Donald Trump Jr. blasted the media on Thursday for “acting like we can’t open up until COVID is eliminated,” when “that may never happen.”

“Self quarantining & shutting down businesses was done to FLATTEN the curve not to eliminate COVID,” Don Jr. tweeted. “We needed time to prepare for increased hospitalization & obtain PPE.”

“Many in the media are acting like we can’t open up until COVID is eliminated & that may never happen,” he added:

Self quarantining & shutting down businesses was done to FLATTEN the curve not to eliminate COVID. We needed time to prepare for increased hospitalization & obtain PPE. Many in the media are acting like we can’t open up until COVID is eliminated & that may never happen. — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 23, 2020

These are crucially important points, ones I’ve literally been stressing in piece after piece after piece. And it is also just as crucial that high-profile surrogates of the administration, like Don Jr., stress these points.

They must also — along with health experts such as Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx — continue to stress these points because the media are deliberately setting President Trump up for failure, and setting the country up for another 12 to 18 months of mindless panic.

The media are doing this by deliberately fabricating an impossible standard that will allow the media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) to treat every post-reopening coronavirus infection and death as a cold-blooded murder motivated by self-interest and greed, by Trump’s desire to callously reopen the economy at the expense of human life.

The truth, however, is this… As Don Jr. points out, the virus is still out there. Lockdowns and quarantines are not a cure. All we’re doing is avoiding the wolves surrounding our homes; the wolves are all still there. The virus is still there, and the virus will remain out there until there’s a cure, until there’s a vaccine. And here’s the sad fact of all that…

Unless you’re willing to quarantine for the 12 to 18 months it will take to create and distribute the vaccine, the coronavirus is going to continue to infect us. Millions of us. Perhaps, tens of millions of us.

Don Jr. accurately points out that “quarantining & shutting down businesses was done to FLATTEN the curve not to eliminate COVID.” And the whole idea behind flattening the curve is to ensure our healthcare system doesn’t crash. You see, if the system crashes, we are forced into a triage situation, where we cannot save everyone who can be saved.

The great news is that every American who died of the coronavirus, all 45,000-plus souls, received the proper medical care, and that’s a huge victory for the government and our healthcare workers. Unfortunately, the fact that we could not save those 45,000-plus souls is a tragic fact of life in a world where we have no vaccine for an infectious disease, which brings me to Don Jr’s. most crucial point…

“Many in the media are acting like we can’t open up until COVID is eliminated & that may never happen.”

That’s exactly what the media are doing — spreading false propaganda, spreading the preposterous and dangerous idea that only when it’s 100 percent safe can we reopen our country: the absurd and destructive narrative that any new infection or death after we reopen is some kind of failure is blood on Donald Trump’s hands.

Reality check: we have only two choices: 1) We can remain in a national lockdown until a cure has been discovered and distributed, which means leaving our homes in 12 to 18 months and entering a country that has become a ravaged moonscape, or 2) we can reopen states and localities where there is no risk of a health system crash, where we know we can save everyone who can be saved while allowing those who are especially compromised (the elderly, etc.) to remain quarantined, if that’s what they choose.

There is no question the only sane option is number two.

But unless the media stop lying about there being some magical way to reopen the country without a vaccine, some magical way where no one gets infected or dies, we’re going to be a country filled with unnecessary panic for at least another year.

But some of this responsibility does fall on the White House, on our health experts, and governors… Which is why what Don Jr. tweeted is so important.

We need to keep stressing the following points…

Those with compromised health issues need to be reminded the virus is still out there…

Those unwilling to risk catching the Chinese virus, even if they’re perfectly healthy, need to be reminded reopening will not affect them, that they can remain in quarantine or take the necessary precautions if forced to leave the house for work or supplies.

The rest of us, though, need to be reminded that there is no magical way to reopen the country, there is no cure, that we can only slow the spread, not stop the spread, which means the infections and the deaths will continue.

But when the only choices are a ravaged moonscape (27 million already unemployed and counting) and carefully reopening where the health system can save everyone who can be saved, the only moral choice is to reopen as quickly as possible.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.