THE ENDLESS COVID CRISIS

 No wonder people in Covidland  are confused by ever shifting pronouncements on the pandemic. A few weeks ago when I went to a supermarket on Long Island virtually no one was wearing a mask. Today everyone was sporting one, so I had to go back to the car to search for a mask. There is no point in rocking the boat about this sort of thing. 

A few weeks ago I also had Covid despite having been vaccinated three times. I was sick for a few days and then it went away, but to be on the safe side I quarantined at my country house in order to avoid infecting anyone else. My latest bloodwork now shows I have the antibody. It is quite possible that had I not been so vaccinated it could have been far worse, and I might have wound up in the hospital, or on my way to the Covid underworld.

The Omicron variant is apparently quite contagious, and some sort of response is required. The question is whether extreme regulations are necessary, while also upending various rights. There is no easy answer to this, but clearly this administration is clueless and its vacillation and shifting positions have both confused and alienated the public. If this continues, if you know the Greek alphabet we will soon be nearing Ωmega, or the end, period. 

They came into office blaming the previous administration for the number of apparent Covid deaths, notwithstanding the fact that vaccines were developed in record time and travel restrictions put in place. Yet at the same time they were imposing heavy controls on Americans, in terms of testing, vaccines, and protections, they have allowed a continuing flow of illegal immigrants to enter the country without testing any of them. This is insanity. They claimed they would get control of the epidemic and mitigate its impact, yet last year under their watch the number of deaths exceeded the previous year. 

But the numbers may be exaggerated by other conditions at the time of death, and its attribution to Covid may have something to do with reporting incentives. No one really knows. What the people do know at this point is that very few “leaders” and “experts” really  know what they are talking about, and no one trusts the government any more. 

The severe disruption of many lives due to government policies is incalculable. But few of the people making and supporting these decisions are affected by them.  Those who work for the government, in academia, the media, big corporations, finance, etc. haven’t paid any price. The burden has been born by the working people and industries they are employed in, which have born the brunt of all the attempts to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. These are mostly small businesses such as restaurants, as well as the hospitality and travel industries. Meanwhile some big businesses have actually benefited. Clearly the effects have been uneven.

In a rational world the government would have targeted expenditures to those actually hurt by the pandemic, like the ones mentioned above. They had real costs and losses due to government policies that were designed to stem the spread of the disease. Instead the government passed out money to everyone, over and over, at far, far greater cost than an intelligent approach would have required. The consequences of this mindless beneficence will be heavy going forward. 

Yet simultaneously this same regime went out of its way to punish people who refuse to comply with its mandates. Not only have a vast number of people lost their jobs as a result, they have even been denied unemployment insurance! Meanwhile the regime’s client teachers union member have continued to be paid in many areas without doing any work.  Different standards for different people; and don’t forget our pampered illegal aliens. This is obscene and is indicative of an administrative state out of control. 

There are some states that have managed to maintain the constitutional freedoms we have inherited, but the federal government is hopelessly incompetent, arbitrary, inconsistent, wasteful, and destructive. 

There is much to be undone here and entire agencies that must be upended and reconstructed, and people needlessly punished must be compensated. That is certainly just and only the beginning steps necessary to restore legitimacy and confidence in this government. Too many of the ruling circles are clueless as to the revolutionary situation they are fomenting on the ground, while at the same time sending out an army of agents to monitor and harass “domestic terrorists” like parents and veterans. 

The people have lost confidence in all our institutions across the board, so what is left? The upcoming election tsunami will be the last chance to address these conditions and urgently implement reforms, for if they fail again this time, life as we have known it in this great republic will be over. 

THE ENDLESS COVID PANDEMIC

 I've been pretty sick since a little before the end of last year. Once I stopped throwing up and got my temperature down I was able to function, though very lethargically. I am better now but I've been isolating myself at my summer house because it is almost certainly COVID,  and one of my doctors is ordering the antibody test to confirm. 

I was vaccinated three times, and it is possible it was either not so effective or it prevented me from coming down with something far worse. I don't know, and I think nobody really knows. That is a big problem. This whole thing has degenerated into a disastrous situation where trust has been further lost and clumsy attempts to stop the free flow of information have only made it worse. We need to see things in the light of day with verifiable facts in order to make an informed judgement. But that judgement is, and should be our own and not dictated by some higher authority, especially when it is one we do not have full confidence is. Everyone is an individual with different physiologies and accordingly must be addressed as a unique individual human, not via a heavy handed, dictatorial directive putting everyone in the same box, and worse sanctioning them if they do not comply with the order. There is no possible justification for throwing healthy people out of work, and worse denying them unemployment. 

It is going to be years before anyone can sort out the truth on this due to all of the obfuscation. Are hospital death counts accurate, or is more being attributed to COVID than is warranted? What is the definitive utility of masks? Of vaccinations? Of treatments? The administration has botched the distribution of tests so that demand now exceeds supply, and has done very little on what is probably the more important element here, namely cures for people that have come down with it instead of just ordering vaccinations. This is just incomprehensible. The application of cures has been largely left to individuals, doctors, hospitals and states, and has resulted in an unnecessary ball of confusion rolling through social media. Furthermore, it is now increasingly obvious that the vaccine is not enough, nor totally effective so the present crisis is the people who re currently suffering, which mean prioritizing cures.

I still think it is prudent for older folks to be vaccinated, given the inevitability of declining health, but there is no reason whatsoever to force it on small children and others, where there is no evidence that requires, perhaps outside of nonscientific demands from the Teachers Unions. 

Meanwhile China has paid no price for infecting the whole world unnecessarily, and I mean a substantive price, not lame gestures like boycotting the Olympics, which should never be done under any circumstances. It is unfair to the athletes, and contrary to the Olympic spirit, which involves bringing everyone, especially enemies together. No there must be a stiffer price, and we should begin to act in concert with our allies to develop one. I tend to suspect that this was in fact created and leaked from a lab. It has spread and mutated like nothing we have ever seen before. 

The real question is intent. Was it some sort of accident or did the Communists deliberately spread it. On the one hand it is highly unlikely that they would first inflict this on their own people. But we are talking about hard-line communists in power now, who see everything in collective terms and care nothing about individual lives. Any sacrifice is fine in order to build communism, which is why over 100 million people were killed in the last century. For that matter, given their indifference to human life it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they would, by the same lights, launch a nuclear war or greater plague on the assumption that given their huge population enough will survive to build the golden era of communism while eliminating all their enemies. After all, on a lighter note Reagan once asked for people to be free to leave China and come to America if they wished. So Chou En-Lai replied, how many Chinese do you want? 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, or something to that effect. 

We must get to the bottom of this one way or another. The West now faces a ruthless adversary intent on pushing us all aside any way they can. They steal our secrets, compromise our sports, Hollywood, and corporations that no longer have any loyalty to the USA, and for this there must be, there will be a reckoning.