens of thousands of new cases are popping up across the nation without incurring a spike similar to—actually one would think intuitively worse than—the one that started the lockdowns in the first place? I’m sorry but that doesn’t make sense. Please explain.

The truth is the lockdown was never meant to “keep us safe.” In fact, if we parse the words carefully, it wasn’t initially sold that way. Remember, “15 days to slow the spread.”  Slow the spread, not stop it. The lock down was intended to save not individuals but our medical system, as our experts feared the COVID deluge would overwhelm our hospitals and leave patients without treatment. This is the only scenario in which a lockdown makes any sense. Otherwise, as explained in the previous paragraph: What is the point?

So why isn’t it working. Well, it probably is—somewhat. However, not to the extent Americans were led to believe. The main reason is that we didn’t truly lock anyone down. We couldn’t; people would starve to death among many other problems. So, instead, we left so-called “essential” businesses and institutions open. Obviously, this includes grocery stores, police, fire, and ambulance, hospitals, etc., but also others. After all, if your pipe busts in the middle of the night a plumber is pretty essential, so also hardware stores, etc. To get to work these people need to drive their vehicles so add in gas stations, mechanics, part shops, etc. In other words, we didn’t really lockdown. What we did do is more akin to patching a leaky boat with a piece of screen door.

Now, as new evidence comes to light as to how easily this virus spreads, it is clear it never could have—at least not in the way most Americans assumed. Fortunately, this same new evidence is showing that the death rate is much, much lower than feared as well. Yet, faced with the optics of a decision that might seem callous to deaths, politicians have made a “political” decision to continue extending and tightening (in some cases to near draconian levels) the lockdown. This as our economy crumbles.

As these new findings emerge—seemingly falling on the deaf ears of our leadership—some people have begun calling for a different approach. One that has a commonsense chance of actually working. From the very beginning, I’ve told people we should severely lockdown people in the at-risk group because, despite the cursory examples that we must endure daily that some younger, seemingly healthy people do die from the disease, it is overwhelmingly a problem of the elderly and/or people with underlying health problems. Meanwhile the majority of the country could get back to work, school, etc., contract the virus, build the so-called herd immunity, and save the economy. Yes, certainly some people would die from the virus under this approach just as some people continue to die from it under the current approach (not to mention deaths caused by the lockdown itself from postponing elective medical treatments—biopsies, cancer treatments, etc.).  At some level of herd immunity, it would be safe for the at-risk population to emerge as the potential carriers dwindled.

Unfortunately, people who pose such questions or ask about such approaches are shut down—typically with the “you’re not a doctor” or a “listen to the scientists” justification. However, the fact is that many doctors and scientists, including leading epidemiologists, are asking the same questions, pondering the same theories. They are being ignored—even censored—by the media. And it isn’t just theory. Leaders in Sweden took such an approach, and guess what? They’re death rate is no higher than other countries in Europe (better than many) and they haven’t totally flushed their economy down the toilet. But again, the media does it’s best to keep this story from us.

Why? Why is the media suppressing the voices of scientists who offer different solutions and ignoring evidence that such solutions work? Science is supposed to be the realm of inquiry. Aren’t Scientists by nature continually questioning previous laws and assumptions? After all, even some of Einstein’s theories have turned out to be incomplete or incorrect. The answer, unfortunately, as it usually does whenever one side wants to shut down debate as “settled” lies in the politics. Most politicians first concern, despite what they may tell us is to keep their own jobs (even as millions of Americans lose theirs). No one wants the stigma the media would attach to any leader who didn’t follow the conventional wisdom. Can’t you just imagine the on-screen CNN body tally for a state that dared ease restrictions against the advice of the preferred scientists? The second concern of a good many politicians, is (again unfortunately for a suffering America) to remove Donald Trump from office by any and all means. A broken economy with tens of thousands of dead Americans due to his supposedly slow response is the perfect vehicle to do so.

Yes, I know. I’m not a doctor. But I’m not a mathematician either, yet when someone who is tells me that two plus two no longer equals four, I should be allowed to ask: since when?