Senator Ron Johnson - United States 'overreacted' to the pandemic

In mid-March, as the scope of the pandemic was coming into view, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) went further than most in arguing that the coronavirus crisis should not shut down the economy, even temporarily. As part of his case, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "[W]e 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."

This was a bad argument, for reasons the Wisconsin Republican didn't seem to fully grasp.

A couple of months later, Johnson was seen on the Senate floor without any facial covering. "I wear a mask when I go into grocery stores, that type of thing," the GOP senator said. "I think around here, we probably won't have to." This, too, was a bad argument.

As the crisis continues, Johnson's perspective just isn't improving. Axios reported last week:

The country "overreacted" in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Axios' Mike Allen during a virtual event on Wednesday.... "n hindsight, I think we overreacted. We closed too much of our economy down, and I don't think we focused enough on what we needed to do: isolate the sick, quarantine them, protect the vulnerable."