COVID ‘surge,’ COVID ‘uptick’ and leprosy — and so it begins

OPINION:

Headlines are ablaze with the latest whisperings, warnings, cautions and alerts about a summertime COVID-19 “uptick,” and worse, a summertime COVID-19 “surge,” and as the medical experts everywhere are advising: Keep a face mask handy; stay on the COVID-19 shot schedule; keep ears perked for further government recommendations. You know what that means, don’t you?

An important election is coming.

The groundwork must be laid for stay-at-home voting.

The people must be prepped for mail-in balloting.

And since Florida has gone so far Republican-voting rogue in recent times — what with all the fleeing of conservatives from liberal overlords during COVID for relocation to comparative Ron DeSantis-led freedom — extra precautions are needed; additional punishments must be inflicted. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just discovered, coincidentally enough, gasp, leprosy in the Sunshine State. And just as with summertime COVID, cases are surging. Caution is needed.

“Leprosy cases surging in Central Florida: CDC,” WESH wrote.

“Biblical disease spikes in Florida: CDC’s leprosy alert,” the New York Post wrote. (Hey, Joe Biden, how about closing the border then?)

“Leprosy may now be endemic in Florida, a report suggests,” NBC News wrote.

Ah, there’s that old scientific language that marked the COVID lockdown days — “suggests.” Alongside its equally wishy-washy, squishy-mushy tag word “potential,” America’s best and brightest of the bureaucrat classes have found they can get by with anything. A new study suggests COVID cases are caused by overcrowding in schools? — so schools get closed. A medical talking head announces that singing in church has the potential to spread COVID? — so churches must be closed. With the power of suggestion, anything goes; when the power of the “potential” rests in the hands of control-hungry politicians and their partners in taxpayer-funded science — the ability to seize individual liberty is endless, limitless, boundless.

More lockdowns may soon be coming. Or not — see what I did there? 

Either way, the prediction holds true.

So goes the field of modern medicine: floating suggestions, floating potentials are quite as sound as issuing clear, data-based truths — better, in fact. Unclear guidance gives cover for faulty predictions and guarantees the issuer of the guidance can’t be held accountable — and more than that, the issuer of the guidance grabs moral high ground for caring so much about humanity as to issue said guidance.

Lying Dr. Anthony Fauci, after all, may be the smoothest-talking model of obfuscation to have served the left in years. But he’s fawned. He’s worshipped. He’s called a hero to the people. Why? He cloaked his lies in a cover of concern for the health and safety of the people.

And secular, godless members of the media fell over themselves to bask in his glow and carry forth his lies.

“[COVID-tied] hospitalizations are going up,” said Kavita Patel, a policy director during the Obama administration who now serves as a talking head on medical issues for MSNBC, Breitbart reported. 

“I would just keep people on alert, that when you’re in those crowded spaces, think about the cost of colds and sometimes many people don’t have any symptoms, a mask can be your best friend. Keep it — [go] back in time, we had them in our pockets, in our coats and our backpacks. Time to bring them out again, especially as the school season starts. We don’t want to see kids missing school for things we could have prevented,” Patel said.

And so it begins.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE  or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.