The Aftermath, Part 4

 

Having finished up dinner, during a layover in downtown Burbank, California, I decided to go for a walk. The sun had already set and the Christmas lighting I had seen earlier, looked enticing enough to get me out again to walk off my meal. The streets had been blocked off in the entertainment district to allow restaurants and bars in the area to set up for outdoor dining. The only problem was that the LA County Board of Supervisors had voted to ban outdoor dining county-wide. Now, you’re thinking that the data they must have been privy to, supported the decision to lock things down again. Actually, it didn’t. In fact, the data showed that this was probably one of the safer options in terms of keeping these businesses going and allowing them to operate in a safe manner.

What could possibly justify a decision where the science didn’t support the actions being taken? The only thing that comes to mind is that these decisions were arbitrary, capricious, and random in nature. In other words, these were nothing more than fiats being issued by politicians and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. What made the decision to ban outdoor dining even more egregious was the fact that one of the county supervisors who voted for the lockdown, was herself seen dining at an outdoor venue in Santa Monica later on. This is, without a doubt, the height of hypocrisy, but it’s something we’ve come to witness during the course of this pandemic when it comes to our governing class. Rules for thee, but not for me.

Due to the lockdowns, over 164,000 businesses have been closed down nation-wide. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent of them will never open their doors again. This is not a good statistic since it adds to the unemployment rolls. Despite current figures showing the unemployment rate ticking slightly downwards, what isn’t being accurately reflected is the fact that this number only shows those who are actively looking for work. It doesn’t take into account the large numbers of folks still sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to get better before diving back into the labor pool. The Labor Force Participation Rate, or U-6, would be a more accurate depiction as to what’s actually happening in the job market. 

Speaking of getting folks back to work, none of that will matter if we can’t get our children back in school.  We now know that children (middle schoolers and younger) are not big spreaders of this virus and are basically unaffected even if they do contract it. The number of failing grades that schools are currently experiencing among their student bodies should be a good indicator that the virtual learning experience has been a virtual bust. If school administrators and teachers are that worried about the virus, then the most straightforward solution would be to inoculate the teachers and school staffers. Teachers’ unions should be on board with such an approach, since it alleviates most of the concerns or fears that some of their members may have over returning to the classroom. If these folks are really essential workers, then priority for getting vaccinated is something their union representatives should be working on with school boards and local health officials. If stakeholder involvement in the process is as important as people claim, then doing this, or something along similar lines, would be the way to go.

The Great Barrington Declaration was basically and op-ed/plea penned by three prominent epidemiologists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford Universities, who have been advocating for the reopening of society. These doctors opined that since we now know who this virus disproportionately affects, it should be safe to reopen things, if we take measures to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. A good example would be around a month or so ago when the death rate for the virus stood at 240,000 Americans. Approximately 100,000 of those deaths were from nursing homes and assisted care facilities. A pretty telling number for sure. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the Declaration’s authors, was also the lead researcher in a COVID study conducted in the Bay area by Stanford University. Additionally, the University of Southern California (USC) conducted a similar study in the LA basin.  Further proving the adage that there is strength in numbers, two Bakersfield, California doctors who own a chain of urgent care clinics, also wound up collecting similar data in Kern County, northwest of LA. One would think that the technocrats in the medical establishment, their government overseers and an all too compliant legacy media would be gushing over this news. Instead, in the case of Dr. Bhattacharya and his colleagues, the university administration tried unsuccessfully to attack the veracity of the study, while the Bakersfield doctors, who had been interviewed by a local news channel that later posted the interview to its YouTube channel, had the video pulled, due to it not conforming to guidance put out by the World Health Organization (WHO). The same WHO that had been carrying water for China during the early stages of this pandemic.

Speaking of piss-poor responses, Governor Andrew Cuomo would be the poster child for how not to run things in your state. After holding press conferences where he claimed that the sky was falling on New York and that he needed everything, including the kitchen sink to throw at this virus, he got that and more. The president sent the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship and had the Army turn the Javits Center in New York City into a field hospital. Not to be outdone, Samaritan’s Purse, a charity run by the Reverend Franklin Graham, set up a field hospital in Central Park. And what, if any thanks, did he and his organization receive from the state and city? How about an admonishment against proselytizing and an income tax bill for the staffers manning the hospital, since they had remained in the state for over 30 days? Then, of course, there were the thousands of respirators he was sent based on his grim projections about what was headed his way. To make a long story embarrassingly short, he needed neither the number of respirators, nor any of the hospital facilities that had been provided by the federal government.

While this drama played itself out on television screens across the nation, our intrepid governor signed an executive order that sent COVID positive and potentially positive individuals back into nursing homes and assisted care facilities, thereby condemning an inordinate number of these residents to an untimely death. A shameful blot on his record as chief executive that he has grudgingly acknowledged, but shown no contrition over. Making matters more interesting (in the most bizarre sense of the word) were:

1.       The book he authored on leadership.

2.       The Emmy award he won for his on-air leadership during the pandemic.

3.       The nomination he garnered to be in the running for Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”.

I’d like to see how well all of these “accomplishments” are being received by the families of those in elder care facilities who perished on his watch.

We’re told to believe the science, but when the facts start to change in a very dynamic situation, the establishment fallback position has been to stick with the orthodoxy of the day, rather than let the facts lead us to where we need to be. Blood samples from the Red Cross taken in December of 2019, showed remnants of the virus, or antibodies for the virus. This may be one reason why PCR tests (the dreaded nostril swab) are turning up positive with such great frequency. According to Dr. Harvey Rish, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University, the cycle thresholds of these tests get pumped up with the virus remnants or antibodies yielding false positives. These false positives then wind up bumping up the positivity rates at the local, state, and national levels. What this means, and it is significant, is that up to 53 million Americans may have previously contracted the virus.

Therapeutic drugs to treat this virus have become more than just a point of contention in this country, they’ve become a political football. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin recently held a hearing on this topic. He was attacked for having medical experts, who in some cases, questioned the rationale for vaccines, testify before his committee. His Democrat counterparts either didn’t attend, or gave opening statements and left. Not a single one stayed to ask any sort of questions of the witnesses, substantive, or otherwise. Most of these therapeutics are off patent drugs (i.e., generics), which means they’re cheap and plentiful. There’s no money to be made by big pharma or their shills in the medical establishment. Those that are being touted by the medical establishment are either still in development or under patent, meaning they’re making big $$ for their owners.  Think Remdesivir (Gilead Sciences) vs Hydroxychloroquine (generic drug). One only needs to look as far as their local doctor’s offices to see examples of this. Those informative charts and posters on the walls of exam rooms? Take a look at them the next time you’re in for a visit. They’re sponsored by some pharmaceutical company, or medical device manufacturer, hawking its wares for some affliction associated with those particular body parts/systems adorning the walls of the room. If you’ve ever bumped into one of these drug company reps while at the doctor’s office, they’re usually toting around a small piece of luggage that looks like a cross between a briefcase and an airline rollaboard. What’s in them, you may ask? Just samples and literature for whatever it is they’re supposed to be pushing at the time.

Up until FDA approval of the first vaccine last week, the process had been proceeding at a snail’s pace, which was a sore spot for the president. Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins University agreed with him on the pace of drug approval. To drive his point home, he made the observation that at the current death rates, approximately 34,000 Americans will have lost their lives while the FDA twiddled its thumbs and worked through a tediously slow and archaic process. The Brits and Canadians have a more streamlined process where they actually look at a drug as it’s going through the developmental and trial phases, thereby speeding up the approval process. This is why British medical authorities were the first to offer the vaccine to their countrymen.

Congressman Devin Nunes of California recently tested positive for the antibodies that indicated he had contracted the virus at some point in the past. What this meant was that he was a prime candidate to donate convalescent blood plasma, which helps those suffering from the virus to fight it off more effectively. He went on a local radio talk show to tell his story and encourage others who may have been in similar straits to donate. Somehow, the legacy media got hold of the story, completely distorted the entire thing and started reporting that he had contracted the virus. The media already didn’t like him, since he was the one who singlehandedly blew up the Russia collusion narrative and FISA abuse, among other things. Given his propensity to trip them up with the truth, something like this should have come as no surprise to a lot of folks.

This virus really did change a lot of things for Americans, and we’ve come to the point where we’d just like to put all of this behind us. In fact, if most of our politicos were lumps of coal, then right about now they’d be ready to turn into diamonds, given all the heat they’ve been taking and the pressure they’re under to open things up again, and put this virus in everyone’s rearview mirror.