15 Days

This past week marked the third anniversary of "15 days to stop the spread"—the most catastrophically wrong implementation of a public health policy in history. Instead of firing Anthony Fauci, MD when he recommended a national economic and school lockdown, then-President Donald Trump acquiesced—partly because a panicked and partisan propaganda media would have skewered him as a "murderer" had he done the right thing and resisted Fauci et al and their insane recommendations.

Every day during the week beginning March 16, 2020, I wrote a post critical of the lockdowns and other covidiocy pushed by politicians and their media. Here are a few excerpts:

March 16, 2020:  "Now that COVIS-19 "testing" is coming on line in a big way, the Democrats and their trained hamsters in the media need to pivot to the next topic that will increase fear, uncertainly and doubt (FUD) among members of the general public. After all, it's very important for the media (and their Dem masters) to keep the hysteria dial maxed out. No context, under any circumstances! Use language such as "cases skyrocketed!!!!" rather than a more measured, "As expected, there was an increase in cases as the progression of the virus continues."

"One of the topics recently chosen to spike FUD is the availability of "ventilators"—medical devices that are necessary in the rare cases when COVID-19 progresses into a full-blown pulminary threat (particularly among the old who have been admitted to an ICU)."

March 17, 2020:  "The response from the politically correct crowd would be that we've learned and are trying to damp the spread of COVID-19. There is some truth to that but as I noted in the body of this post, there are costs as well. When Hoyt writes: "The economic and societal disruption from the reaction to coronavirus is likely to be far worse to whatever damage the virus does," she's not far off the mark." 

March 18, 2020:  "At a recent news conference during which he announced near-draconian measures (school closures, shuttering of bars and restaurants, cancellation of any event with more than 10 people, etc., etc.) NY Governor Andrew Cuomo was asked whether the potential economic and societal damage caused by those measures (and related federal measures) had been weighed against the threat of COVID-19. With righteous indignation, Cuomo responded that when human lives (particularly the most vulnerable) are at stake, other costs have relatively little weight.

"Really?

"... yes, Governor Cuomo, it is important to weigh the unintended by still very real damage (e.g., small business bankruptcies, mass unemployment, loss of life savings, economic damage to a middle class that has recently been doing very well) caused by our collective reaction to COVID-19.

"No doubt, some consideration of these things has been done (witness the usual Congressional bills that "protect" the constituencies that have been impacted), but it now appears that no leader (including Donald Trump) has the political courage to say, let's step back and consider the costs associated with shutting down the U.S economy. Worse, it appears that the "temporary" restrictions that have been put into place will now last not for weeks, but potentially, for months. [Incredibly, even I could have conceived that covidiocy would last for years!!] No politician wants to be the first to say—enough! [Turns out that one was—Gov. Ron DeSantis of my state of FL] They fear a fear-mongering media that is out of control and will second-guess any "uncaring decision" that "kills the elderly." 

March 19, 2020:  "As the economy slowly comes to a partial halt, the opinion of most politicians, virtually all of the media and many health-case professionals is that saving lives MUST be our #1 priority. In the abstract, that view is hard to argue, but it's critically important when adopting policies, legislation, and mass restrictions on people, businesses, and society as whole to base decisions on accurate data—not emotion, or anecdotes, or data that has been tainted in a variety of different ways.

"John P.A. Ioannidis (Professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University) has written a detailed paper on the importance of statistical analysis before potentially damaging economic and societal decisions are made by our current leadership at the local, state and federal levels. He writes: The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco." 

March 19, 2020 (a second post):  "I thought (well actually, I had hoped) that the mainstream media would recognize that their COVID-19 scoreboards, their hyperventilating use of words like "skyrocketed" and "soared" when referring to an absolutely predictable increase in COVID-19 cases and yes, deaths, their consistent use of worst case scenarios and provably incorrect statistics (like the canard that COVID-19 has a 6.35% morbidity, and their uber-partisan treatment of Donald Trump's handling of this crisis (e.g., that he called COVID-19 a hoax—and outright lie, or that he told Governors they were "on their own" in getting ventilators—another outright lie) would abate, and these so-called "journalists" would recognize their responsibility to our nation and tone it all down. Nope."

March 20, 2020:  "It's time—RIGHT NOW—for local, state and federal leadership to come to an understanding that the cure they have concocted may become far worse than the disease they are trying to battle. It's reasonable to argue that they have acted with the best of intentions, but that doesn't necessarily mean the the best of outcomes will be the result. If they inadvertently destroy our economy and severely impact the lives of tens of millions of working people—all in an effort to flatten the viral spread—they will have accomplished little.

Those at greatest risk are people over the age of 65 with a compromised health profile. And even among that group, COVID-19 is NOT Ebola. The vast, vast majority of seniors who contract the virus will recover. And the vast, vast majority of seniors are not selfish. They recognize that life has risks, including the occasional worldwide viral pandemic (no ... COVID-19 is hardly "unprecedented"), and turning the country and the economy upside down is not the best strategy for their children, their grandchildren, or the future in general."

Those of us who recognized the damage that insane policies driven by Covid hysteria would cause and who were near 100% correct from the beginning, tried ... we really tried to sound the alarm. Thinking back, it was like watching a slow motion train wreck. Horrifying and disgusting at the same time. 

And today, the same morons who did all of the damage are still in positions of authority; still claim they did the right thing, still continue their virtue signalling, and still have paid no personal price for the damage they have done.