Can’t We Just Say It? This Wuhan Panic Was a Fraud Driven by Politics and for the Aggrandizement of Power
URL: https://www.redstate.com/strei
“The projections would have been farcical had they not destroyed lives and
businesses. Stay-at-home orders emptied hospitals and killed droves of
people who were too terrorized to seek treatment for heart attacks and
strokes and who were unable to get scheduled cancer treatments. We were told
asymptomatic carriers were highly contagious, presumably to justify the
demand that everyone wear a mask, only to find that no, that isn’t the case.
Actual doctors reported that people who had survived Wuhan virus were, again
unlike any other virus of that family, able to be immediately re-infected.
This, fortunately, was another false alarm. And no discussion of the
‘science’ would be complete without the observation that there is zero
evidence, other than bald assertions, that the lockdowns, and face masks,
and hysteria had any more effect than sacrificing a chicken to the Moon God.
The infection rate in those states which did not go along with the insanity
is better than those with the most Draconian measures. When Texas and
Georgia and Florida released the totalitarian controls the ‘scientists’
predicted a huge spike in infections and deaths. This, to say the least, did
not happen.”
“This whole thing has been a total fraud, insofar as the policy response to
Wuhan virus, from day one. There has never been a need for a lockdown. There
has never been a need for wearing masks. There has never been a need to
shutter churches and forbid public funerals and weddings and baptisms and
graduations. There has never been a need for elderly people to die alone
because their children are forbidden to visit. There has never been a need
for any of the pain and hardship these frauds and charlatans have inflicted
upon the nation. The very least we can do is ignore them going forward. If
there were justice we’d send a few dozen of these fascists to the gallows
and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until they fall apart.”-- by
Streiff <https://www.redstate.com/stre
******************************
REDSTATE
Can’t We Just Say It? This Wuhan Panic Was a Fraud Driven by Politics and
for the Aggrandizement of Power
Posted at 8:00 am on June 7, 2020 by Streiff
<https://www.redstate.com/stre
Workers from a Servpro disaster recovery team wearing protective suits and
respirators more toward equipment as they line up before entering the Life
Care Center in Kirkland, Wash. to begin cleaning and disinfecting the
facility, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, near Seattle. The nursing home is at
the center of the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Washington state.
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
I think we’re at the point where it is safe to say that the entire Wuhan
virus scare was nothing more or less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon
the American people by ‘experts’ who were determined to fundamentally change
the way the country lives and is organized and governed.
Not long ago, just a couple of months back, we were promised that Chinese
Lung Aids would kill over a million Americans. We were told that it was
highly infectious. We were told that our hospitals would be overwhelmed. We
were told that hundreds of thousands of ventilators would be needed. None of
this, not a single projection has turned out to be true. We were forced to
wear face masks to guard against…f***, I don’t even know what they guard
against because they are exactly as effective against a virus as a
chain-link fence is against a mosquito. And we were informed that we were
very, very bad people if we didn’t wear them. Even people on the right
hopped on the virtue-signaling bandwagon; they advocated a complete shutdown
of economic activity and hectored us about how it was important to get with
the face mask fetish because it made some other people ‘feel safer.’ When
the worst-case scenarios didn’t pan out, health departments have seemingly
made a sport of coding homicides, heroin overdoses, and basically any
non-hospital death from natural causes as Wuhan-related.
To say the ‘science’ driving this shameful episode was akin to necromancy
is an understatement. We saw the mutation of ‘professionals’ like Dr.
Anthony Fauci from saying on 60 Minutes that everyone wearing a mask was not
only unwise but counter-productive to being a mask nazi. All of this without
any additional credible research saying the opposite. We were told by CDC
that Wuhan virus could, unlike other members of the coronavirus family,
survive for days, weeks, maybe forever, on some surfaces, that clothes
needed to be sterilized and groceries wiped down or washed, only to later be
told by the same organization, ‘my bad, that can’t happen.’
The projections would have been farcical had they not destroyed lives and
businesses. Stay-at-home orders emptied hospitals and killed droves of
people who were too terrorized to seek treatment for heart attacks and
strokes and who were unable to get scheduled cancer treatments. We were told
asymptomatic carriers were highly contagious, presumably to justify the
demand that everyone wear a mask, only to find that no, that isn’t the case.
Actual doctors reported that people who had survived Wuhan virus were, again
unlike any other virus of that family, able to be immediately re-infected.
This, fortunately, was another false alarm. And no discussion of the
‘science’ would be complete without the observation that there is zero
evidence, other than bald assertions, that the lockdowns, and face masks,
and hysteria had any more effect than sacrificing a chicken to the Moon God.
The infection rate in those states which did not go along with the insanity
is better than those with the most Draconian measures. When Texas and
Georgia and Florida released the totalitarian controls the ‘scientists’
predicted a huge spike in infections and deaths. This, to say the least, did
not happen.
Underlying this rabid attack on the economy, there was the unmistakable
stench of Rahm Emanuel’s ‘never let a crisis go to waste.’ In the name of
‘public health,’ big conglomerates like Walmart were allowed to continue
operations while small operators were shut down. Activities that were run by
sole proprietors, like nail salons and barber shops, were targeted in
particular. Churches, often with the connivance of clergy, were shuttered.
Even assembling in cars in church parking lots was prohibited. Visiting the
sick and elderly was forbidden. Police forces were used to disperse mourners
at funerals. The nation was quickly divided into those with jobs that
allowed them to ‘work from home’ and those who couldn’t. The so-called
relief bills for the virus contained the beginnings of a Universal Basic
Income scheme by setting unemployment payments above what some of the
unemployed workers were getting on the job. Under the guise of ‘contact
tracing,’ tech companies, like Google and Apple, were enlisted to map out
the movements of customers. At least one state governor, Washington’s Jay
Inslee, threatened to essentially starve people out of their homes if they
did not collaborate…sorry, I mean cooperate…with contact tracers. Parents
were arrested in front of their kids for allowing them to play outside.
People were insanely told that they could swim in the ocean but not use the
beach. As the virus wound down, we saw the goalposts for reopening shift
from a finite number of infections to the development of a vaccine.
And, of course, there was also the left’s infatuation with killing the most
vulnerable in society. Across the country, the left went to court to have
abortion declared an essential service (it isn’t, it is the elective murder
of a child). In at least two states, New York and Michigan, we saw a
concerted effort to force nursing homes to house people recovering from
Wuhan who were still infectious, making the most vulnerable veritable
sitting ducks for slaughter. And in New York, we saw a beneath-the-radar
change in how nursing home deaths were coded as hospital deaths to cover up
the carnage taking place. To be clear, I don’t know if this was mere
callousness or a cold-blooded effort to kill people perceived as a drain on
society, my point is that it doesn’t make any difference as the result is
exactly the same.
All of this was necessary, we were told, because otherwise, Granny was
going to die because you didn’t stay home and wear a mask.
In reality, it was a calculated assault upon capitalism and individual
freedom that was aided and abetted by members of the federal government who,
one can only hope, knew what they were saying was utter bullsh**–I say that
because I understand that these people are partisans and, for the most part,
militant progressives who loathe America and individual freedom but to think
that they actually believed the crap that they were peddling would mean they
were incompetent buffoons. If someone is going to destroy our country I
really want them to understand and appreciate what they are doing.
Over the past week, with the protests/riots associated somewhat loosely
with the death of George Floyd while some Minneapolis cop knelt on his neck,
the true agenda behind the Wuhan virus became much more evident. We’ve seen
alleged ‘public health experts’ proclaim that the danger posed by not
rioting is greater than the danger from Wuhan virus BUT the danger from
going to church or work or protesting the utter thrashing of the US
Constitution is unconscionable because of Wuhan.
READ
Healthcare Workers Sign Letter Supporting Protests, Call Others Breaking
Lock Downs White Nationalists
<https://www.redstate.com/bonc
supporting-protests-call-other
Media Figures Return to Freaking Out Over Social Distancing After Failing
to Condemn Massive Protests
<https://www.redstate.com/bonc
g-out-over-social-distancing-a
This, for instance, is an actual announcement:
<https://twitter.com/AP4Liber
<https://twitter.com/AP4Liber
Austin Open The Economy Petersen
✔@AP4Liberty
<https://twitter.com/AP4Liber
Yes, it's a real quote.
<https://twitter.com/AP4Liber
As a scientific or medical or policy statement it is utterly bonkers. The
George Floyd protests, while obviously important to some, are, to me, of
much less significance than the government arrogating to itself the right to
tell you your business can’t open or that you can’t go to church. The virus,
obviously, can’t tell the difference. If congregating together is dangerous
in one activity, it is dangerous in all. And ‘public health experts’ don’t
get the right or authority to decide what activities are important, they
don’t even have a right to have an opinion on the subject that carries more
weight than that of any other citizen. They. Just. Don’t.
But it isn’t only the bullsh** science that is called into question; it is
even how we are dealing with it. This is the actual guidance from the
Philadelphia Department of Public Health on what to do if you have been to a
riot:
<https://twitter.com/PHLPubli
<https://twitter.com/PHLPubli
Philadelphia Public Health
✔@PHLPublicHealth
Those who were at or near a protest should:
Get tested for COVID-19 seven days after having been in a crowd; those
getting tested do NOT need to mention the protests, but instead say they
were near someone who may have had COVID-19. For testing info.:
https://buff.ly/3fV0qDQ
<https://twitter.com/PHLPubli
<https://twitter.com/intent/l
58
2:39 PM - Jun 5, 2020
<https://twitter.com/PHLPublic
Twitter Ads info and privacy
<https://support.twitter.com/a
<https://twitter.com/PHLPubli
No 14-day self-quarantine as if you were some rube church-goer in
Louisville, KY. No contact tracing. Nothing. Wait 7 days and get a test. If
Granny dies, well she was old and sh** and she was going to die anyway and
rioting to end racism is much more important than her continuing to live.
And you get ridiculous, imbecilic apologia like this one from — double
whammy — an academic who used to be a government ‘public health expert’:
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
Jeremy BLACK LIVES MATTER Konyndyk
✔@JeremyKonyndyk
· Jun 4, 2020
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKon
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
OK, let's address these "why did we lock down if BLM protests are ok"
takes.
There are lots of pundits arguing this means public health advice is all
relative to ideological sympathies.
That's not it. It's about balance of risks.
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
Jeremy BLACK LIVES MATTER Konyndyk
✔@JeremyKonyndyk
I'll say up front: I think there's a chance these protests will amplify
transmission. But I also think there are steps that can be taken (and
visibly are being taken, frequently) to mitigate that risk.
<https://twitter.com/intent/l
1:52 PM - Jun 4, 2020
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKon
Twitter Ads info and privacy
<https://support.twitter.com/a
<https://twitter.com/JeremyKo
OK, let’s address these “why did we lock down if BLM protests are ok”
takes.
There are lots of pundits arguing this means public health advice is all
relative to ideological sympathies.
That’s not it. It’s about balance of risks.
I’ll say up front: I think there’s a chance these protests will amplify
transmission. But I also think there are steps that can be taken (and
visibly are being taken, frequently) to mitigate that risk. [I’ll take it
even one step further. I’m willing to bet that there is no noticeable
increase in Wuhan cases after this nonsense ends just as there has been no
noticeable increase in states that have ended lock down.]
We know far more about COVID transmission than three months ago when US
social distancing started. Guidance at that time was based on emerging
evidence from China and on diseases thought to be similar, e.g. SARS and
influenza.
We now have growing evidence on COVID itself.
The evidence tells us a few things (this all predates the protests):
Risk reducers:
– Outdoor/full sun activities
– Masking
– Brief (<10 minutes) or distant contact
– Limiting group size
Risk amplifiers:
– Prolonged close contact
– Large crowds
– Enclosed spaces
– Vocalizing
The highest risk of super-spreading events (which we now suspect drive the
bulk of transmission) are those that combine multiple risk amplifiers
without the risk reducers.
So something like packed bars (as in WI after their stay-home order was
annulled) fall in that category. [Actually, there has been an
inconsequential change in Wisconsin’s Wuhan rate
<https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov
the next trope.]
The protests are less clear cut.
They have some of the risk amplifiers:
– large crowds
– vocalizing
As well as some of the risk reducers:
– masking, which has been pretty widespread from what I’ve observed
– outdoors in sun
– some movement to reduce prolonged contact
So risks probably higher than grocery shopping, lower than going to church
or a bar. Important to actively mitigate risks as much as possible.
Protesters should:
– stay masked
– practice hand hygiene
– avoid prolonged contacts in crowd
– pre-emptively self-isolate for 2 weeks
That last bit is important. Pre-emptive self-isolation can block those who
might be exposed in these protests from infecting others in their lives.
ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT: police behavior can undermine the mitigation
measures and elevate transmission risk.
– tear gas & pepper spray can cause coughing, force people to remove masks
– obstructing movement (like NYPD cordoning protesters on a bridge for
hours) prolongs exposure
– detention tactics can also worsen things – holding detainees for
prolonged periods in enclosed spaces like paddy wagons or mass cells
elevates risk
So then the question becomes – if the risk can be mitigated to an extent,
how does the remaining risk relate to the importance of the activity itself?
From a public health perspective, many experts are saying it merits the
remaining risk.
Racial bias in policing is a direct and unresolved threat to the lives of
black and brown Americans. As we have seen over and over. And racial bias in
society more generally underpins why COVID has hit communities of color so
much harder than white Americans. [Factually, about 200 people per year
<https://www.statista.com/stat
e-by-race/> are killed in police-involved shootings and black Americans are
killed by police in nearly identical proportions
<https://www.redstate.com/dart
as-been-based-on-a-lie/> to their representation in the population.]
So a mass public mobilization to address such deep and longstanding
societal problems has important public health relevance, even if the timing
is less than ideal.
Unfortunately, spontaneous mass political awakenings do not happen on a
pre-planned itinerary.
This is why public health advocates aren’t criticizing the protests.
Their advice doesn’t suddenly evaporate depending on a political cause.
Instead they assess relative public health risks of these protests vs
continuing to accept a status quo that kills many people of color.
So, a plea to the contrarians out there: do your homework. Most of the
takes I’ve seen on this (and I’ve quote-tweeted a few previously) are
reacting to their own caricatures of public health advice, and failing to
grapple with the actual dilemmas at play here.
The risks of protesting in the age of COVID are not totally clear cut. But
that doesn’t mean this should be treated as a punditry Rorschach test that
inevitably ends up reaffirming everyone’s priors.
And here’s the point that renders all of this into a liberal circle jerk
rather than an argument. This has always been about risk assessment for most
of us. For this clown and his posse, it has been exclusively about power —
that is, the ability to tell the rest of us what risks are acceptable — and
politics, to ensure that their desired political outcomes benefit from the
policy decisions.
This whole thing has been a total fraud, insofar as the policy response to
Wuhan virus, from day one. There has never been a need for a lockdown. There
has never been a need for wearing masks. There has never been a need to
shutter churches and forbid public funerals and weddings and baptisms and
graduations. There has never been a need for elderly people to die alone
because their children are forbidden to visit. There has never been a need
for any of the pain and hardship these frauds and charlatans have inflicted
upon the nation. The very least we can do is ignore them going forward. If
there were justice we’d send a few dozen of these fascists to the gallows
and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until they fall apart.
Managing Editor at RedState <https://www.redstate.com/>
Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus.
RedState member since 2004.
polite emails to editoratredstate@gmail.com Jerk emails will be blocked.
Follow me on Twitter <https://twitter.com/streiffre
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