HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Michael Ejercito wrote:
http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/01/23/the-pandemic-post-i-never-wrote/
The Pandemic Post I Never Wrote
JANUARY 23, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
[This post is dedicated to Michael Ejercito.]
For months, veteran prolific Ethics Alarms commenter Michael Ejercito
peppered the blog with various versions of the same question: “When are
you going to finish “The Pandemic Creates a Classic and Difficult Ethics >>> Conflict…”? He was referring to this post, which went up way back in May >>> of 2020. The rest of the title was “…But The Resolution Is Clear.” It
was designated as Part I, with a Part II supposedly coming soon that
would explain what that resolution was and why. It never arrived.
Stalling, I posted a Prelude to Part II. It was so long and covered so
much territory that I doubt anyone read it all the way to the end
(except Michael). It didn’t inspire a single comment. Here’s a precis... >>>
No, I am not satisfied with the current draft of Part II, but I trust
it’s obvious what the resolution referred to is. The lock-down has to
end, and before vaccines, cures, or adequate medicine are available….It
is quite striking: the arguments for continuing the lockdown
indefinitely are almost entirely authored by progressives, and are
without exception characterized by bad logic, emotionalism, manipulated
facts, biased analysis, fearmongering, and suspect motives. The majority >>> of the arguments for opening up the economy soon are markedly more
logical, unemotional, and based on sound statistics and analysis…
It is not “plausible” that the pandemic will continue forever; pandemics >>> don’t. And indeed, if they did, it would be an irrefutable reason to
open up now. Freedom has always had a price…
…As I discussed in Part I, health experts focus almost exclusively on
health. Health is not the only priority involved in the policy
trade-offs involving the lockdown. The health experts don’t care about
the other issues—literally, they don’t care—because it isn’t their job
to care about the economy, or unemployment, or ruined careers and
diminished quality of life. They should care about increased suicides
during depressions, and inadequate preventative health care, and the
deaths those and other consequences of the lockdown will cause, [or]…the >>> U.S. having a catastrophic expansion of its national debt… !
…Right: nobody knows how it will play out. We do know, however, how it
will play out if we lock down the economy much longer, never mind until
there’s a vaccine…On this 75th Anniversary of V-E Day, it shouldn’t be
hard to understand that lost lives can be acceptable when the most
rational, responsible policies involve unavoidable risk.
But “Part II,” when it arrived six months later, still didn’t deliver
the promised resolution. Except for the (again, long) introduction, in
fact, it was a dud, but a dud that illustrated the problem with the
topic. I wrote about the non-media coverage of a Johns Hopkins study
that seemed to indicate that the despite the daily lists of pandemic
deaths, the total deaths had not varied significantly from the previous
year. As it turned out, the study was flawed, and its conclusions were
not supported, though the Ethics Alarms indictment of the bias and
partisan agenda indicated by the news media’s lack of coverage still
applies.
So what was going to be Part II was then going to be Part III, and again >>> stalling, I wrote a prelude to that as well. This one was mercifully
short, and endorsed a statement by then President Trump as the Ethics
Quote of the Century. He had said via Twitter in October, “Don’t be
afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” The post concluded,
“President Trump is among the Americans I would view most unlikely to
utter an ethical statement, much less a great one, but this was a great
statement, essential, inspirational, and right. I assume this is
sufficient notice of what the conclusion of Part III will be.”
But there was no Part III, much to Michael’s disappointment and annoyance. >>>
In May of 2020, my conclusion regarding what we should have done about
the pandemic is exactly the same as it is today. The only difference is
that my resolution was politically and logically impossible in May of
2020, and thus not ethical. (What is impossible isn’t ethical, it’s just >>> ethics static).
We should not have closed the schools. We should not have shut down the
economy. We should not have been subjected to the relentless
fearmongering by the media in its efforts to ensure slavish obedience to >>> the panicky edicts of power-mad governors, mayors, and CDC officials.
The fact that these measures also had the tertiary salutary side effect
of making it easier to push Donald Trump out of office by blaming him
for the economic and social secondary side effect of them was, no doubt, >>> considered a bonus.
The United States of America allowed its health experts who had, we now
know, no idea what they were dealing with then and little more now, and
who were driven as much by politics as “science,” force perhaps
permanent damage on all levels of society because it proved impossible
to do otherwise. What made this worse is that it was done in the name of >>> priorities that reversed those that made the existence of the United
States possible, and that sustained its excellence and success for
centuries.
In my first draft of the Post I Never Wrote, I looked at the risks
undertaken by the founders of the nation—not The Founders but the
ordinary, courageous, sometimes desperate people who settled the land
between the continents. If they had begun with the fearfulness and
aversion to risk of their perpetually terrified descendants who now wear >>> cloth mask talismans alone in their automobiles, they would have stayed
in Europe. They would have never rebelled against England. They would
have definitely never moved West, an adventure that cost the lives of
20-25% of the families that tried. They would not have fought to keep
the south from seceding. They would not have fought Hitler and Japan;
they would have negotiated for concessions and to Hell with Europe. They >>> would definitely not have risked nuclear war with the USSR: Better Red
than Dead after all.
In the quest for liberty, which included, they believed, great economic
opportunity, better lives for their children, and strong, unique nation
that celebrated what its citizens could do if left alone to do it, they
took far worse risks than braving a China-bred virus that had a death
rate of less than 1% for those infected beneath the age of 35, and that, >>> when it did kill, overwhelmingly killed the old, obese and unhealthy.
In 2020 I started listing all of the ways the fear of the Wuhan virus
was ruining almost everything, just as our enemies foreign and domestic
would have wished. I makes me sick to have to feature Bill Maher
approvingly in the video above: he’s the same toxic creep who said on
the same show three years ago that it would be worth destroying the
economy to get rid of Trump. The economy, I guess, but not the supply
chain, art, sports, movies, theater, education, the mental and emotional >>> health of children, law enforcement, trust in each other, the national
spirit, what remained of the credibility of journalism, support for due
process and the rule of law, and everything else, right, Bill?
There were various studies by economists of the “value” of each human
life in terms of realistic costs that society could responsibly bear,
but in an era when Obama’s “if it saves one life” nonsense is applauded
as compassionate and profound, I decided they were futile to mention.
The course we were taking nauseated me in May, 2020, and I was certain
that it was a tragic, disastrous mistake. I was also certain that my
position would be characterized by many readers as a brutal “let the old >>> and sick people die” shrug. Would I be willing to set that fate for
myself to avoid the consequences the lockdown has had?, I expected many
to ask, eyebrow raised in skepticism.
And my answer would be “Absolutely.” Of course absolutely. I never had
the opportunity to fight for my country and its values, but my father
did. He and his whole generation put their lives at risk so that his
unborn children and whole unborn generations could experience and
improve upon what our brave ancestors built for us. If I had to die in
the last third of my life so that children could see each other smile
and have the chances I did to grow up learning from face to face
encounters rather than a damn Zoom screen, not to mention feeling that I >>> had the freedom to succeed or fail without being hobbled by the
government, I would regard it as a price gladly paid. I would shuffle
off this second, if it would undo all the damage cowardice, ignorance,
flawed expertise and abusive power has done to the nation I love.
You don’t believe that? Bite me. It’s true.
Donald Trump doesn’t understand much, but I think he understood how
disastrous the reaction to the virus was and would be. He also knew, I
feel sure, that this was a situation where, in the words of my father’s
favorite obituary,
“He was right, dead right, as he sped along
But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.”
The news media and Democrats were going to blame every death on him, no
matter what the President did. If he did nothing, if he fought a
lock-down, and impeded the efforts to close schools, which anyone should >>> have been able to see would cause a chain reaction of unemployment, the
accusation would be that he deliberately let people die. Joe Biden and
others repeatedly claimed that Trump had had the power to stop the
pandemic at our borders, and had “blood on his hands” even while he was
capitulating to Dr, Fauci’s “let’s see what the dart hits” orders and
advice base on “science.” Now Joe Biden, by his own standards, has more
blood on his hands than Trump did.
Condign justice.
And here we are. I’m not a gloom and doom guy, so I’m not inclined to
say all has been lost. But nearly all will be lost if there isn’t a
national realization that we screwed ourselves, our children and future
generations in 2020 far more certainly and unnecessarily than an our
non-response to climate change speculation has or perhaps even will.
When I read that New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul compared
children wearing face masks in schools to the requirement that they wear >>> shoes, I felt like I had seen the Grim Reaper smile
“My daughter had a meltdown about having to put sneakers on to go to
kindergarten,” the governor said yesterday during a press conference
after being asked about a timeline for removing mask mandates in
schools. “She got used to wearing sneakers in school. They adapt better
than adults do.”
This is what we let the virus do to us. I knew that it was the wrong
course, but I also knew, given the erosion and rot in the American
spirit, that no other course was possible.
That’s why I never finished the post, Michael.
I’m sorry.
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
New York & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids that render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
I am wonderfully hungry!
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Subject: The LORD says "Blessed are you who hunger now ..."
Shame on andrew, look at his red face.
He is trying to pull a fast one. His scripture bit is found among these:
'14 Bible verses about Spiritual Hunger'
Psalms
81:10 I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: >open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Proverbs
13:25 The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, But the stomach of >the wicked is in need.
Joel
2:26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of
the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my
people shall never be ashamed.
Psalms
107 For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
Acts
14:17 "Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by >giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying
your hearts with food and gladness."
someone eternally condemned & ever more cursed by GOD perseverated:
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Subject: a very very very simple definition of sin ...
Does andrew's "definition" agree with scripture? Let's see in 1 John:
John wrote this to christians. The greek grammer (sic) speaks of an ongoing >> status. He includes himself in that status.
1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.
1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, >> and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is >> not in us.
(Kathy) 01/24/22 Dexter tragically vainjangling (1 Tim 1:6) ...it is so tragic!
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.bible.prophecy/c/XfVbwRPUcpg/m/BDDY6jVFDwAJ
Link to post explicating vainjangling by the eternally condemned: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.med.cardiology/O23NguTslhI/-xLGqnNjAAAJ
"Like a moth to flame, the eternally condemned tragically return to be
ever more cursed by GOD."
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
(Kathy) 01/24/22 Dexter tragically vainjangling (1 Tim 1:6) ...
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.bible.prophecy/c/XfVbwRPUcpg/m/BDDY6jVFDwAJ >>
Link to post explicating vainjangling by the eternally condemned:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.med.cardiology/O23NguTslhI/-xLGqnNjAAAJ >>
"Like a moth to flame, the eternally condemned tragically return to be
ever more cursed by GOD."
it is so tragic!
HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
(Kathy) 01/24/22 Dexter tragically vainjangling (1 Tim 1:6) ...
Link to post explicating vainjangling by the eternally condemned:
"Like a moth to flame, the eternally condemned tragically return to beit is so tragic!
ever more cursed by GOD."
Michael-----------------------------
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Subject: The LORD says "Blessed are you who hunger now ..."
Shame on andrew, look at his red face.
He is trying to pull a fast one. His scripture bit is found among these:
'14 Bible verses about Spiritual Hunger'
Psalms
81:10 I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: >open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Proverbs
13:25 The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, But the stomach of >the wicked is in need.
Joel
2:26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of
the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my
people shall never be ashamed.
Psalms
107 For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
Acts
14:17 "Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by >giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying
your hearts with food and gladness."
someone eternally condemned & ever more cursed by GOD perseverated:
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Subject: a very very very simple definition of sin ...
Does andrew's "definition" agree with scripture? Let's see in 1 John:
John wrote this to christians. The greek grammer (sic) speaks of an ongoing >> status. He includes himself in that status.
1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.
1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, >> and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is >> not in us.
HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
Michael Ejercito wrote:
http://reason.com/2022/02/28/two-years-to-slow-the-spread/
Two Years To Slow the Spread
Government can't stop moving the COVID-19 goal posts.
MATT WELCH | FROM THE MARCH 2022 ISSUE
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featureWelch
(Photo: Luis Alvarez/Getty)
On December 6, 2021, in his last major act as mayor of New York City,
Democrat Bill de Blasio announced that, to stop the spread of the
omicron variant of COVID-19, all 184,000 private businesses in the city
would henceforth be commanded to enforce vaccine mandates on their
employees, and all children ages 5 and up (including tourists from
countries that hadn't yet approved pediatric vaccines) would need to
show proof of full immunization before entering most indoor venues.
"Look at a country like Germany right now—shutdowns, restrictions," de
Blasio explained in a follow-up interview. "We cannot let that happen.
So we had to take decisive action."
Five days later, as the Northeast was experiencing a third consecutive
winter surge of coronavirus cases, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul
announced that all businesses in New York would be required to ensure
their employees and customers were either provably vaccinated or masked
indoors at all times; each violation would be subject to a $1,000 fine.
The new rules were applicable through January 15, "after which the State >>> will re-evaluate based on current conditions."
Hochul's announcement came almost six months to the day after her
predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, had lifted almost all statewide COVID
restrictions, including most indoor masking, on the occasion of New York >>> meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) target of
having 70 percent of adults receive at least one vaccination dose. "We
can now return to life as we know it," Cuomo crowed then. By the time of >>> Hochul's reversal, the one-shot rate among adult New Yorkers had risen
to 93 percent.
The goal posts on pandemic policy haven't just been shifted, they've
been uprooted, hitched to a helicopter, and transported to a different
county. Joe Biden as president-elect on December 4, 2020, said, "I don't >>> think [vaccines] should be mandatory." His spokeswoman Jen Psaki on July >>> 23, 2021, added, "That's not the role of the federal government." CDC
Director Rochelle Walensky stated unequivocally on July 31 that "there
will be no federal mandate."
Biden announced a federal vaccine mandate on private employers with 100
or more workers five weeks later.
"I've tried everything in my power to get people vaccinated," the
president maintained. "But even after all those efforts, we still had
more than a quarter of people in the United States who were eligible for >>> vaccinations but didn't get the shot….So, while I didn't race to do it
right away, that's why I've had to move toward requirements." Look at
what you made him do.
It was easier to make fun of presidential dissembling about pandemic
policy back when Donald Trump was holding extemporaneous bull sessions
about COVID every day on the White House lawn, or when he infamously
unveiled on March 16, 2020, a bullet-pointed presentation titled "15
Days to Slow the Spread." Even factoring in hindsight bias, that was an
absurdly irresponsible prediction to make about a virus already ripping
through every continent at a time when testing (especially in the U.S.)
was woefully inadequate.
Law & Contemporary Problems Symposium on "Sex in Law" Publishes Disputed >>> Article
But Trump back then, like his then-lionized, now-disgraced rival Cuomo,
was operating in an environment exponentially more impoverished, in
terms of both knowledge and mitigation strategies, than what public
officials enjoy now. The one-shot vaccination rate for American adults
was not 86 percent (as it is as this magazine goes to press) but 0
percent. We were still being reminded to wash our hands several times a
day for 20 seconds at a time and implored to studiously avoid touching
our faces. And perhaps because the idea of government dictating most
human activity outside the home was then still novel, politicians tended >>> to tether restrictions to specific metrics. (Cuomo's "flatten the curve" >>> mantra referred to the trajectory of hospitalizations vs. the hard
number of hospital beds.) Immediate-term discomforts were routinely sold >>> with visions of long-term relief.
"If everyone makes…these critical changes and sacrifices now," Trump
said on "Slow the Spread" day, as a phalanx of top public health
officials looked on, "we will rally together as one nation, and we will
defeat the virus, and we're going to have a big celebration all
together. With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner
and turn it quickly."
As the families of 800,000 dead Americans can grimly attest, no such
corners were ever turned. Yet what has replaced those naive and
prematurely optimistic projections is something no less cruel.
Benchmarks for lifting restrictions have been serially rewritten or
quietly dropped, often with little explanation. Major policy promises
have been made and broken within the same week. And you can't just blame >>> the capriciousness on the shifting viral facts on the ground—bureaucrats >>> have been agonizingly slow to recognize advances in knowledge that
support policy loosening yet lightning-fast when reacting to any new
source of fear. It took the Biden administration and his fellow
Democrats in New York no time at all to put the clampdown on the omicron >>> variant, but it took the CDC and most coastal state governments more
than a year to internalize that people are not catching COVID-19 outdoors. >>>
By making a zig-zagging series of arbitrary and far-reaching edicts,
officials have squandered public trust in allegedly neutral scientific
institutions and effectively abandoned persuasion for coercion. Instead
of a light at the end of the tunnel—or even endemic coping at the end of >>> pandemic panic—we're being offered a future of politicians reluctantly
handing out a carrot or two before reaching once again for the stick.
The 1-2 Punch in the Mouth
"Everybody has a plan," former heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson famously
said, "until they get punched in the mouth." Not only did COVID-19 punch >>> millions of people in the mouth, but government reaction to the virus
proved a second blow from which scores of millions of businesses and
families have been painfully slow to recover.
In December 2020, Gavin Newsom, California's Democratic governor, banned >>> outdoor dining in regions where available hospital ICU capacity was
below 15 percent. A judge opined (accurately) within a week that the
policy was "not grounded in science, evidence, or logic." Newsom then
rescinded the order seven weeks later without the threshold having been
met in most of the state.
De Blasio shut down New York City public schools in November 2020
because the rate of positive tests among all New Yorkers had risen above >>> 3 percent, even though that community spread threshold was far below
those recommended by international health authorities, and weekly tests
inside school buildings were showing a miniscule positivity rate of 0.18 >>> percent. The mayor removed that consideration for elementary schools 10
days later and for middle schools and high schools four months later.
Science!
Imagine being a landlord during the past two years. First, COVID
suddenly increases the chances that your tenants will be unable to pay
their rent and prompts millions of renegotiated leases. Then, six months >>> later, the Trump administration makes the absurd and facially
unconstitutional decision to put the CDC in charge of enforcing a
federal moratorium on evictions. Set aside for a moment that gross
violation of property rights, and visualize instead what it must have
been like to try to make any plan at all about residential real estate.
On June 24, 2021, the CDC made what it described as "the final extension >>> of the moratorium," pushing it out to July 31. At an August 2 White
House press briefing, Psaki announced that "CDC Director Rochelle
Walensky and her team have been unable to find legal authority for a
new, targeted eviction moratorium." Literally the next day, the CDC
announced a new, targeted eviction moratorium covering 90 percent of the >>> country. (The Supreme Court would at the end of month swat that reversal >>> down.)
With the exception of the occasional court ruling, governmental bodies
have largely given up on the idea that there is any limiting principle
to their vast new pandemic powers. Relatedly, they no longer sell
today's restrictions as a ticket to tomorrow's freedoms. Whenever a new
wave forms, politicians brace constituents for a quick slap now to put
off yet another mouth-punch later.
Hochul portrayed her December mask-and-vaccine crackdown as a way to
"prevent business disruption"; de Blasio sold his new mandates by
saying, "We cannot let those restrictions come back. We cannot have
shutdowns here in New York City. We've got to keep moving forward."
Vaccinations have helped decouple infections from hospitalization and
death, especially with the more infectious but less lethal omicron
variant. Yet elites kept focusing on case rates instead of serious
illness, sowing panic and clampdowns in the process. "Massachusetts is
the most vaccinated state in the country and yet here we are in a surge
of COVID that is just as bad as where we were last year at this point,"
University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care President Eric Dickson
said in an NBC Nightly News scare story in December. At the time of
Dickson's startling claim, the Bay State's seven-day average of deaths
was 17, compared to 51 the year before.
All of which contributes to the suspicion that governmental
interventions will just stretch out forever. "It is good policy and
practice to establish off-ramps for interventions that aren't meant to
be permanent," Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo wrote in
November 2021. "We should be able to answer what conditions would enable >>> an end."
But politicians and public health officials, particularly in
Democratic-controlled institutions, are increasingly unable to spell out >>> any such conditions. For them there is no end in sight.
Ripping the Mask Off
The first vaccine shots for 5- to 11-year-olds were made available
November 3. On November 5 came reports that a new therapeutic from
Pfizer preliminarily demonstrated a remarkable ability to prevent
serious illness and death in people already sick from COVID. That same
day, Walensky chose to release an "Ask the Expert" video replying to the >>> question, "Why do I still need to wear a mask?"
"The evidence is clear," responded the country's highest-ranking public
health scientist. "Masks can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by
reducing your chance of infection by more than 80 percent, whether it's
an infection from the flu, from the coronavirus, or even just the common >>> cold. In combination with other steps, like getting your vaccination,
hand washing, and keeping physical distance, wearing your mask is an
important step you can take to keep us all healthy."
It was a breathtakingly irresponsible remark.
For two years, as the country has engaged in bitterly partisan and
intensely moralistic debates over nonpharmaceutical interventions
(NPIs)—masking, social distancing, business closures—the single greatest >>> difference maker by far in blunting the lethal impact of the virus has
been vaccination. Unvaccinated Americans were 10 to 20 times more likely >>> to die from COVID-19 in fall 2021 than those who had received their shots. >>>
Yet here was Walensky, the very week immunization became available to
most elementary school kids, putting vaccination on the same list as the >>> mostly (and rightfully) forgotten NPIs of hand washing and social
distancing, in order to counteract any possible erosion in support for a >>> far inferior NPI. By relegating the vaccine to the status of an
afterthought, not only did the CDC director snuff out hope among many
parents that their children's masks will ever come off, but she also
butchered the science.
There does not exist a study showing masks to reduce wearers' COVID
infectiousness by anything close to 80 percent. In fact, most studies
conducted at that time had not even found the vaccines to be 80 percent
effective at stopping transmission in the delta era (although they did
better at stopping symptomatic cases and hospitalizations). Choosing the >>> arrival of pediatric vaccines as an opportunity to greatly exaggerate
the effectiveness of face coverings sent the implicit message to parents >>> that no amount of compliance will free their kids from masks.
In a tweet promoting the video, Walensky touted the non-COVID virtues of >>> wearing face coverings forever. "Masks," she wrote, "also help protect >>>from other illnesses like common cold and flu." There was a time when
having a smiling government doctor suggest open-ended masking for cold
and flu seasons would have been seen as too implausibly authoritarian.
Yet when the CDC talks, governments in the kinds of places where people
have "In this house, we believe in science" yard signs tend to
rubber-stamp the recommendations. As of mid-December, 15 states had mask >>> mandates for K-12 schools; all 15 voted for Biden in November 2020. (The >>> two states with also problematic school-mask-mandate bans both voted for >>> Trump.) In New York, children 2 and older are required by law to wear
masks all day long in any public or private school or daycare setting,
despite being in the age cohort with the lowest COVID hospitalization
rate, and despite the fact that their teachers must be vaccinated by
law. (The vaccinated Hochul, who at age 63 is much more vulnerable to
COVID than is an unvaccinated 4-year-old, has infuriated her critics by
appearing in countless social media photos indoors, amid crowds, unmasked.) >>>
Colorado, a purple state with a libertarian-leaning Democratic governor, >>> has taken a considerably different approach. "There was a time when
there was no vaccine, and masks were all we had, and we needed to wear
them," Democratic Gov. Jared Polis told Colorado Public Radio in
December. "The truth is we now have highly effective vaccines that work
far better than masks. If you wear a mask, it does decrease your risk of >>> getting COVID, and that's a good thing to do indoors around others. But
if you get COVID and you are still unvaccinated, the case is just as bad >>> as if you were not wearing a mask. Everybody had more than enough
opportunity to get vaccinated….At this point, if you haven't been
vaccinated, it's really your own darn fault." Was that so hard?
For the rest of the country, the scenes playing out in restrictionist
states look alien, dystopian: kids shivering while eating lunch outside
in frigid Portland, Oregon; high schoolers in New York City (where the
positive COVID rate among regularly tested unvaccinated kids was less
than 0.3 percent this fall) still holding debate tournaments on Zoom;
glum TV commercials warning parents that "without the vaccine, when your >>> child's teammates take the field, they'll miss out. Or when their
friends go off to the movies, a concert, or get a bite to eat, your teen >>> will miss out."
Asked about some of those images in December, White House spokeswoman
Psaki replied, "I will tell you, I have a 3-year-old who goes to school, >>> sits outside for snacks and lunch, wears a mask inside, and it's no big
deal to him….These are steps that schools are taking to keep kids safe." >>>
Yet the evidence that Psaki's kid is actually safer because of such
precautions has proven damnably difficult for the CDC to produce.
America's school masking guidance is a global outlier—the World Health
Organization recommends against masking children aged 5 and younger, and >>> only a handful of countries in the European Union were masking
elementary school students in fall 2021. In trying to persuade the
public that it's actually rational and prudent, the country's public
health agency has never once cited a masking study that included a
meaningful control group. Officials are operating on intuition, and as a >>> result tens of millions of children are degrading their physical
comfort, social development, and language acquisition. All to avoid
contracting and spreading a virus they are far less susceptible to than
are vaccinated adults.
Misrepresenting science to produce a preferred policy outcome is a
terrible way to build trust during a pandemic. Adding to that sense of
suspicion is the fact that the CDC at the beginning of the pandemic
actively downplayed the effectiveness of masks, out of worry that scared >>> consumers would hoard the then-scarce supply of medical-quality
protective equipment needed by doctors and nurses. "Seriously
people—STOP BUYING MASKS!" tweeted then–Surgeon General Jerome Adams on
February 29, 2020. "They are NOT effective in preventing [the] general
public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get >>> them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!" >>>
The Biden administration was supposed to bring more scientific rigor
into the building, yet Walensky has repeatedly massaged research
findings to fit her policy desires for Americans to be swathed in real
and metaphorical prophylactics. The CDC dropped its guidance for outdoor >>> masking only in April 2021, and even then only among vaccinated people.
The moderately populated state of Washington, with its spectacular
forests, coastline, and mountains, still has an outdoor mask requirement. >>>
As America braced for the omicron wave before Christmas, the blue-state
mandates started to emerge: vaccine passports for Philadelphia,
booster-shot requirements at several elite universities, a renewed
indoor mask mandate in California. "The imperative is to get through
this winter surge," Newsom said. "And to do so in a way where we come
out the other side and we have a chance to reevaluate."
Schools in heavily Democratic districts—Cleveland, Ohio; Newark, New
Jersey; West Chicago, Illinois; Prince George's County,
Maryland—preemptively responded to the omicron surge after Christmas
break by once again shifting to remote-only learning. At the Brooklyn
elementary school that my first-grader is zoned for, teachers staged a
post-break sickout that precipitated a last-minute closure. "We are
demanding," they wrote in a letter to outraged parents, "the city and
our union take…actions to stop the spread."
So just a few more weeks to stop the spread. Or months. Or years.
http://tinyurl.com/Prophecy010621
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
NYC & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids that render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
I am wonderfully hungry!
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