DEAR EDITOR:

Sunday, Gov. DeWine shut down the restaurants and bars in Ohio — What? Doesn’t he know food service jobs make up about 10 percent of Ohio jobs? Many affected people are rather low-income people. What are they supposed to do? Will these people have jobs to go back to after this? DeWine says he is sorry about that.

Governments thrive on fear. It’s government’s way to gain power and exercise it on us.

This virus originated in China. China was having big problems with the Hong Kong protests, and they did not want to invade Hong Kong. How better to stop the riots than to make people fear getting together? Have you heard anything about the riots lately?

We are already in a recession because of government shutdowns, and we will be in a depression if DeWine and his ilk keep shutting things down. Shutdowns are sort of the definition of a depression, but normally depressions are not self-inflicted, except for Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, Hugo Chavez and others.

Fear is a powerful tool used to manipulate.

DeWine wants to be the hero who stopped this “killer plague,” and when it doesn’t amount to much — I don’t believe it would in any case — he will claim credit for stopping it. Instead, DeWine is leading the charge into an economic death spiral.

Main damage from the 9/11 attack was from the reaction to the attack, not the attack itself. This reaction to the coronavirus will do much more economic damage than the virus will.

There is this massive run on toilet paper — what does the virus have to do with toilet paper? Nothing. It is among the few things still made in the U.S. It would be more rational for people to fear running out of medicine, as most of it is made in China and India.

This isn’t a food-borne disease; it is a particulate matter / contact disease. So why did DeWine shut down bars and restaurants, but not churches where strangers sit together?

Yes, there will be deaths from this virus.

The CDC estimates there were 61,099 flu-related deaths in the 2017-2018 influenza season. Did this cause shutdown and panic? No.

If DeWine is so worried about deaths, why doesn’t he shut down highways, as there were 118,435 U.S. highway deaths reported over the last three years!

Let’s get things in perspective instead of playing politics and destroying the economy.

HUGH NILE

Calcutta