A growing contingent of right-wing and left-wing voices are warning of the genuine doom that awaits America if state and local lawmakers continue shutting down “non-essential businesses” and robbing Americans of the right to earn a living.

While these critics all acknowledge the risks posed by the global coronavirus pandemic itself, they argue that more precise “surgical strikes” are needed versus the carpet-bomb quarantines, lockdowns and shutdowns currently being pursued. For instance, imagine just those infected by the coronavirus or at higher risk of contracting it being quarantined versus entire cities and states.

“We routinely differentiate between two kinds of military action: the inevitable carnage and collateral damage of diffuse hostilities, and the precision of a ‘surgical strike,’ methodically targeted to the sources of our particular peril. The latter, when executed well, minimizes resources and unintended consequences alike,” David L. Katz, the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, wrote last Friday for The New York Times.

FYI, the Times is anything but right-wing …

From @DrDavidKatz 1) We are focusing our resources in the wrong place

2) Majority of the working population is not at risk, so we are doing unnecessary harm

3) Current policy is encouraging panic and overloading our hospitals, exact opposite of the goalhttps://t.co/4iF2cIHvnS — Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) March 21, 2020

“As we battle the coronavirus pandemic, and heads of state declare that we are ‘at war’ with this contagion, the same dichotomy applies,” he continued. “This can be open war, with all the fallout that portends, or it could be something more surgical. The United States and much of the world so far have gone in for the former. I write now with a sense of urgency to make sure we consider the surgical approach, while there is still time.”

Because otherwise, he and others have warned, the “social, economic and public health consequences” could be permanently debilitating, with countless businesses being shuttered for good, and impoverishment and despair climbing to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Cue Republican National Committee member Harmeet Dhillon:

If w/in a few weeks millions could be out of work & untold thousands of businesses forced to close in California alone, as a result of the due-process/cost-benefit-analysis-free total shutdown of a major world economy, how many people will suffer mental health breakdowns/suicide? — Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) March 20, 2020

Speaking as a small business owner, a lot of one’s self-worth & dignity is tied up in having a business, having a job, having a way to pay the mortgage, the rent, the kids’ bills. A small check from the government or a loan, is no replacement. And for what? Where’s the analysis? — Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) March 20, 2020

The answer is many of the people who made these decisions never had a business, never signed the FRONT of a paycheck, never built anything, never worried about payroll…instead pulled down a gov’t paycheck & worried about the next election, not the devastation of their choices. — Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) March 20, 2020

In a piece published last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal’s entire editorial board warned that these shutdowns and lockdowns could trigger “a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease.”

“Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms. … Even America’s resources to fight a viral plague aren’t limitless—and they will become more limited by the day as individuals lose jobs, businesses close, and American prosperity gives way to poverty.”

FYI, the Journal is anything but left-wing …

With so many voices on the right and left pushing for a halt to these shutdowns, why do lawmakers keep implementing them?

One reason might be because of members of Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who claim that socialist schemes like paid leave and cash payouts will fix everything:

One enormous, major lesson that I hope people realize in this moment: Resistance to revolutionary policy was never really about a lack of money, or capacity, or logistics. It was always about power and a lack of political will. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 20, 2020

Let’s take this lesson and move it forward to push for a better world. We CAN guarantee healthcare.

We CAN treat housing as a right.

We CAN pursue decarceral policy.

We CAN prioritize humanitarian foreign policy.

We can. We can. We can. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 20, 2020

Except that, as noted by Chip Roy of National Review, “You cannot get paid leave from a business that does not exist” because it’s had to close up because of lost revenue and climbing bills.

What lesson would that be? People not working. No food or supplies on the shelves. The economy in shambles Great lesson. That’s socialism. And that’s the lesson!#SocialismKills https://t.co/VwfE988Tgn — 🇺🇸🙏🏻✝ Linda Liberty ✝🙏🏻🇺🇸 ⭐⭐⭐ (@LindaLiberty9) March 22, 2020

You must have missed the part where this “resistance” has just crashed our economy in the space of two weeks. This is not a socialist success story. You cannot be this dense. https://t.co/F4YxkGEe0K — Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) March 22, 2020

And so not only will paid leave and cash payouts be required but so will business grants:

People want their jobs back, not a plan that makes them de facto government employees. Many people need cash now, yes. But our priority needs to be immediate cash to businesses so they can make payroll. The foundations of the economy must be protected. https://t.co/Rl1Qotwg53 — Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) March 21, 2020

But how long can the government afford to pay everybody’s bills?

Another reason so many lawmakers are pursuing shutdowns despite growing criticism is likely because media-driven panic has provoked an untold number of presumably wealthy liberal Democrats into haranguing their local and state legislators on social media to shut down their respective economies, never mind the consequences to others.

Just consider all the pressure that’s currently being faced by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who as of Sunday had not yet caved:

You need to issue a shelter in place. Nobody should be “together” at this point. You’re just prolonging the problem, get on with it already🤬 — AJ Powers (@AJPowers89) March 22, 2020

Full lockdown asap, please! — Lindsay Samuelsson (@LindsayMarieSam) March 22, 2020

Have you been considering a shelter in place? There’s people out here not listening, not practicing social distancing at all and I’m scared that they are going to make this worse for all of us. Please people, stay home unless absolutely necessary. — Rachel Brizell (@BrizellRachel) March 22, 2020

Concerned seeing lots of folks at open side spaces near restaurants . Need stricter guidelines. Cases ar almost 300 and will double and there will be over 1000 by Monday . Most shelter now . @SecMandyCohen — Robin Schwartz (@RobinSchwartz15) March 22, 2020

These people presumably possess enough money and resources that the thought of being out of business for weeks on end doesn’t scare them.

And the third and final reason may be because of pure ignorance of the facts, including that, according to New Jersey State health commissioner Judith Persichilli, R.N., B.S.N., M.A., everybody is eventually going to contract the coronavirus.

“I’m definitely going to get it. We all are. I’m just waiting,” she said in the interview below that was published Saturday:

But there’s more.

Reason magazine reported last week about a new study of coronavirus cases in Wuhan that found that “the death rate among people who were infected and developed symptoms was 1.4 percent.”

“That is far lower than the crude case fatality rate (CFR) produced by dividing total deaths into total confirmed cases (4.5 percent) and far lower than the global CFR initially calculated by the World Health Organization (3.4 percent),” the outlet noted.

“The study, reported yesterday in Nature Medicine, suggests that the overall CFR—including people who are infected but do not develop symptoms—will prove to be much lower in the United States than many people feared.”

All these facts raise the following pivotal question: “[H]ow do we know we aren’t doing ourselves more harm with the measures we take to slow or halt Covid-19 than the disease would do to us on its own?”

We don’t, Justin Fox wrote last week for Bloomberg, which like the Times is anything but a right-wing paper.

All we know for certain, he continued, is this: