Tucker Carlson, host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” poses for photos in a Fox News Channel studio, in New York, Thursday, March 2, 2107. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

As the international lockdown continues, many have begun to question the nature of our quarantine and if the continued quarantine of the American people makes sense. Fox News host Tucker Carlson is one such person, and he has some very interesting points to make about all of this.

As transcribed by the Daily Caller, Carlson made note that the “arguments for a prolonged national lockdown are starting to sound strained.” He’s not wrong. As time goes and the economy continues to free fall, mounting data tells us that this lockdown isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, as Carlson highlights.

He began by noting that despite the lockdown being in effect, people are getting sick anyway:

The Fox News host listed several examples to bolster his case, citing researchers learning that the virus can be transmitted “merely by speaking.” These included residents of a Hong Kong apartment building who got infected through plumbing pipes and the fact that the Italian village of Lombardy tested 60 people who came to give blood and found 40 positive cases, all without symptoms.

“Keep in mind that Lombardy has been strictly locked down by government order since March 9, that’s almost a month ago,” Carlson said. “Yet about 70 percent of this group got it anyway.”

Carlson noted that as more people are tested, many are proving to be infected but not at all sick. He acknowledges that people are dying in large numbers, and not all of them are sick or elderly, which is terrifying. However the more data we get the less-lethal the virus shows to be.

With all this in mind, Carlson noted that a quarantine of this size has never been done before and would make sense if it prevented mass infection, but we’re not certain that it is.

“A mass quarantine makes sense if you’re fairly certain it will prevent mass infection. But are we certain of that? Despite what you may hear on television, we are not certain of that still. In fact, there are some indications it hasn’t been as effective as we’d hoped it would be,” said Carlson. “Italy imposed one of the toughest lockdowns in Europe. Almost a month later, as we just told you, an overwhelming majority of at least one town had been infected with the virus anyway.”

One reason that we’re seeing breakout infections despite the quarantine is that we’re being told to shelter in place unless we need to go to the grocery store, which isn’t a real quarantine. It can’t be helped, however, because then people would starve.

“People would starve to death,” said Carlson. “Instead, the directive we’re living under is this: ‘stay home, except to buy food. The one place you can go is the supermarket, where, by the way, everyone else in the neighborhood has been this week.’ From an epidemiological standpoint, this is lunacy. If you wanted to infect an entire population, you’d encourage everyone in a specific zip code to meet regularly in one enclosed location. It doesn’t make sense. Authorities must know it doesn’t make sense, that’s obvious, but instead of changing course, or fine-tuning, they’re doubling down, hoping that vehemence will compensate for bad science.”

So, if that’s the case, reasons Carlson, why can’t we work?

“We’ve decided that offices are somehow more dangerous than supermarkets, far more dangerous, though no one has bothered to explain how,” said Carlson. “The result: by some estimates, more than 17 million Americans are unemployed right now. That’s the highest number in the history of this country. A year from now, we should think about this. How will we feel about all this, about our decisions in the face of this pandemic? Is there a single person who sincerely expects the coronavirus itself will hurt more people in the end than the damage we’re causing in our response to it? Probably not. Mass unemployment is almost certain to cause far more harm — including physical harm — to the average family than this disease.”

Carlson makes it clear that he’s not suggesting we revert to meeting en masse at sporting events and that this virus really doesn’t need to be taken seriously. However, given the data and the dangers we face as out-of-work Americans begin feeling the effects of joblessness, we should begin looking into more balanced approaches.

“Once again, coronavirus is not the only bad thing that’s happening in America right now, horrifying as it is” Carlson concluded. “We should never minimize the danger of this pandemic, or minimize our obligation to respond to it wisely. We’ve been saying that on this show for months. No thoughtful person wants to reopen baseball stadiums tomorrow or book a cruise to Shanghai, but there has to be a more balanced course than the one we are on now. For most people, going to work cannot be more dangerous than buying produce at Safeway twice a week. And if it is more dangerous, tell us how it’s more dangerous, and be specific when you describe that. Otherwise, it’s time to start caring about the entire population. Healthy people are suffering badly too.”