Evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham warned Americans that many left-wing media are portraying “worse-case scenarios” for the coronavirus pandemic, creating a fear and anxiety that are used by liberal governors to keep businesses closed.
In a Facebook post Saturday, Graham said such fear-mongering “makes great headlines” for the left and produces “fear in the public,” a key factor that allows an anxiety-stricken public to simply go along with the orders of state governments controlled by left-wing governors and lawmakers.
Graham noted a Friday CNN headline that read, “Expert report predicts up to two more years of pandemic misery”:
A recent CNN headline said that the new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for another 18-24 months, giving ammunition to liberal states who want to keep businesses closed. I agree that COVID-19 may be around for a while—human coronavirus has already been around in some form for many years. But as a nation and as individuals, we have to learn to live with pandemics, whether it’s coronavirus or any other. We can’t hide in a cave until the world is free from every virus or threat.
The Christian leader used the example of the flu, which, he said, “can kill you.”
“In 2017-2018 season, the flu killed more than 61,000 Americans,” he observed, and added:
I am of the opinion that keeping the economy shut down, is doing more damage to people’s lives than COVID-19. In the 60,000+ deaths from COVID-19 nationwide, the majority had underlying health issues, which is true in Italy as well. It is estimated that heart disease will take the lives of 640,000 people across our country this year and cancer is expected to claim over 600,000 lives as well.
Graham said we can all be certain that “each one of us will have to meet death.”
However, he recommends that “we go on with living our lives and doing our work, while taking personal responsibility.”
Graham suggests continuing with the precautions that medical experts have already recommended to us since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Social distancing, hand washing, wearing masks in public places—all of these precautions are important,” he noted, but added:
[F]ear and anxiety can be very detrimental to one’s health as well. No matter how negative the reports are from the media and liberal politicians who want to use the coronavirus to destroy President Donald J. Trump, if we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we don’t have to be afraid.
“God made us,” Graham concluded. “He has a plan and a purpose for our lives, and He knows the number of our days.”
