Oracle

It's really hard to be elevated to oracle status—particularly when most of your policies and predictions (along with your early reliance of grievously inaccurate "scientific" models) have been wrong or noticeably off-base. 

But none of that stops the Team Apocalypse's trained hamsters in the media from breathlessly hanging on ever word uttered by Dr. Anthony Fauci. To cement his status, the hamsters continually characterize Fauci as this country's "foremost epidemiology expert." I suppose that's possible, but then again, an appeal to authority (Fauci's) means little when the authority is as often wrong as he is right.

Part of Fauci's allure is that "he stands up to" the hated Donald Trump (even though Trump has been no more incorrect in his prognostications and recommendations than Fauci). But another element of Fauci worship is that he is a public health catastrophist, making recommendations that might work in a public health vacuum, but fail miserably when the nation's overall 'health' must be measured in a real world that demands that people put food on the table, go to work, enjoy the outdoors, participate in sports, send kids to school, combat depression and other psychological illnesses (precipitated by a total shut-down), go to the hospital for the myriad conditions that affect us all, and otherwise live their lives.

Recently, Fauci praised New York stating: “New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly by doing the things [i.e., draconian shutdown] that you’re talking about.”

Hmmm. They "did it correctly?"

That would be the same New York that was the epicenter of the virus in April/May with over 32,000 deaths (about 22 percent of the nation's death toll) with only 6 percent of the nation's population. That occurred with a complete shutdown.

That would be the same New York that re-inserted 80-plus year old virus patients back into nursing homes that house the most vulnerable population—the result ... at least 4,500 needless deaths and probably more. Other states did NOT do this.

That would be the same New York whose Governor believed flawed epidemiological models and demanded 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators and then needed only 6,000; who demanded a hospital ship and the conversion of the Javits Center for additional beds. Both facilities remained virtually empty.

That would be the same New York City whose weathier population fled, immigrating to other states where they likely spread the virus.

That would be the same New York that has been devastated economically, and has suffered from severe riots that in part, at least, can be attributed to its shutdown.

Matt Margolis writes:

Last month, The Wall Street Journal spoke with “nearly 90 front-line doctors, nurses, health-care workers, hospital administrators, and government officials, and reviewed emails, legal documents, and memos, to analyze what went wrong” in New York, and identified seven missteps: improper patient transfers; insufficient isolation protocols; inadequate staff planning; mixed messages between state government, city government, and hospital officials; over-reliance on government sources for key equipment; procurement-planning gaps; and Incomplete staff-protection policies.

But, yeah, Dr. Tony tells us that New York "did it right" because he loves, loves, loves draconian shutdowns. Naturally, he;'s a fan of Governor Andrew Cuomo who did just that.

With Fauci as their oracle, the trained media hamsters gleefully trumpet the fact that Florida (with a GOP governor) is now seeing more virus "cases" than New York. What they fail to note is that FL has had less than 6,000 total deaths (almost half are people 80+ years old with co-morbidities) out of a population of 20 million. One-fifth the number of deaths as New York. 

The hamsters also fail to note that even with large increase in "cases," the length of hospital stays and the overall death rate nationwide is going down week over week. 

But now, the Oracle is all about "cases." Maybe he should spend a moment and provide his acolytes with a bit of scientific and statistical context. Nah, that's not the job of an oracle.

UPDATE-1:

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Team Apocalypse modifies its catastrophist narrative daily to maximize fear, uncertainty and doubt. Over the weekend, the narrative has been modified to criticize the fact that test results take too long to process. That according to the Team is somehow a failure at the national level. Talking heads note that almost half the cases are now asymptomatic, and therefore any delay at all could mean that those asymptomatic cases could be infecting others. The humanity!

Let's deconstruct this.

First, the fact that cases show absolutely no symptoms is a good thing. First, it means that the viral load for the person is meager or that the strain of the virus has become less virulent. In addition, the more people who contract the virus, the more quickly we'll reach herd immunity.

But let's assume that Joe Biden is appointed Medical tzar (a frightening thought), takes control, and magically provides tests that provide instant results. I mean on the spot—either you have COVID-19 or you don't, and you'll know within seconds. Sadly, that provides little real benefit. 

You test negative, but on your way out of the testing center you come into contact with a person who does have the virus and you're infected. Now you have the virus and you're asymptomatic or you have very mild symptoms and think it's just allergies. What good did the INSTANT test do for you?

So what will Team Apocalypse recommend—testing for every citizen, every day for months on end. I think even Dr. Anthony Fauci would agree that that's ridiculous, but ... maybe not.

UPDATE-2:

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This rant by Stephen Kruiser encapsulates the way of lot us who are NOT on Team Apocalypse feel about the current status of the COVID-19 crisis:

I’m so old I remember when it was a good thing to have a healthy and inherent lack of trust for government officials. Now we are supposed to be worshiping at the Altar of Fauci and not asking any questions lest we be accused of wanting to create a wholesale COVID slaughter.

Clarifying once again: I am aware that this a highly contagious virus and that COVID-19 cases have been spiking this past month. I’m not minimizing or dismissing anything.

However, even that discussion has been a dishonest one. We’re supposed to believe that fifty people in a bar or a hundred people in a church are the cause for the uptick but that tens of thousands of people protesting and rioting is perfectly safe. 

Dishonesty and gaslighting has been the norm since the virus struck in earnest in March. All of the hard facts (not just those selected to increase hysteria), context, and yes, "science" have been virtually non-existent.

The catastrophist narrative began, I suspect, as an understandable effort to frighten the public purposely in order to "slow the spread," but quickly morphed into the media-driven effort to encourage click or viewership 24-7. It then further transformed as politicians in cities and states who became "petty tyrants" decided they could control peoples' lives and livelihoods on a whim. Finally, the entire COVID-19 milieu became toxic once Team Apocalypse realized that the virus and the shutdown could be used to defeat Trump and take power.

That's where we are. It's not a good place to be.