In his commentary "It's time to end Gov. [Tim] Walz's peacetime emergency rule" (Opinion Exchange, April 16), Rep. Steve Drazkowski argues that the Legislature, of which he is a member, should have a larger role in decisions about opening up the state.
He first argues that Minnesota's plan to "flatten the curve" has gone overboard and that it "is flat as a pancake." The total number of positive tests in Minnesota has been growing at an average of 8% a day during the past week. While that is much lower than the 28%-per-day growth that we were seeing during part of March, 8% per day is still enough to infect half the state in about four months. It makes me think that either Drazkowski doesn't understand the power of exponential growth or his pancakes are a good deal fluffier than mine.
He then argues that surrounding states that don't have stay-at-home orders have similar or lower COVID-19 death rates than Minnesota. It's curious that he chose to base his argument on the death rate, which is a lagging indicator, rather than the positive-test rate. The number of positive cases per capita in Minnesota is half that of Iowa, less than a quarter of South Dakota, and significantly less than every other state in the union that doesn't have a statewide stay-at-home order. While the ratio of deaths to positive tests varies (for example, it's over 10% in Spain, 7% in New York, and just under 3% in Germany), it's likely that South Dakota's high positive-test rate will eventually catch up to it and be reflected in a much higher death rate. The fact that Drazkowski points to South Dakota as a model makes me quite happy that he is not part of the decisionmaking process.
Matthew Vonk, Minneapolis
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The fallacy in Drazkowski's opinion piece becomes obvious near the end. He says that Minnesotans know how to defeat the virus; we don't need the governor issuing stay-at-home orders. What do we, according to Drazkowski and his Republican colleagues, know? That we should "stay home if you are not feeling well." This is a dangerous misstatement of the truth.
We have learned over the last weeks, that many people infected with COVID-19 actually show no symptoms at all. And even people who do show symptoms are usually contagious before those symptoms appear and possibly for days after they clear up. All of these people are "feeling well" but are still contagious. If they go about their lives as normal, instead of staying home, they are passing on their contagion to anyone they come near. Because they are out and about, people will get sick, and people will die.
How do we get these people who feel fine to stay home and not spread the disease? The government, based on all the knowledge of the doctors and epidemiologists, orders people to stay home. Minimizing this truth, as Drazkowski does, is dangerous. Leading people to question whether they really need to follow the stay-at-home orders is dangerous.
