Numerous news outlets including the New York Times and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted Wisconsin’s Republican senator Ron Johnson’s thoughts about coronavirus, with the Senator receiving heavy criticism.
Unreal. Wisconsin’s Republican Senator Ron Johnson, @TheWorstSenator, continues to spend his time playing down the severity of #COVID19. https://t.co/Ms1p5xdn34
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) March 17, 2020
“Right now all people are hearing about are the deaths. I’m sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive,” Johnson told the Times.
He spent parts of Wednesday clarifying that statement, including a live interview on WTMJ.
“We literally lose tens of thousands of people a year in highway traffic deaths. Yet we don’t shut down highways. We accept that as an acceptable risk. We lose tens of thousands of people a year to normal flu,” he told WTMJ’s John Mercure.
“This is obviously a higher-mortality illness, but it’s not Ebola (spreadable by direct contact) which is a forty percent mortality (risk)…it’s not even SARS (spreadable by direct contact) which is ten percent.”
Coronavirus has a lower current worldwide mortality rate than the other illnesses he cited – 4.06 percent, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Wednesday. However, it is also much more easily spread, as it can travel within the atmosphere a few feet to another individual and infect them.
If coronavirus infects 25 percent of the entire U.S. population, the worldwide mortality rate would theoretically lead to a loss of life equal to 3.32 million people – slightly more than one percent of the U.S. population. But again, that is solely theory based on those statistics.
“We just don’t have the information,” said Johnson. “People fear the unknown, and that is a legitimate fear.”
Johnson also tried to make clear his thoughts were not about trying to defame government entities that are taking extra steps to safeguard others.
“I’m not criticizing any action, any governor, anybody’s take on this. This is very scary. There is so much we don’t know,” he said, citing the need for tests. But he also spoke of what he believes is the greatest need.
“Our best efforts need to be put toward developing a therapeutic cure of this. That would really reduce people’s anxiety on this.”