Chris Christie's Coronavirus Comments Are Raising Eyebrows

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has said some controversial things over the course of his career, but his comments about the coronavirus pandemic might be the worst. Given the unprecedented situation, it's understandable that everyone seems to have an opinion about the best way to respond to the virus as a community, but Christie's take might need some tweaking. In early May 2020, the former presidential candidate told CNN's Dana Bash on the The Daily DC podcast that he wants to get people back to work as soon as possible, and he's willing to risk some lives to do it. 

It's worth noting that, as of this writing, New Jersey has one of the highest death tolls in the country due to Covid-19 with more than 8,000 deaths, per NJTV. Current models predict that there will be thousands of deaths per day throughout May 2020 with the death toll dropping to below 100 per day sometime in late summer. Social distancing efforts and coronavirus shutdowns are hard on everyone — especially economically speaking — but the whole point is to reduce the number of deaths and the stress on the health care system. 

Simply put, as nice as it would be to wake up and have everything be "normal" again, it's not going to happen overnight. Christie – like some celebs, other Republicans, and even President Donald Trump — seemingly hasn't come to terms with that yet.

Chris Christie told CNN's Dana Bash on the The Daily DC podcast that he thinks that states across the country should stop social distancing and lift lockdowns in order to put people back to work. "Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can — but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?" He continued, "Are there ways that we can ... thread the middle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?"

He then went on to say that Americans would have to accept a reopening whether they feel safe or not. "We've got to let some of these folks get back to work, because if we don't, we're going to destroy the American way of life in these families — and it will be years and years before we can recover," Christie said. 

To top it off, the former New Jersey governor then said that if he were in the Oval Office, he would send a message to the American people that they've "gone through significant death before," pointing to the first and second World Wars. He concluded, "we've gone through it and we've survived it. We sacrificed those lives." 

President Donald Trump would also like to start opening up the country so that Americans can go back to work despite the prediction that over 100,000 lives could be lost, per CNN. 

Chris Christie's comments come after President Donald Trump has downplayed the current models predicting deaths due to coronavirus. As of this writing, around 40 states are slowly easing restrictions, per USA Today, which means that previous models of the death toll have changed. The White House is currently using a model that shows the death toll doubling from around 70,000 to 135,000 by August 2020, which Trump says doesn't take into consideration "mitigating measures," though he didn't specify what those were, per ABC News. 

Trump also retweeted a tweet in April 2020 that said to #FireFauci, referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He said at the time, "This was a person's view. Not everybody's happy with Anthony. Not everybody is happy with everybody. But I will tell you, we have done a job the likes of which nobody has ever done," Trump said, per CNN. 

Fauci, for his part, insists that his recommendations to slow the re-openings down "based on evidence and experience" are to keep people alive (via ABC News).

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, does not think that those who want to re-open the country sooner rather than later are taking his recommendations seriously. He told CNN (via ABC News): "How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back to what you want to be some form of normality sooner rather than later."

He added, "There are people that are going to be disagreeing with me. Some of them, rather violently in many respects, you know, telling me that I'm crazy you know fire Fauci, do this, do that. That's part of the game."

There are sure to be many more discussions about the best way to get people back to work and save peoples' lives during the coronavirus pandemic. Hopefully, politicians like Christie, Trump, and others will listen to the experts and make choices that save lives.