The coronavirus outbreak has been so mishandled, it’s hard to believe it’s an accident.
It’s hard to believe that epidemiologists and politicians could be so inadvertently and uniformly wrong.
When every talking head is speaking contrary to the common sense evident to people at all levels of society, it strains credibility to believe that’s a coincidence.
So it leaves you wondering what’s really going on.
Over the last two months, as American liberty and prosperity were destroyed by a tidal wave of executive orders, what was the real agenda? And who was behind it?
Are we the victims of an effort to scuttle self-government and capitalism, or are doctors and politicians really that stupid? Are we being crashed from without, or have we rotted from within?
And will we ever find out?
With the press reduced to unquestioningly repeating covid talking points, and both political parties committed to playing the crisis to their electoral benefit, there is no likelihood of honest analysis of the coronavirus response either now or in the future.
But some things are clear.
Every projection of every outcome was wrong every time.
There was no piece of forecasting data that was ever right, either in terms of when or what would happen. And yet, horrifically crippling sanctions were put on American and world economies solely on the basis of these projections.
Further, though public health officials were routinely wrong, they were unquestioningly followed. Instead of being a voice in counsel, they were the deciders, given complete control in areas far beyond their professional and educational expertise.
And they promulgated a doctrine – flatten the curve through social distancing – which seemed designed to have the most negative and longest lasting impacts possible. Further, this was done not to save lives, but to manage workload at hospitals.
The same people who designed a hospital system inadequate for foreseeable need, demanded social strictures centered around hospital capacity.
While every other part of society suffered.
And their projections proved wrong. The surge hospitals were unnecessary, the Comfort has sailed home, we had enough ventilators, and total hospital occupancy is down even in the hardest-hit areas.
And total number of cases, even in New York City, are significantly below what they were projected to be with social distancing.
While several economic indicators – as the result of government-ordered shutdowns – are worse than they were during the depths of the Great Depression. Unemployment jumped 16 percentage points in five weeks, GDP dropped by nearly a third, the federal government deficit grew by at least $2 trillion, and tens of millions of businesses were ordered shut, many of them unlikely to ever reopen. Most significantly, the livelihoods of more than a hundred million Americans were disrupted by social-distancing orders.
It is likely the economic strength of the United States has been damaged for years to come, and our economic preeminence in the world is probably lost. And it’s likely that people will be sickened and die as the result of economic downturn and the social and personal stresses that go with it.
For what reason?
To save lives, the politicians claim.
Yet there is no indication that deaths anywhere in America are above year-to-date averages. And even the heartbreaking total of coronavirus deaths is, in a population of more than 320 million, a very small number. Each loss is a tragedy, of course, but death is a constant in a society as large as ours.
And unfortunately, the politicians and public health commissioners were unsuccessful at protecting likely victims in places of likely outbreak – elderly people in nursing homes. With 20 percent of deaths happening exactly where they would be most expected to happen, it’s mystifying that more wasn’t done to protect them.
And that they weren’t the focus of the entire effort since the start.
Elderly infirm people have overwhelmingly been the victims of this disease. Not only have they provided the largest number of deaths, they have done so from some of the smallest age cohorts.
But instead of focusing isolation efforts on those most at risk from the disease, politicians and doctors spread them across the entire society – increasing the social cost and decreasing the ultimate effectiveness. Instead of quarantining older people who had pre-existing conditions, the entire economy was quarantined, and elderly people continued to be warehoused in nursing homes with nothing other than visitor restrictions to protect them.
And then people were surprised when sick workers and covid-positive patients transferred from hospitals carried the virus to nursing homes, where it spread and killed like wildfire.
Social distancing as a means to flatten the curve didn’t just fail the elderly, it failed the society, and may well lead to more deaths than an unrestrained coronavirus would have.
Flattening the curve – which turned out to look nothing like any of the projections – delayed herd immunity and lengthened dramatically the period of coronavirus affliction. Social distancing put herd immunity on hold for the indefinite future, creating months or years of danger for the elderly and infirm.
Instead of the approach taken, those at risk should have been quarantined, and the disease should have been allowed to pass through the population. Most would not have noticed, some would have been sickened. It is unlikely any more would have died.
And the economy and our freedoms would have been preserved.
We would have herd immunity, and jobs.
Now we have neither.
And it’s hard for me to believe that’s an accident.
This move breaks the Trump economy, and likely will end the Trump presidency. It also advances the socialist, big government agenda of the progressive Left, and weakens the liberty and prosperity of the United States – another objective of the socialists. It’s almost like the global warming argument wasn’t working as a tool to break down the American people and economy, and this approach to the coronavirus came along.
And it’s hard to believe that’s an accident.