Because
they’ve made a god of government, there’s seemingly always another low to which
liberals will stoop in order to help slow, sleepy Joe defeat Donald Trump in
November. Many of these lows involve the numerous nefarious reactions to the
Wuhan virus. Make no mistake about it, we have suffered an unprecedented loss
of jobs and businesses, the shutdown of schools, entertainment, and hospitals,
the mandating of masks and “social distancing,” and the like, not because of a
global pandemic, but because of our foolish and unprecedented reaction to a
global pandemic.
In other
words, much of what was “unprecedented” in the fight against the Wuhan virus
was simply unnecessary. As Tim Black at Spiked recently
put it, because of what leftism has wrought worldwide, we have turned
a pandemic into an apocalypse. Mr. Black writes,
To varying degrees, political elites, screamed on
by the media, have responded to the threat posed by this virus as if it is
world-ending. As if it demands the complete reorganisation of social and economic
life around the supreme principle of safety. As if there is no way back. They
treat it not as a nasty virus that poses a significant but manageable health
risk to certain sections of the populace. No, they treat it as a god-like
judgement on the old structures of social life, now deemed, in the jargon of
the day, unsafe and unsustainable.
This is what is unprecedented. Not the novel virus
itself. But the panicked, fear-laden and, in some quarters, gleefully
apocalyptic response.
Because
viruses are simply going to virus—not at all unprecedent—in order to keep the
fear and the panic high, American leftists in politics, academia, and the media
must regularly lie. This is especially the case as the lockdowns drag on and as
the actual evidence contradicts what those who have a vested interest in
keeping the Wuhan virus fear level high and the lockdowns in place are telling
us.
Probably
the most repeated lie in this evil episode is the near-endless reporting on
Wuhan virus “case counts.” As has
been noted multiple
times, these reports are filled with numerous deceptions. The
drive-by media in my home state of Georgia again provides a clear
example.
About a
week ago, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) headline declared,
“Georgia tops 300,000 cases; decline in new cases flattens.” The first two
sentences of the article report that “Georgia has surpassed 300,000 confirmed
coronavirus infections amid hints that a decline in new cases may be leveling
out. With totals reported Thursday, Georgia is close to 301,000 COVID-19
cases.”
The piece
downplays the more important facts that hospitalizations and deaths in Georgia
have long been on the decline with the supposed scary revelation that “the
seven-day rolling average of new cases has drifted up for several days, and
Georgia remains the state with the 12th most new cases per capita in the past
14 days, according to data kept by The Associated Press.”
Again,
without proper context, “300,000 confirmed coronavirus infections”--or any
number of confirmed coronavirus infections--is a near-meaningless number. It’s
akin to saying that 300,000 confirmed dollars has infected my bank account.
Anyone wanting the correct context of my personal finances would ask, “Okay,
over what period of time?” And, “How much is currently in your bank
account?”
The vast
majority of those 300,000 cases in Georgia saw the person infected require no
hospitalization and completely recover, or, more often than not, have no
symptoms whatsoever. The latter is especially true if the infected was a child.
What’s more, if it was a young person who tested positive, they were likely not
to be contagious. In other words, as multiple
studies have shown, children are in little to no danger from
the Wuhan virus, and, if they get the Wuhan virus, they present little to no
danger to those with whom they come in contact. The drive-by media almost
always ignores these facts.
In the
meantime, all across America, those hoping to help sleepy, slow Joe over the
November finish line—and others who are simply foolishly misguided—are
constantly using case counts to keep some version of a lockdown in place. As
some U.S k-12 schools, along with some colleges and universities, have now
reopened, the drive-bys are enthusiastically reporting student case
counts.
The
University of Alabama provides a great example here. Beginning in late August,
the AJC began to target what
they reported as a “spike in new coronavirus cases” that were supposedly
“threatening to derail on-campus classes at the University of Alabama.” The AJC
article continued:
The state’s flagship school reported 531 confirmed
cases among students, faculty and staff since classes resumed in Tuscaloosa
last week, according to an online COVID-19 dashboard that was unveiled Monday.
Another 35 cases were reported throughout the
greater UA System, which includes six cases at UAB Birmingham, eight cases at
UAB Huntsville and 21 cases at UAB Clinical Enterprise — for a total of 566
positive tests since Aug. 19, according to data.
So a few
hundred cases — again, with no context given — out of tens of thousands
of people was supposed to send us into a panic that would result in demands
that colleges and universities across Alabama shut down. And if not shut down,
then these schools were supposed to enact foolish, unnecessary, uncomfortable,
and expensive Wuhan virus measures (masks, social distancing, bans on
gatherings, and the like) that would make life difficult to miserable for most
of those impacted.
The AJC continued to perpetuate Wuhan virus
fear porn with multiple reports on cases
in Alabama’s universities. This culminated in a September 10 article that
reported “new coronavirus cases soar past 2,000” at the University of Alabama.
These scare tactics were not limited to Alabama universities. The AJC also produced multiple articles detailing Wuhan virus case counts — again
absent context and full of fear-porn — at the University of Georgia.
There was also an article gleefully reporting on the
University of South Carolina suspending students because of a “pandemic pool
party.”
Of course, the drive-by media
across the U.S. has played a similar game when it comes to schools and Wuhan
virus cases. Nowhere in the AJC — and I would wager in any other drive-by media
outlets — was this information presented (courtesy of Dr. Andrew Bostom on
Twitter):
So, as of
just days ago, with over 48,000 reported Wuhan virus cases at 37 different U.S.
universities, there have been only two hospitalizations and zero
deaths! Based on what we already know about young healthy people,
such data is totally unsurprising. Yet, based on this myriad of misinformation
and deceit, schools across America continue to force foolish mask mandates and
shut down in-person classes, sports, parties, meetings, and the like. Thus, for
students and their parents, the bigger problem is not the Wuhan virus pandemic,
but rather the Wuhan virus “CASEdemic”
constantly trumpeted by the drive-by media.
Whenever
there is a tragic case of a child who has died and tested positive for the
Wuhan virus, it is almost always the case that the child died with
the virus and not from the virus. Nevertheless, as has been documented multiple times already,
when a child has died and tested positive for the Wuhan virus, the media has
often grossly, selfishly, and deceptively used these terrible tragedies to push
their lockdown agenda.
In Michigan recently, no less than the Chief
Medical Executive — Joneigh Khaldun — fraudulently announced that she
was “so saddened to hear this week of a 2-month-old baby in Michigan who died because
of COVID-19 (emphasis mine).” However, the 2-month-old actually died of
a birth defect called gastroschisis, “a condition in which a baby is born with
intestines located outside the body.”
Such ugly fraud has been
perpetuated numerous times across the U.S. by the media, politicians, school
administrators, business executives, and medical personnel alike. Enough is
enough! These Wuhan virus lies are disrupting and destroying lives and
livelihoods. It’s long past time to end the lies and open the country!
(See this column at American Thinker.)
Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of
Politics, Science, Faith and Reason.
www.TrevorGrantThomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@TrevorGrantThomas.com
