Should the US be reopened for business?

Is it time for the country to re-open for business?

Are we past the worst point of the coronavirus pandemic? Have we flattened the curve? We’d like to know what you think.

Our home state of Georgia will allow businesses to begin reopening in phases on Friday and into next Monday. Gyms, hair salons, barbershops, fitness centers, and massage-therapy centers will be allowed to reopen Friday as long as they follow social distancing and "regular sanitation." (So like, when would you EVER want to go to a "massage-therapy center" that DIDN’T offer regular sanitation. But we digress…)

Next Monday, restaurants, private social clubs, and movie theaters can also open in Georgia.

So far, our state has recorded 18,947 positive cases and 733 deaths out of a total population of 10.6 million people. We don’t know how many of those positive cases are “asymptomatic,” but based on those numbers, the virus has a fatality rate of 3.7 percent – meaning 96.3 percent of people infected with coronavirus DO. NOT. DIE.

But maybe that number is completely wrong.

Two new studies in California indicate the number of people who have already been exposed to the coronavirus may be as much as 50 to 85 times HIGHER than originally thought.

If the estimates are correct, that would mean the large majority of people who contract COVID-19 recover without ever knowing they even had it.

If undetected infections are that widespread, then the death rate from the virus could be less than two-tenths of a percent, making the virus far less lethal than we are being told. And far more of us have already been there, done that. Yet we're all being told we have to "shelter in place."

Just for reference, let’s compare those COVID-19 estimates to seasonal flu. The CDC estimates possibly as many as 62,000 people have died JUST FROM THE FLU from Oct. 2019 to Apr. 4, 2020. (there have been about 43,000 from COVID-19 so far). The CDC estimates somewhere between 39,000,000 million to 56,000,000 have been infected by just the seasonal flu during that time.

Taking the highest number of deaths to the lowest number of infections, we get a fatality rate of…drum roll…less than two-tenths of a percent.

So, back to the original question: is it time for the country to re-open for business?