The experts have been warning of impending doom for two months, even using the phrase, “impending doom,” but cases have remained remarkably stable. Even the Neanderthals in Texas have seen their counts decline after they stopped wearing masks and had 40,000 spectators at a baseball game. What’s going on and why won’t the experts like Dr. Fauci concede they were wrong?
On March 30, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, went dramatically off script during a briefing from the White House COVID-19 response team. “I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said, growing visibly emotional. “We have so much to look forward to. So much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared.”
These fears were based on the notion that the United States, which had been leading the world in vaccine distribution by that point was about to follow Europe into a new spike in infections. “We are not powerless. We can change this trajectory of the pandemic. But it will take all of us recommitting to following the public health prevention strategies consistently while we work to get the American public vaccinated.”
To ensure there was no lack of clarity that this was in fact a personal, emotional plea rather a scientific conclusion, Dr. Walenksy laid it on quite thick. “I’m speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer. I so badly want to be done, I know you all so badly want to be done, we’re just almost there, but not quite yet. And so, I’m asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends.”
At the time, Democrat politicians, public health experts, and the media were very, very concerned about Texas. Two weeks earlier, the state had rescinded its mask mandate and eliminated other restrictions, efforts no-less than President Biden himself described as “Neanderthal thinking.” The data in Texas is starting to come in, however, and the experts couldn’t have been more wrong, regardless of how emotionally manipulative they were in making their case. On March 10, the day the mandate was lifted, the 7-day average of new cases was 4,909. As of April 18, it had declined to 3,374, a 31% drop.
By now, you probably know the script given we’ve been at this over a year . When the announcement was made, CNN predictably claimed that “Critics of the decision said it was too soon, since only a small percentage of the state’s population had been vaccinated — less than 7% at the time — and aggressively spreading variants of the virus may lead to another explosion of cases.” The New York Times just as predictably played up the controversy on a personal level, literally traveling to Texas and finding people who disagreed with the decision, noting that Governor Abbott had “inflamed a tension” and there was “intense resistance across the state” for merely trying to get back to something resembling normal normal and allowing people to do normal things like go to a baseball game. “As Texas opened more widely, many workers — in supermarkets, restaurants, bars and retail stores — described growing frustrations and fears over how that balancing act was playing out in their own lives. With the state closed, they were the ones losing tips and hours of work, if they did not lose their jobs altogether. But with the state opened, they would be the ones to contend with the risks of maskless customers and crowds.”
Of course, they too cited someone to lambaste Governor Abbott’s decision to eliminate restrictions. “It is inevitable we will see hospitalizations and deaths that we would not otherwise see,” claimed Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official for the county that includes Houston. “We know there is an end in sight. We know the masks work. We know the vaccine distribution is steadily increasing. So why cause hospitalizations and deaths unnecessarily?”
Of course, now that none of that has happened these same “news sources” are silent. Apparently, it wasn’t as inevitable as the word normally means. To my knowledge, no one has asked if anyone wants to retract or revise their explosive statements. No reporter has asked our emotional CDC director whether she’s still “scared” or has a sense of “impending doom.” While there remain a few pockets of high coronavirus activity in certain states, the overall picture across the United States belies the doom and gloom narrative peddled almost on a daily basis.
The truth is that daily new cases and the moving average starting plunging in February for whatever reason. On January 9, there was a peak 3-day moving average of 282,521. The number declined to 65,870 by February 17, and has remained in that band for 2 months. For example, the 3-day moving average was 62,803 on April 18.
Two things are important to keep in mind. First, no one really knows why cases plummeted so sharply between January and February. There were no major policy changes or medical advances during this period, and it’s widely assumed that the vaccine wasn’t yet distributed enough to make that dramatic a difference. All we know is that it happened, and the “experts” didn’t predict it. Second, similar to the first point, no one really knows if cases will ultimately rise again. Some believe the vaccine is so widely available now, any surge would be stopped in its tracks. Others disagree.
Of course, those who disagree get all of the attention among our doom and gloom public health professionals and the mainstream media regardless of whether they are right or wrong. They’ve been predicting this surge for more than a month and a half based on the usual shaming of Americans, opening up too soon, relaxing restrictions too soon, traveling too much, etc., and yet they’ve been wrong the entire time.
If the surge does materialize at some point, however, you can be certain it will be seen as complete vindication. I think a future surge could be the result of some altogether different virus and the media would still be dutifully following them around, waxing eloquent about their foresight. Their track record and lack of answers simply doesn’t matter. Consider the exchange between Jim Jordan and Dr. Anthony Fauci in Congress last week.
Jim Jordan is a prominent Republican Congressman attempting to get basic answers on behalf of the American people. He asked, simply, “What metrics, what measures, what has to happen before Americans get more freedom?” One year into 15-days to slow the spread, one would think this question and its answer would be top of mind for everyone. The good Dr. Fauci, however, completely punted, offering nothing but gibberish. “My message, Congressman Jordan, is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can to get the level of infection in this country low that it is no longer a threat. That is when. And I believe when that happens, you will see –”
Frustrated with that non-answer on every front — neither the number of people that need to be vaccinated or what constitutes a low level of infection — Mr. Jordan interrupted. “What determines when? What? What measure? I mean, are we just going to continue this forever? When do we get to the point? What measure, what standard, what objective outcome do we have to reach before Americans get their liberty and freedoms back?”
Dr. Fauci refused to answer again, completely dodging the question. “You know, you’re indicating liberty and freedom. I look at it as a public health measure to prevent people from dying and going to the hospital.” After an exchange where Dr. Fauci accused Mr. Jordan of making it “a personal thing,” as if asking when his constituents can return to church is to his personal benefit, the doctor finally said, “Arbitrarily, we don’t know what that number is, probably less than 10,000 per day. Right now, it’s up at a high enough level that, in fact, if you look at the weekly average, it’s starting to creep up.”
At the risk of resorting to an overused phrase, let’s unpack this ridiculous response. First, “arbitrarily,” what does that mean a year into the pandemic? The number that’s safe is arbitrary? He’s just making it up? “We don’t know what that number is,” how is that possible? We’ve been at it over a year, and they have no idea what threshold is safe to open? Isn’t that like the first thing you would figure out? “It’s starting to creep up,” does he not realize this is a false statement?
In short, Dr. Fauci refused to answer the question, then issued a non-answer, then said outright that the public health experts have no idea what they are talking about, and finally lied about the data.
And yet this is the man lauded by the media for leading the nation’s response to coronavirus. As such, it should go without saying that the media and the Democrats quickly sided with Dr. Fauci. Joe Scarborough proclaimed that “No personal liberties were taken away,” making one wonder where he’s been all year. Politico reported that Maxine Waters, radical Democrat, believes Dr. Fauci was “mistreated.” Vanity Fair said “Jim Jordan Trips Over His Own Asshole.” CNN claimed “Jim Jordan yells at Fauci during heated exchange.” The Hill rushed to report Fauci’s side of the story, claiming comments like Jordan’s are “quite frustrating.”
This is their response when Dr. Fauci can’t answer the most basic question imaginable about the end of the pandemic. It’s also important to keep in mind precisely how ridiculous his 10,000 positive tests per day figure actually is. No test is completely accurate, whether from human error or simply the margin of error in the test itself. We’re currently conducting about 2,000,000 tests per day. If merely .5% of them are false positives, we would be at 10,000 positive results everyday even if there was no infection. Meaning, coronavirus could be gone in its entirety, not a single active case in the entire country, and we would still likely see somewhere around 10,000 positive results per day.
Even worse: The good doctor and the other health experts surely know this. There is no other explanation than that they are intentionally setting the bar so low that it can never be reached. Someone should ask them why.
In the meantime, welcome to the permanent pandemic, where the virus could be eradicated entirely and we’ll still be social distancing forever. Think I’m exaggerating? The Associated Press reported that Oregon is considering permanently extending it’s mask mandate, but I am sure those who care about our freedoms have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 