Some people were offended by my last column.
They thought I should have been more introspective, more understanding, less angry about the crowd of 100 or so dimwits … I’m sorry, “people” … people who rallied at the state Capitol on Wednesday, demanding they be allowed to reopen their businesses.
They thought I was just too hard on them. Too unsympathetic to their plight. Too uncaring that they can’t earn money right now.
So, I’ve turned over a new leaf.
Today, I’m the kinder, gentler Joe Gerth.
I understand that just because we disagree, it doesn’t make you a bad person. Just because we disagree, I ought not make you the subject of scorn just because you’re an uncaring jer… (There I go again. Old habits, you know.)
Beshear is working with the governors of Ohio and Indiana and other Midwestern states on plans to begin to reopen the economy. Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday that he would start reopening Ohio businesses on May 1.
When Beshear talked about the Midwestern partnership Thursday, he didn't mention a proposed date to begin reopening the economy here.
Editorial: Wednesday's protest in Frankfort wasn't anti-Beshear. It was pro-coronavirus
Kentucky will not be prepared for a May 1 opening. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation doesn't expect the commonwealth's peak hospital usage until April 29 and its peak for deaths to come until May 1.
It would be insane to begin reopening the state in just two weeks, especially if we still don't have adequate number of tests available or enough personal protective equipment for health care workers to administer the tests.
Dr. Bob Hughes, a former University of Louisville trustee and a family doctor in Murray, said he has to beg for tests when he runs out. Hughes said he has only ordered 50 tests because they're in such short supply when he said he would have liked to have ordered as many as 300 for his patients who had symptoms of the coronavirus.
I'm not going to bring up the really terrible things some of the people who favor opening the state said on the "Kentucky is Open for Business" Facebook page.
I won't mention the Louisville lawyer who suggested that Beshear might be a future target of an assassin.
I also won't mention the Northern Kentucky woman who was happy that a loud protest appeared to cause Beshear to appear "shook" as he announced new coronavirus deaths Wednesday.
"Who cares if he was announcing people that died. I mean they're dead. So what," she wrote.
Nope.
Not going to mention the horrible people involved in this group. Remember. Kinder. Gentler
But I'm with you. I hear you. Let's talk about reopening the state.
In the spirit of this of this newfound understanding, I’d like to ask you one question.
And I’m serious. Truly serious.
For subscribers: A quick guide to what went down in the last 2 days of the Kentucky General Assembly
If Gov. Andy Beshear would let you reopen your business and if things did go south, how many of your customers would have to die before you voluntarily shut it down again because the risk just wasn’t worth it.
Is it one? Or two?
Or, is it a dozen of your customers who would have to be hauled off to the ICU where they lie there with a ventilator tube shoved down their trachea, all the while feeling like a prize-winning Guernsey is standing on their chest?
How many of your employees would have to take the coronavirus home with them and give it to their wife or kids or, God forbid, their 77-year-old mother who lives with them before you figured out this was a really bad idea?
Is it three? Or four?
Or, is it two dozen of your employees and their family members who have to lie in bed at home for weeks with fever and body aches, before they'r sick enough to be tested and coughing up blood?
How many doctors and nurses would have to fall ill because they are treating your customers and your employees, and their spouses, and children and parents before you finally closed the doors?
Is it five? Maybe six?
Or, is it three dozen medical workers and their family members who are quarantined at home because they came into contact with you or your workers or your customers or their family members or whoever was associated somehow with your place of business and caught the virus because they don’t have the personal protective equipment they need?
And how many of them would have to die?
I get that you’re worried about your businesses and your jobs. You should be.
I’m worried about mine. I’ll be on unpaid furlough next week because of the way COVID-19 has affected the news industry. Businesses that are closed don’t buy ads in morning newspapers.
My wife -- also a Courier Journal staffer -- will be on furlough, too.
When the pandemic is over and the country starts getting back to normal, I’ve got no idea what the newspaper business will look like, whether or not I’ll even have a job.
But I don’t want people to die just so I can work.
And I certainly don’t want to be the cause of an outbreak that kills people that I know and care about.
I hope you don’t either.
So how many have to die because of you before you’ll shut down your barber shop, your nail salon or your furniture store before you’ll acknowledge the cost is just too high?
Is it one? Or two? Or three? Or …
Or does that number even exist?
Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/josephg.
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Gerth: How many coronavirus deaths are acceptable? - Courier Journal
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