I want to live in a state that keeps things closed according to the advice of health officials monitoring the available data, which coincidentally is how health officials in the Bay Area have managed to keep the rate of coronavirus relatively low in our area despite a national dearth of testing, and despite the Bay Area being a highly populated, highly traveled area. I feel quite fortunate to live where I do right now.
(I want to also note that a slower death rate isn’t just the same people dying over a longer period of time. Slowing the spread of the virus gives us time as better treatments are developed, more testing is available, and this virus is better understood (and it keeps our medical infrastructure from being overrun in the meantime, which would add yet more deaths). This means fewer people who would survive given better treatments are dying needlessly in the interim.)
I don’t want to live in a state where government officials view me and my loved ones as expendable for the sake of an abstract concept of “the economy” (“the economy” isn’t an almighty, untouchable entity that we should be expected to give our lives to “protect.” It’s a name given to the aggregate effect of our monetary transactions so that we might study, understand, and improve outcomes for us—not for “it.”)…nor do I want to live in a state where government officials balk at the idea that part of their chosen career as a government official is to coordinate responses and provide needed support in times of crisis. Government in this country is supposed to be for the people, full stop.