Well, it isn't actually the Black Plague, is it?

Or the Red Death, or the Black Death?

He does have a point.

Is civilization supposed to send itself back to the Dark Ages for me and my generation?

If everyone on the planet got this virus 3.4% would die, and almost all of them would be geezers with serious chronic ailments life threatening in themselves, just like me.

Is the damage we are doing everyone to lessen the deaths caused by this Coronavirus among my generation actually greater, perhaps even in terms of lives ultimately lost in all generations, than the damage we are going to avoid?

How many lives in my children's or grandchildren's generations, or others after that, will be lost?

You know, part of the argument for the Green New Deal was that without it the Boomer Generation would burn up the planet and seriously harm the prospects of their children, grandchildren, and beyond.

And that, we were told by the Democrats and the left, was morally awful.

But it seems the same left and the same party and their same partisans might now be pushing the world into enormous sacrifices of the interests of younger and future generations to advantage us Boomers.

Indeed, to advantage the sickest of us Boomers who, among Boomers, likely have the lowest life expectancies, anyway.

Surely it is not true that minimizing deaths from this outbreak is worth any price, no matter how great.

Surely it is not true that minimizing deaths among my generation is worth any sacrifice, no matter how great, on the part of later generations.

But this.

If coronavirus is deadly to 3.4% of the total US population, that would mean more than 11 million people died from it.

Just for some context on those numbers:

* 5.8 million people live in Wisconsin

* Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 647,000 deaths a year, according to the CDC. Cancer is second with 599,000 deaths.

* Roughly 620,000 American soldiers were killed in the Civil War

. . . .

But these aren't just numbers, which is what Johnson seems to forget. These are people. Grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. Dads. Moms. Lots and lots of them. And yes, even young people.

What the country is doing right now -- social distancing, self-quarantining -- is aimed not at ensuring that the bulk of health Americans don't get the disease but rather that those for whom the coronavirus is most deadly aren't exposed to it accidentally via us.

What Johnson fails to realize is that by citing a bunch of numbers to make the case that we are all going to get through this just fine, he's missing the real, human toll this virus is taking.

And, as my step-daughter has pointed out, letting the health care system get crushed by a giant wave of sick or dying seniors isn't good for anyone.

Oh, and it isn't really just seniors filling the hospitals and ICUs.