Stay Home - or Protest! - and Read This! A Coronavirus Reading Sampler (April 21, 2020)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily, of the best (most interesting, weirdest) articles and podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and  SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that indeed non-libertarian policies are what make responses to the pandemic inadequate.

If we were religious we'd wonder if coronavirus were a biblical plague sent to punish the kind of people who are wishing death and disease on peaceful protesters asking for freedom of assembly and the right to earn a living. The hard hit areas do seem to be full of such people, perhaps in part because they were fans of government mass transit, which seems to be a vector for infection.

1)  Thousands protest in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Monday.  (St. Louis Dispatch)

2) Hilariously, in a week where faux "progressives" like Patton Oswalt on the so-called "left" belittled and wished death on the Re-Open movement, some Commentary editors also can't imagine (how they would centrally plan) re-opening America.  John Podhoretz (who mutual friends assure me is brilliant) simultaneously says the American Jewish Committee's own offices could open because they have separate rooms, not just cubicles, but then says he cannot imagine how you could open a restaurant.  Hayek, call your office. (Commentary)

3) New Jersey secedes from United States, declares itself no longer governed by Constitution and Bill of Rights, arrests and fines protesters.  Doesn't this mean they no longer can claim stimulus funds? (Law and Crime)

4) Contrary to lockdown policies, outdoor spaces like parks are safer than being indoors. (WHYY). 

5) Another study indicates coronavirus infection widespread and has already happened, and lethality rates much lower than originally claimed.  (San Francisco Gate)

6) Transgender medical services like hormone replacement therapy ended by lockdown.  (Newsweek) 

7) Tennessee and Georgia to begin ending lockdown.  (reason)

8) Dan Crenshaw's coronavirus timeline (Twitter) 

9) National Health Service workers angry that they have no PPE.  (The Canary) 

10) Two hundred and twenty Mexican cities and towns close their borders to outsiders.  (Mexico News Daily)