The Normal Person the Lockdowners Hate

I don’t make a habit of cheering for politicians, as you surely know.

But holy cow.

Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, has been outstanding.

She refused to lock down her state. The crazies went berserk.

Even some of her own people demanded to be locked down.

An outbreak at a meatpacking plant made the crazies feel vindicated, even though prisons, nursing homes, and meatpacking plants seem to be unrepresentative of society at large when it comes to the virus.

Back in April Rachel Maddow lectured Governor Noem: “You are aware that it’s infectious, right? That it’s a communicable disease?”

That was the entirety of Maddow’s analysis.

That there might be collateral damage, taking various forms, of shutting society down was not considered. That we might be better off letting people live their lives — since, really, isn’t that the default position? — and isolating the truly vulnerable, was not mentioned, either.

Meanwhile, even the New York Times reported last week that as a result of the lockdowns there will be 1.4 million excess TB deaths, 500K from HIV, and another 385K from malaria.

Thanks, geniuses.

Anyway:

Governor Noem ignored them all.

South Dakota has had a death rate of 17 per 100,000 (compared to 127 per 100,000 for Massachusetts, for example).

(I might add, by the way: in neighboring Wyoming, the governor was urged to shut down by the head of the Wyoming Medical Society: “If we don’t act now, it’s certain we’ll use up available supplies in weeks…. Now’s the time before it’s too late.” Wyoming has had a death rate of 5 per 100,000.)

On Twitter she’s been publishing common sense:

Then she’s noted that life has gone on fairly normally in her state:

And then, showing some genuine political savvy, she made a video urging people to move to South Dakota — because there you can have your business and your life:

Schools will be open in South Dakota, too.