Distancing Drivel, Shelter-Skelter, and Vaccine Voodoo

Have you seen or heard the latest report on social distancing? It seems that six feet just isn’t going to cut it anymore. According to the CDC and the Chinese—no laughing!—the aerosol transmission distance for the Wuhan virus “might be” four meters (a little over 13 feet). According to the study’s conclusions, “[T]he SARS-CoV-2 aerosol distribution characteristics in the GW [general ward] indicate that the transmission distance of SARS-CoV-2 might be 4 m.”

This is according to Zhen-Dong Guo, Zhong-Yi Wang, Shou-Feng Zhang, Xiao Li, Lin Li, Chao Li, Yan Cui, Rui-Bin Fu, Yun-Zhu Dong, Xiang-Yang Chi, Meng-Yao Zhang, Kun Liu, Cheng Cao, Bin Liu, Ke Zhang, Yu-Wei Gao, Bing Lu, and Wei Chen—the study’s authors. Thus, the question we must now ponder is, are we going to change our all-important (hear my sarcasm) “social distancing” guidelines for 330 million Americans based on what 18 Chinese communists now tell us “might be?”

I would be suspicious of any “study” that purported to tell me what “might” happen, especially when it comes to healthcare. However, if we’ve learned nothing else from the Wuhan virus, it’s that we can’t trust any numbers coming out of China related to the current worldwide pandemic. Whether or not it was done with malicious intent (don’t be shocked or surprised if it all was—we know some of it was), in the whole history of communism—whether China or the Soviet Union or Cuba or any other such regime—it could be argued that no greater damage has been done to the United States in such a short period of time by a communist regime than what the Wuhan virus has wrought these last three months.

There are countless reports—from The Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, USA Today, Breitbart, Bloomberg, the New York Post, and so on—that reveal that the Chinese long lied about what was happening in Wuhan and about how serious it was. No one—and I mean no one—with two brain cells to rub together should be surprised that godless communists would lie about anything. Of course, not all Chinese are liars, but because they stand against the Author of truth, it’s in the communist DNA—that is their worldview—to lie.

What’s more, the godless Chinese communists got their stooges at the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide cover for their lies. Worse still, as well-chronicled by The Federalist, the American media also gave cover to the lying communists. Because most of the American media is also rooted in godlessness, this as well should come as little surprise. Thus, there’s no way we should make public policy out of anything that comes from these misguided souls. But we have.

In the middle of March, it was widely reported that the Trump administration’s messaging on the Wuhan virus changed after a report on the virus, published on March 16 from the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. As most paying attention well know, it was this report that estimated 2.2 million U.S. deaths would result from the Wuhan virus unless drastic measures—“social distancing” and “sheltering in place,” which means closing schools, businesses, churches, and the like—took place.

The numbers for the report relied on a “transmission model” that is described in the report. What many probably don’t realize is that this modeling again relied on numbers from the Chinese. On March 30, 2020, the Imperial College of London published an article that described the “model based analysis” used to estimate “the severity of the coronavirus disease.” Time and again the article references how numbers were obtained from the Chinese.

For example, the “Methods” section of the article declares, “We identified information on the characteristics of 48 patients who died from COVID-19 in Hubei [Wuhan is the capital of Hubei], reported by the National Health Commission and the Hubei Province Health Commission website up to Feb 8, 2020.” Later, the article reveals, “Data on 70,117 PCR-confirmed and clinically diagnosed cases by date of onset in Wuhan and elsewhere in China from Jan 1 to Feb 11, 2020, were extracted from the WHO–China Joint Mission report.”

At the end of the article, in the “Results” section, it states, “However, given that the epidemic in China has since declined, our posterior estimate of the mean time from onset to death, informed by the analysis of aggregated data from China, is more precise.” How did they know that the “epidemic in China has since declined?” What led to this conclusion? I think it’s safe to presume such a conclusion was based on what the deceptive communist officials in China were (and are still) saying.

The Imperial College report resulted in particularly devastating “shelter in place” orders across the vast majority of the U.S. Because of these orders, schools, churches, and businesses have been closed, all entertainment—concerts, movies, little league sports, professional sports—have ceased. Some states and municipalities have gone so far as to ticket church-goers (even if they don’t leave their vehicles!), handcuff tee-ballers, expel non-mask-wearing bus riders, ban the sale of furniture, arrest solo surfers, mandate one-way sidewalks, and so on.

All of this because we’ve been led to believe that staying home “saves lives.” As I and others have more and more started to note, this is not the case. We are staying home to “flatten the curve,” but as Rush Limbaugh, himself, recently noted, “we didn’t flatten the curve to save lives.” We flattened the curve so as to not overwhelm the hospitals, the ICU rooms, and the like. However, as John Hinderaker at Powerline recently revealed, it seems this wasn’t even necessary.

In a post entitled, “We Never Needed to Flatten the Curve,” Hinderaker rightly concludes,

The theory behind curve-flattening is not that the virus will mysteriously disappear while we are all hunkered down, and we will emerge when it is safe to come out. That won’t happen…

We know now, however, that the COVID-19 virus was grossly overestimated, at least with respect to the demand its victims would place on hospitals…

…America’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed by the number of Wuhan flu sufferers, not even in New York City. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations falls well within the natural variability in flu hospitalizations that we always see from year to year.

Once again, government officials are making decisions with catastrophic effects on many millions of lives, on the basis of models that have proved to be wrong. The shutdowns should end tomorrow.

Now we are being told that, even though we’ve flattened the curve, even though the vast majority of hospitals are not overwhelmed, and some are near-empty, we still need to “shelter in place”—for many more months, according to some. Ezekiel Emanuel, the architect of Obamacare, recently insisted that we have “no choice” but to continue with our nation-wide shutdown. He added, “We cannot return to normal until there’s a vaccine. Conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, dinner in a restaurant, none of that will resume until we find a vaccine, a treatment, or a cure.” This will take, “realistically,” according to Emanuel, another “18 months or more.”

That foolish message seems to be resonating with some. A recent headline by ESPN declared, “Poll: Sports fans won’t attend games without coronavirus vaccine.” The poll referenced was conducted by Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business. According to the poll, of those who identified as sports fans (I’m not sure how that was determined.), 61% said they would not go to a game without a vaccine.

This comes on the heels of Kirk Herbstreit stating that, because we are “12 to 18 months from a vaccine,” he’ll “be shocked if we have NFL football this fall, if we have college football. I’ll be so surprised if that happens.” According to the New York Post, “Herbstreit added that if he was NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or the NCAA, he would shut down their upcoming football seasons.”

For a virus that is rarely worse than the flu for the vast majority who contract it, this is, of course, absurd thinking. According to the CDC, the overall hospitalization rate for the Wuhan virus is .0046%. For those 18-49 years old (the age range of virtually every college athlete), the hospitalization rate is only .0025%, and it is even lower for those younger. What’s more, assuming a Wuhan virus vaccine is about as effective as your typical flu vaccine, the effectiveness is likely to be quite poor.

The Wuhan virus lies and the foolish fearmongering must stop—or at least we must stop paying attention to them. It’s time for America to get back to church, work, school, and play!

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Socialism Breeds Tyranny and Disparity

After the fall of the Czarist government in 1917, Vladimir Lenin, founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, returned to Russia to seize power. The Marxists who would eventually rule Russia first met in 1898. Calling themselves the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party, the group would later split in 1903, and the Bolsheviks were born. Bolshevik means “majority;” however, in spite of this, Lenin knew that his party lacked the support of anywhere close to a majority (even after chanting “we are the 99!”) to replace the provisional government that followed the early days of the revolution.

By late 1917 the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and plunged Russia into a three-year civil war. The Bolsheviks’ efforts were not just military. As noted in The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, “The Bolsheviks were also fighting a political and social war to convince the people of Russia that socialism was the best system for them.”

For centuries, Russia was ruled by a Czarist autocracy (not to be confused with the Obama administration). At the turn of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Russians—more than 90% by some accounts—lived as nothing more than peasants, while the Russian elites—nobles, and so on—lived in extravagant luxury. Such inequality highly motivated the revolutionaries and quickly made them quite popular.

Led by Lenin and motivated by Marx, the Bolsheviks envisioned a classless society, thus private property was outlawed and confiscated. Land and industry was seized by the state or socialized. Banks, railroads, farms, and factories were nationalized. The Bolshevik Party soon became the Communist Party, and an all out propaganda campaign continued to preach the benefits of socialism.

Early on, realizing that, though the revolution had succeeded, they still had widespread enemies, the Bolsheviks established a police force, the Cheka (which later became the KGB), to combat their political opponents. Of course, Lenin never believed in a fairly elected government. He felt that those who had the best interests of the people at heart—he and his loyal supporters—should govern. Thus, as he, himself, had forecasted, Lenin resorted to violent suppression of those who opposed him.

Following Lenin, Stalin only escalated the persecution. Thus, the Russian people traded one type of tyranny and oppression for another. They traded one ruling class of elites—the aristocracy—for another: the Communist Party elite. Stalin’s successor was Leonid Brezhnev. Admiring her son’s massive vacation home, Brezhnev’s mother nervously remarked, “Well, it’s good, Leonid…but what will happen if the [Communists] come back?”

Ignoring history and common sense, “Occupiers” rail against the wealthy in America. “Ultimately, the bourgeoisie [capitalist ruling class] won’t go without violent means,” declared a speaker at an Occupy Los Angeles rally. He continued, “Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class. Long live revolution! Long live socialism!”

What fools! Never has so much wealth (and power) been concentrated in the hands of so few as there is under socialist regimes. The Soviet Union is the classic historical lesson. Occupiers decry capitalist “greed” yet ignore the greed of those who would use the force and power of big government to confiscate the wealth of one citizen to give it to another.

Never have so many lived under abject poverty as those suffering under socialism. Never have so many suffered and died as those who were subjected to socialist leaders claiming to have their “best interests at heart.” On the other hand, never have so many been lifted out of poverty and prospered as those with the economic freedom that capitalism allows.

Consider some of the richest Americans today. Bill Gates sprang from an upper-middle class family to become the wealthiest man in the world. Steve Jobs was adopted by a machinist and an accountant. Dropping out of college after only one semester, Jobs slept on the floor of friends’ homes and returned Coke bottles for food money. At his death, Forbes listed his net worth at $7 billion.

Sam Walton waited tables and later worked for JC Penny, making $75 a month. He borrowed money from his father-in-law to purchase his first store. His three surviving children each have a net worth of over $20 billion.

Time and again, these stories have played out in America. Only under the economic freedom seen in America can someone experience such a rise. These men (and women) have enriched not only themselves, but millions of other Americans along with them. Jobs have been created and communities built with the entrepreneurs that America empowers.

Now, of course, this is not to say that becoming a wealthy person is the highest ideal under American liberty. Also obviously, such liberty does not always mean that life is just and fair for everyone. However, as I have said before, and as history teaches us, the tyranny of big government is far worse than the sins of free men.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com