Scribes and pharisees …

… The thin facade of authority | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

On March 12, Gov. DeWine of Ohio, flanked by his state health director, told the 11 million residents of Ohio that based on models he knew that 100,000 ‘had’ active cases of the disease. That was a caseload that his experts further warned would double every six days. In other words, at the then roughly two percent lethality rate of the known actively infected — his medical team all but frightened the state with the certainty that in 24 days there could be 1.6 million infected Ohioans and an assumed 40,000 dead.

In fact, about a week ago, on April 6, there were fewer than 5,000 known cases and less than 200 Ohioans who had succumbed to COVID-19. Even with far more unknown cases than known and the efficacy of slowing viral transmission via mass sheltering, the data was not just flawed but perhaps even preposterous. State officials could have offered some official explanations for their misinformation other than the subtext that such fright was medicinal in persuading a public to do something they supposed the public did not know was good for it to do.