Coronavirus In Minnesota: Protesters Again Call On Gov. Walz To End Stay-At-Home Order
Quote:
For a second day in a row, protesters gathered Friday outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, urging Gov. Tim Walz to end the state’s stay-at-home order.
At noon, dozens of protesters could be seen lining the street in front of the governor’s residence, holding signs and American flags.
“I’m a small business owner and my business was shut down forcibly on the 17th of March, and I have yet to see any unemployment, any money come through from the government,” one protester told WCCO. “I’m sitting here waiting here without a paycheck, with no definitive answer on when I will be returning to work, and I don’t think that’s right.”
The group is calling themselves “Liberate Minnesota.” Their organizers say the state’s stay-at-home order has gone on long enough and Minnesotans should be able to go back to work.
In a daily briefing Friday, Walz said he respects the right to protest, but those involved need to practice safe social distancing.
Protesters assemble in front of New Jersey Statehouse to assail stay-at-home orderQuote:
Demonstrators gathered in downtown Trenton, N.J., Friday morning to protest Gov. Phil Murphy's "stay-at-home" order to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
While it's unclear how many people were attending the protest, video captured by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce's Twitter account shows a long line of cars honking their horns along West State Street, across from the the Statehouse and Murphy's office. The tweet and video, which also showed people waving American flags, have since been deleted.
The words "no more fear" were audible through a megaphone as a helicopter hovered overhead and law enforcement officers blocked access to the Statehouse parking complex.
conservative media hosts and some Republican leaders have started to bristle against the continued shutdown in recent days, arguing that the damage being done to the economy outweighs the strain being placed on the health care system.
“I can no longer support Governor Murphy’s draconian shut down measures,” state Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Warren) told InsiderNJ earlier this week. “He needs to stop his one size fits all approach. He is destroying small businesses and sending millions of NJ residents into poverty.
Poll: Americans are afraid of ending the coronavirus lockdowns too soonQuote:
Part of the coronavirus conversation in the US is turning to the question of when to start reopening the country. President Donald Trump certainly wants to do it as soon as possible, based on the theory that the public is demanding to be let back out into restaurants and retail stores so they can resume a normal life.
But as of right now, that doesn’t appear to be true at all. Instead, Americans still seem onboard with social distancing and much more fearful about the health risks of opening up the country too soon than the economic risk of a continued shutdown. The costs of both have been awful — 31,000 dead and counting, 22 million jobs lost — but the public is first and foremost preoccupied with the public health crisis.
The Pew Research Center asked the question directly in a nearly 5,000-person survey conducted from April 7 to 12: Are you more worried about your state government lifting its restrictions on public activities too quickly or not quickly enough? By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans said that they were more worried about rapidly ramping down social distancing.
One likely explanation as to why there is such reluctance: Pew found 73 percent of Americans thought the worst was still to come in the coronavirus outbreak, while just 26 percent thought the worst had already happened.
Another piece of the puzzle may come from Gallup, which released its own polling on Thursday with a related finding: More Americans said they were worried about getting sick from Covid-19 than were worried about severe financial hardship because of the economic slowdown.
Gallup found that women, people who live in cities, and younger adults were most worried about the health risks.
Opinions could, of course, change. Millions of people are now unemployed, and while Covid-19 is very infectious and can be dangerous to people of any age, it’s by far the most threatening to older people and people with preexisting conditions. The public’s calculus on health vs. economic risks might shift as lockdowns drag on, especially if officials can find ways to protect the most vulnerable.
But for the time being, this new polling indicates Americans are content with using social distancing to mitigate the health risks to themselves and their neighbors, even if it comes at an economic price.
Even If U.S. Lockdown Was Lifted Today, Most Americans Wouldn’t Resume Life As Normal, New Poll FindsQuote:
Even if social distancing restrictions were lifted today, more than two-thirds of Americans say they would not resume their normal daily activities, a new poll finds, an ominous sign for the American economy that comes as governors begin to release plans for transitioning the country out of lockdown.
The poll, conducted by Gallup on April 3-5, found that 71% of Americans would “wait and see what happens” when lawmakers lift social distancing restrictions, while just 20% would resume life as normal and 10% would wait “indefinitely
This probably will change as bills don’t get paid, people are thrown into the street, and businesses go bankrupt but for now the protesters are a loud and small minority. The pro lockdown majority are not out in the street demonstrating for lockdowns for obvious reasons. Germaphobia is a powerful seemingly innate human motivator that should not be underestimated.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
17 Apr 2020, 10:48 am
