The lieutenant governor of Texas argued in an interview on Fox News Monday night that the United States should go back to work, saying grandparents like him don’t want to sacrifice the country’s economy during the coronavirus crisis.
Patrick claimed after speaking to over a hundred people over the phone that there’s a consensus that they don’t want to “lose our whole country” over the current public health crisis and face an economic collapse…
Health experts have made clear the coronavirus poses a particular danger for older patients – 60 years old and older – who face the highest risk of serious illness or death from the rapid spread of COVID-19.
This rightwing asshat calls 100 “experts” who agree that sending folks back to work rather than sheltering in place – halting quarantine from a highly-infectious disease – makes economic sense in his distorted understanding of what the result could be.
Aside from his obvious failing at essential humanity, Patrick’s ignorance of cause-and-effect in the firestorm of a plague is downright criminal. First, he thinks the death of thousands [or millions] is OK if it returns our economy to profitability. Second, the man is a fool if he thinks this coronavirus plague will not infect a critical mass of people of all ages if turning your back on public health standards of conduct and sanity is allowed to prevail. Crushing the US economy.
No doubt his “experts” qualify as such because they donate to political campaigns for cretins – candidate and voters alike.
Eideard 
“Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.”
Bill Bryson, “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America” (1989)
Remember those “Obama death panels” ? https://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/509164679/from-the-start-obama-struggled-with-fallout-from-a-kind-of-fake-news
2009: “…The specter of “death panels” became an instant rallying cry for the still-new Tea Party movement, whose supporters crowded into town hall meetings that summer and shouted down Democratic lawmakers considering support for the Affordable Care Act.
Republican members of Congress tapped into that anger. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd back home in Iowa, “We should not have a government program that determines you’re gonna pull the plug on Grandma.”
Senicide, or geronticide, is the abandonment to death, suicide, or killing of the elderly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senicide
See also ‘Granny dumping’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_dumping
At a press briefing on July 8, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx estimated the mortality rate for Americans under 25. “We know the mortality rate in under 25 from the CDC data is less than 0.1%,” Birx said. “And so that has been holding.”
Even with an accurate mortality rate, though, it’d be impossible to say how many fatalities will occur if all 56.6 million American schoolchildren return to their classrooms in the fall. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-july-8-2020/
“Trump stares down a ticking economic time bomb : Government aid propping up the economy could soon disappear, schools are scrambling their plans and new shutdowns are slamming businesses — just before a key stretch of the general election.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/17/trump-economy-time-bomb-366871
“White House warns stimulus package ‘must’ include Trump payroll tax cut proposal : Senate Republicans have resisted the move, but the president continues to demand it” https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/16/payroll-tax-cut-trump-coronavirus/
“The US economy contracted at a 32.9% annual rate from April through June, its worst drop on record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday.
Business ground to a halt during the pandemic lockdown in the spring of this year, and America plunged into its first recession in 11 years, putting an end to the longest economic expansion in US history and wiping out five years of economic gains in just a few months.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/30/economy/us-economy-2020-second-quarter/index.html
“Texas is a ‘voter suppression’ state and one of the hardest places to vote. Will it help Trump win?” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/18/texas-voting-restrictions-rights-coronavirus