Sen. Ron Johnson is telling people to keep coronavirus in perspective

Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin raised some eyebrows last week when he was quoted in The New York Times suggesting the media was devoting too little attention to the high rate of survival among people with coronavirus.    

“Right now, all people are hearing about are the deaths. I’m sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive,” said Johnson, chairman of the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  

Johnson did not shy away from that kind of calculus in an interview with me Tuesday.

“I’m not denying what a nasty disease COVID-19 can be, and how it’s obviously devastating to somewhere between 1 and 3.4 percent of the population,” he said.

“But that means 97 to 99 percent will get through this and develop immunities and will be able to move beyond this. But we don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about. We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu,” Johnson said.

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Johnson acknowledged that coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, but said, “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less,” he said.

Johnson’s comments on this issue —  “People do need to recognize the fact that this is not Ebola. It's not MERS” — are drawing some fire. Wisconsin Democrats have accused him of “playing down” the virus, which he denies.

I want to include the full context of his comments from my phone interview with him Tuesday (when he spoke from his mostly empty Senate office in Washington), so people can interpret them for themselves.     

Is Johnson saying that we’re going “too far” in trying to contain coronavirus?

“No. I don’t want to say that. I really don’t want to say that. It may be exactly what we need to do. But again, what I do want to do is put this all in perspective as we move forward here,” he said.

Aren’t the things that are hurting the economy also the policies and behaviors that are aimed at containing the virus?

“Yes,” he said. “Again, I’m not saying we’re overreacting … people need to take this seriously.”

Does he support what states are doing to limit social gatherings and promote social distancing?

“I‘m saying, ‘follow the guidelines’ ... I’m not being critical of the governors that are closing things down. … I understand it completely.  I’m just saying I am hopeful we ... can, in the end, put this all in perspective and we can get the economy back on track as soon as possible.”

Johnson disputed the idea that he is minimizing the crisis, saying he is just considering the potential costs of overreacting.

“I’m hoping when all is said and done, maybe we have overreacted. But the fact that we’re acting the way we are, I think, will really increase our chances of dropping that growth curve of this (virus). So, again, I’m not being critical of what people are doing. But we also need to really understand the costs of potentially going too far here,” he said. “But nobody knows what too far is, which is what’s so difficult about the situation.”

Johnson’s overall argument seemed to be that people aren’t paying enough attention to two sides of the coronavirus equation: that most people who have it will be OK (and not die), and that the damage being done to the economy in the meantime is massive and possibly excessive. 

“We need hospitals to operate. We need grocery stores. We need distribution. We need manufacturers. We need, obviously, the people that manufacture drugs. We need our economy to continue to function. We can’t all just shut ourselves and stay home. The economy has to move forward. And again, a rational reaction to this would recognize the fact that the vast majority of people that get coronavirus will survive without much worse symptoms than a cold or a normal flu.”

What is the message here? There's a suggestion in some of these comments that the country is somehow overreacting, but Johnson says he isn't saying that. Johnson says he supports the kinds of prohibitions, cancellations and closures that are underway, but also says “it’s probably not worth shutting our economy down” over coronavirus. 

“There are so many unknowns. We are all cautioning on the side of safety, which at this point of time is not a bad thing. But again, we’re are paying a huge cost for this caution we’re taking. I’m just trying to look at this very realistically,” he said.

When I told him that a lot of people will hear “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population” as akin to saying, “It’s not that bad,” he insisted he wasn’t saying that.

“I’m having as candid and realistic a conversation with you as I possibly can,” he said.

Craig Gilbert has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and chronicled Wisconsin’s role as a swing state at the center of the nation’s political divide. He has written widely about polarization and voting trends and won distinction for his data-driven analysis. Gilbert has served as a writer-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Lubar Fellow at Marquette Law School and a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he studied public opinion, survey research, voting behavior and statistics. Email him at craig.gilbert@jrn.com and follow him on Twitter: @WisVoter.