Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick is willing to lay down his life to save the stock market. At least that's what he's claiming on Fox News. On Monday night, Patrick spoke to Tucker Carlson about the novel coronavirus outbreak, and he condemned efforts to fight the outbreak that involve temporarily shuttering nonessential business to prevent the spread of the virus. People over the age of 65-coincidentally the median age for Fox News's audience-are at the greatest risk of suffering from more serious health complications from the disease, and the 69-year-old Patrick told Carlson that none of that deters him.
"Tucker," Patrick said, "no one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?' And if that is the exchange, I'm all in. And that doesn't make me noble or brave or anything like that. I just think there are lots of grandparents out there like me, I have six grandchildren, that what we all care about and what we love more than anything are those children. And I want to live smart and see through this, but I don't want the whole country to be sacrificed. And that's what I see."
While people over the age of 65 are particularly endangered by the disease, young people are still susceptible to it. An estimated 40 percent of people sick enough to be hospitalized by COVID-19 are between ages 20 and 54, and in China people under 70 make up 50 percent of coronavirus deaths. On top of that, American hospitals are already under-equipped for this relatively early stage of the crisis. The point of social distancing is to slow the spread of the disease-since the U.S. acted too late and ineffectively to contain it-to keep hospitals and staff from getting even more overwhelmed. Even when it doesn't kill, coronavirus can still land people in the hospital, and a lack of supplies and shortage of doctors can be disastrous for people hospitalized for non-COVID-19 reasons, as well. And a greater surge in cases also puts doctors and other healthcare workers at a greater risk of getting sidelined or dying themselves. A steely resolve to face death in the hope of a market rally won't change any of that.
In his appearance with Tucker Carlson, Patrick, who just last year campaigned to defund all Texas abortion providers in the name of "the sanctity of life," vastly underplayed the threat COVID-19 poses. Texas may be a relatively young state, with a median age of 34 as of the last state census, but there are still more than 3.6 million people who are 65 or older living there. Currently, Texas has more than 800 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and there have been at least five related deaths.
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