The reader who risks bafflement at the words of Ron Johnson -
- might be freshly dumfounded that Johnson, despite 8,300 Wisconsin fatal COVID illnesses and more than 600,000 in the US, opposes vaccine mandates unless there were some "incredibly deadly virus" out there -
"No, not unless there's some incredibly deadly disease. I mean, much higher infection-fatality rates than we have with COVID.
"We don't know the final infection-fatality rate but right now it's looking like it's not going to be much more than double a bad season of flu."
- but the reader navigating Johnson's collapsing circuitry may be less stupefied knowing that he had already shrugged off a possible US death toll from COVID of more than 11 million:
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson downplays possibility millions could die from COVID-19
“Getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population"
We 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. We don't shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu."