OPINION:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a new directive for American citizens this week. Cancel Thanksgiving! Don’t travel. Don’t visit friends or relatives. That advice is coming from Henry Walke, the CDC Covid Incident Manager. His official quote is as follows. “With Thanksgiving approaching our hearts and minds turn to visiting family and friends. Amid this crucial phase, the CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period.”
This is the same CDC that asked us last spring to stand down for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” How’d that work out?
Airlines, hotels, car rentals and others in the hospitality industry are understandably less than enthusiastic about the CDC recommendation. Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest travel season of the year in America. That said, we must follow the science, right? Are we though? What is the science really telling us?
A recent study from scientists at Harvard University shows that with the combination of added safety measures onboard airplanes along with advanced aircraft ventilation using hospital-grade HEPA filters, the risk of contracting COVID-19 while taking a flight is very low, lower in fact than the risk you may face going to the grocery store. If the researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health tell us the science is safe on airlines, why would the bureaucrats at the CDC tell us not to travel?
The answer is that COVID has become the political pandemic.
There is no question that COVID-19 exists. Real people have gotten ill and too many have died. Any number of deaths, no matter how big or small, is terrible, but the question has become how much has this pandemic been manipulated for political purposes? The answer is alarming.
The Democrats and Joe Biden created a simple recipe on their quest for the White House. Use the pandemic to plant the seeds of fear throughout society, then saddle Donald Trump as the cause of the virus. The equation of COVID=Trump was extremely effective and the media was all too happy to fan the flames.
Trump rallies were called “super spreaders” and blamed for pushing the sickness far and wide. Black Lives Matter protests on the other hand, with thousands of maskless angry marchers, were acceptable. When the governor of North Carolina warned Republicans it was unlikely they would be allowed to hold their convention in his state, Trump and the RNC moved plans for the event to Jacksonville, Florida. Almost immediately the media began reporting on flare ups in the sunshine state. By an amazing coincidence, It was only after Trump agreed not to hold a Florida convention that the reports magically ceased. Summertime saw a decided lag in the numbers of infections in most locations but in the fall run-up to election day, the media highlighted positive tests in a variety of states, all but ignoring the simultaneous fact that hospitalizations were actually dramatically down.
The pathetic pandering on the issue was highlighted best when within 36 hours of the Associated Press calling the U.S. presidency for Joe Biden, hope and optimism became the word regarding the coronavirus. Pfizer, Moderna and others announced successful tests of their vaccines. It was great news of course, but the stark difference in media reporting could hardly have been more blatant. It looked largely like the Biden presidency would launch in January without the fear instilled upon all of us for the past nine months.
But wait! President Trump decided to mount legal challenges to the vote count in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and elsewhere. In Georgia, for example, votes that had been “inadvertently lost” were suddenly discovered in multiple counties, making one wonder if there could be more “lost” votes out there. In Pennsylvania, a judge had changed the rules for what and when ballots could be accepted. That’s the job of the legislature, not a judge. In Michigan, Wayne County has a history of questionable election practices. The number of voters and the number of votes didn’t match up. Republican observers were shut out of the counting process and a variety of irregularities occurred. Surely, every American wants an accurate count, done by the letter of the law, and Mr. Trump is demanding exactly that.
Whoa! Mr. Trump is still a factor? Some people actually believe in allowing the legal system to hear evidence and make decisions based on that evidence?
Time to roll out the fear again. If Mr. Trump is still a story, we must make people as miserable as possible.
The Democrat governor of Michigan shut down the state again this week. Restaurants and bars? Closed. High schools and colleges? Closed. No more in-class learning, only virtual learning will be allowed. What happened to following the science? 99.98% of student aged humans are just fine even when exposed to the virus, but rather than keep them together in a learning environment, Gov. Whitmer wants to disburse the students back home, where ever that may be, to interact with grandma and grandpa. The logic of that decision is non-existent and certainly doesn’t follow the science, but it scores high on the political panic meter.
The Democrat governor of California issued a decree that no one could get together with more than a couple friends and even then, everyone must wear masks. Then he went to a big, loud, maskless party. The Democrat governor of Pennsylvania commanded that residents wear masks, even in their own homes. New lockdowns have come from Democrat governors in Oregon, New York and elsewhere.
Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has prohibited people from celebrating Thanksgiving together or having friends or family come to their homes. “Social gatherings are groups of individuals, who are not members of the same household, congregated together for a common or coordinated social, community, or leisure purpose — even if social distancing can be maintained. This prohibition includes indoor and outdoor gatherings, planned and spontaneous gatherings, and public and private gatherings.”
Are all these governors following the science? In a word, no.
A large-scale, highly scientific 2020 Danish study finds no evidence that wearing a face mask significantly minimizes people’s risk of contracting COVID-19. In fact, a CDC report released in September shows that masks and face coverings are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19, even for those people who consistently wear them. They may make people feel like they are doing something and make the governors appear to be taking command, but there isn’t meaningful scientific evidence to back them up.
Why then the drama?
Prior to the RNC move of their 2020 convention to Jacksonville, I predicted the media would go into a frenzy about Florida COVID-19 cases. I was right. I further predicted that when the GOP cancelled their convention the Florida reports would subside. I was right. I predicted that immediately prior to the presidential election the U.S. media would breathlessly report on coronavirus. Again I was right. I also predicted Mr. Biden would win and when he did the media would suddenly see blue skies ahead regarding the pandemic. The accuracy of that prediction was dizzying. Just 36 hours after the Associated Press called the presidency for Joe Biden, the media flooded online, print and broadcast with stories of Pfizer, Modern and others having vaccines that were as high as 95% effective. The good news was only reported after Mr. Biden was projected to win.
I have one more prediction. When Team Trump inevitably exhausts their legal effort and begrudgingly admits Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, the panic, fear and all that goes with both will suddenly disappear from daily news reporting. Optimism will return and by Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, the media and governors from coast to coast will express unparalleled hope for the future. COVID-19 — and Trump — will be in the rearview mirror.
This entire pandemic has been shamelessly exploited for political pandering
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