Like many states across the southern tier of the country, Alabama is setting new records for coronavirus infections but at least one of the state's top elected officials isn't worried about it.
In fact, he's quite pleased.
The Alabama state Senate president, Senator Del Marsh (R), spoke to the local media yesterday and said he wants to see more infections so the state can achieve herd immunity.
The number of hospitalizations in Alabama skyrocketed by 40% within 24 hours on Wednesday.
And on Thursday, 2,164 cases emerged in the state, marking its highest single-day caseload thus far.
Yet Marsh told reporters that day that he was “not as concerned” about the staggering caseload, per a video posted by WSFA 12 News reporter Lydia Nusbaum.
“In fact, quite honestly, I want to see more people [test positive] because we start reaching an immunity if more people have it and get through it,” he said.
To place this strictly within the context of Alabama, the state has a population of nearly 5 million. Achieving herd immunity would require infecting up to 75 percent of the state or 3.75 million people. That's more infections than recorded in all of the United States so far and our death toll is between 133,000 and 135,000 depending on which tally you look at.
So, what Senator Del Marsh is actually saying is that he hopes over 100,000 Alabamians will die in the name of Freedumb, Football, and Trump's Great Economy, or whatever. The state's number of deaths could actually be considerably higher they are at the national level because the state's residents are already among the least healthy (ranked 48th) in the nation.
Marsh's desires are insane, of course, but what happens in Alabama also won't stay there and if you followed his plan you would likely see other states close their borders to Alabama.
Sweden tried the herd immunity strategy, and you know what they got for it? More infections, more deaths, and no economic benefits for their sacrifice. Sacrificing lives for the economy doesn't work because consumer demand is still low. You can't force people to go shopping like everything is normal. And hell, Sweden even has "socialized medicine!" they can rely on. They don't even have to worry about going bankrupt if they get infected, but we sure do here in the States. I do. Sweden's neighbors have closed their borders.