Mutating the Narrative

Team Apocalypse is like the Energizer Bunny among catastrophists. 

• No matter how many false predictions the Team makes (e.g., "we'll have well over 2 million dead in the USA"); 
• No matter how badly it mangles the voluminous COVID-19 data collected (e.g., "early data indicates a real danger for children, so we've got to close schools"); 
• No matter how many calls for lockdowns result in no change in either case numbers (a phony metric if there every was one) or deaths (e.g., "lockdowns work to stop the spread"); 
• No matter how many of the Team's experts refuse to look at societal and economic impacts (think: Anthony Fauci, MD); 
• No matter how many media stories were falsely reported to make their hated political opponent look bad ...

Team Apocalypse just keeps going and going. 

Even as the Team predicted (wrongly, of course) that vaccines wouldn't be available until late in 2021, a public/private partnership, effectively managed by the Trump administration, produced a set of efficacious vaccines that are now being widely distributed. The Team, never able or willing to admit it was wrong (even though it's almost ALWAYS wrong) insists that its Democrat politicians (blue state governors and blue city mayors) and of course, a corrupt, dishonest and compliant media continue lockdowns and school closures—destroyed lives and livelihoods along the way.

But fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) have begun to abate, and signs of public pushback are becoming more and more evident. The quasi-totalitarian dictates of blue state governors and blue city mayors have become a catalyst for public anger, even as their inefficient distribution of vaccine doses in blue states is being kept quiet by their media flunkies.

So Team Apocalypse adapts and their narrative mutates, just as the virus has. The Team, desperate to ratchet FUD back up (at least until a confused Joe Biden can be sworn into office and then characterized as the blue savior of us all), continues to obfuscate when deaths are discussed, allowing people to think that deaths among people under 50, as unfortunate as they are, are anything but statistical edge cases (just as flu deaths among the same cohort are edge cases). Public health "experts" like Dr. Anthony Fauci, a man whose catastrophist predictions were and continue to be uniformly inaccurate, continues to be the poster boy for the Team. And of course, now that vaccines are available (at least a year ahead of the Team's predicted schedule), all the Team  can now do is complain that distribution isn't fast enough. The team warns of a "mutated virus," as if that is at all unusual (it is not). One of the Team's favorite media outlets, The Atlantic, writes:

“A new variant of the coronavirus is spreading across the globe. It was first identified in the United Kingdom … officials announced that America’s first case of the variant had been found in the United States, in a Colorado man with no history of travel, an additional case was found in California.”

Oh my, let's lockdown the country until, oh, say, 2025.

Comically, national "news" outlets (yet another adjunct to Team Apocalypse) are continuing their non-stop criticism of Florida (ironically, a place where life has returned to some semblance of normal—businesses, stores, beaches, parks and restaurants are open, most people are out and about, schools are in session) along with its Governor, Ron DeSantis—the Team's public enemy #1. Taking bias to a new level (if that's even possible), the hamsters grudgingly admit that vaccines are now being distributed to front line medical personnel AND to seniors over 65 in FL. But the hamsters breathlessly report that people had to stand in "long lines" (the temp yesterday was a balmy 78 deg. F) in cities like Ft. Myers to get vaccinated. The nonsensical implication is that somehow DeSantis has failed.

Oh ... by the way, in blue CT, and other northeastern states, seniors over the age of 65 won't even have a chance to get a vaccination until sometime in February. I doubt whether anyone in today's "long lines" will wait that long in the FL sunshine to get their shot. I noticed that no one in line had a sleeping bag or a tent.

Taking a broader view, Richard Fernandez writes:

The coronavirus pandemic redistributed power and economic advantage on a vast scale. The advent of vaccines not only creates new political opportunities, it also renders the older ones, like those involving masking and lockdowns, obsolete. The narratives like ‘the virus must mutate.’

The biggest difference between today’s covid and the far more lethal Spanish Flu, the Atlantic notes, is cultural awareness. The magazine didn’t even notice the 1918 virus at the time. Nobody’s going to make that mistake again.

It's the Team's job to keep the virus front and center, terrorizing the public as it goes. Mutating the narrative is their only way forward.

UPDATE:

Now that blue state governors are able to get COVID-19 vaccine due the the success of the Trump administration development effort (you know, the administration that the Dem's told us repeatedly was incompetent in addressing the virus ... that administration), they're struggling with "equitable" distribution. That is, distributing the vaccine in a way that keeps outrage among the woke to a minimum, tamps down accusations of racism, and is otherwise "fair." As the blue Govs ponder the best woke approach, vaccine sits on the shelf, unused. Typical.

And while red state Govs have already begun widespread distribution to the most vulnerable populations (e.g., seniors over 65), the sainted Gov. Andrew Cuomo has decided that more regulations are in order BEFORE vaccine is distributed widely. So ... he has issued another Executive Order that indicates that anyone who distributes the vaccine in a way that conflicts with his priorities will be subject to revocation of their state license and ... get ready for it ... a million dollar fine! 

So ... if vaccine that hits its expiration date at the end of the day sits unused, better to throw it out than give it to anyone who is available. Makes perfect sense if you're Cuomo, the guy who decided early last year to place COVID-19 infected patients back in nursing homes. BTW, New York's death rate is twice the national average, but who's counting.

Of course, the woke defended Cuomo:

So, according to woke "logic," the government is struggling to distribute vaccine, but what we need is more government and even more bureaucracy (a national health service) because even more intrusive government control of medical assistance and even more regulations will somehow make it all better. Okay ... got it.