We first began hearing about COVID-19 or the Wuhan Virus in January when the government warned against travel to China because of a pneumonia-like infection in the Wuhan Province. President Trump mentioned it in his State of the Union Address, which Nancy Pelosi, ever the epitome of grace and good manners, ripped up behind his back on national television. The CDC, operating on information from the World Health Organization, advised us that this virus held little threat for Americans, but in late January, President Trump banned all flights into this country from China anyway, an act that according to Dr. Fauci saved thousands of American lives.
Soon we were told that the disease was highly contagious but not very deadly for the young and healthy. Nancy Pelosi strolled through China Town, encouraging everyone to come there and eat in the restaurants. Mayor de Blasio of New York City told his citizens to go on with their normal lives; eat in restaurants, attend movies and nightclubs, ride crowded buses and the subways. And suddenly NYC became the epicenter of the disease, with half of all deaths attributed to the virus occurring there.
By the middle of March Major League Baseball was canceling spring training games and sending their players home. Other sports followed close behind. Schools were closed, governors began issuing “stay-at-home” orders for the people in their states, and we were told that computer models estimated 2 to 2.5 million deaths from the virus. Life in the U.S. ground to a standstill.
Only those businesses considered by each governor to be “essential” were allowed to remain open. All others were closed. Democratic governors seemed more aggressive with their regulations: Governor Whitmer of Michigan allowed people to buy food in Walmart, for instance, but not “non-essentials” such as vegetable seeds or baby car seats from the next aisle over. Alcohol, marijuana, and abortions were considered “essential” in most states, while getting a knee replacement or fixing a torn meniscus was not, no matter how much pain you were in. People were fined or arrested in some states for walking or even driving alone.
And the attack on Christians and Orthodox Jews is even worse. Those attending Easter services in some states were issued $500 fines, even though they sat in their own cars, with the windows up, listening to the service on the radio. Knox County, Tennessee has banned communion because it is “not a part of core worship” and would break social distancing. Hymnals and pew Bible were also banned. Knox County is obviously run by unimaginative atheists who do not know that communion is essential to Christian worship and who could not (I could!) possibly conceive of a way that communion could be served without losing social distancing! In addition, Church attendees must all wear masks despite the fact that masks are NOT required in restaurants and stores where employees and patrons must only wear a mask where social distancing cannot be maintained. When a large number of Orthodox Jews turned up for the funeral of a beloved Rabbi in New York City, Mayor de Blasio threatened the Orthodox community with arrests. In North Carolina, church goers are not allowed to take communion even in a drive through nor can they pay tithes or offerings, yet the same church goers can drive up to a McDonalds, hand over money, and receive food in exchange. This is an obvious and deliberate abrogation of the right of Americans to the free practice of their religion.
In North Carolina also, a man who was going broke and was becoming desperate for income, opened his tattoo parlor. Police took him away in handcuffs. In another small town, a hairdresser opened her salon, taking in only one customer at a time, sanitizing after each patron, and wearing a mask. Police arrived at her salon and forced her to close the shop or face a misdemeanor charge and possible loss of her license.
We
have tolerated this nonsense for weeks now, and while some states like South Dakota never closed down and never saw a huge number of deaths, and others like Florida, Georgia, Indiana and Texas are beginning to allow some businesses to open again, most Democratic-run states are still firmly shut down until at least the end of May. Some states have suggested they will not open schools in the fall and instead do on-line learning. But this is ridiculous!
The 2 million deaths never materialized. April 29 figures from the federal government list COVID-19 deaths as 33,519, deaths from pneumonia as 61,898, deaths from the flu as 5,792, and deaths with a combination of the virus and flu or pneumonia as 85,520 (Center for Disease Control. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm). Using this government figure for COVID-19 deaths (33,519) out of a population of approximately 330 million people, that is a death rate of 0.00010 for COVID-19.
Two doctors in Bakersfield, California, recommended that the lockdown be lifted there after they studied the statistics from their urgent care facility. They found the Wuhan Virus to be acting much like the flu. They produced a YouTube video in which Dr. Daniel Erickson relates the number of deaths in California versus the population and found that Californians had a 0.03% chance of dying from the virus. They argued that it was not worth putting millions of Americans out of work and forcing many businesses to close their doors forever. Millions of people saw the video before YouTube removed it for not adhering to their guidelines (i.e. not parroting the current stay at home policy of the state).
While some deaths have occurred among those in their 30s to 50s, the most vulnerable seem to be in their 60s and older with underlying health conditions. The most devastating seems to be heart problems, although heavy smokers also seem to be at risk. Most of the deaths have occurred in nursing homes which are filled with the very elderly and the weak, those who can no longer live on their own because of dementia or illnesses. In New York City, that gem of a mayor has begun forcing nursing homes to take COVID-19 patients rather than sending them to the hospital the army corps of engineers built for them or to the navy hospital ship lying in New York Harbor. Does de Blasio want to increase the number of deaths in his city? While else would you deliberately send a sick patient among those most likely to catch and die from the disease?
As for the accuracy of the COVID-19 deaths, media is reporting over 58,000 deaths rather than the 33,519 cited by the CDC. However, it is highly probable that neither of those numbers is accurate, as the CDC guidelines originally ordered doctors to list as a COVID-19 death anyone who HAD the virus when they died, whether that was what killed them or not, and to also count anyone they thought MIGHT have had the virus, even if they didn’t know if the individual had or not. Thus people who actually died from heart attacks, emphysema, or any number of other ailments may well have found themselves counted as a COVID-19 death.
Yes this virus is highly contagious. Yes, we have no vaccine to prevent us from catching it. But we are finding a number of treatments that are demonstrably saving the lives of those infected. We as a nation cannot continue as we are going. We must return to business as usual. Those who are most vulnerable should continue to practice social distancing, but the rest of us need to get back to work. Dr. Fauci’s assertion that shaking hands may be a thing of the past is ridiculous beyond measure. There will always be illnesses just as there have been in the past, and we have survived touching the hands of others. Ironically, while condemning hand shaking, he did not seem to find having sex with a stranger a particular risk. From experience, I can tell you that having sex involves a great deal more physical contact than shaking hands!
This disease cannot be allowed to transform our country into the socialistic, autocratic morass that Democrats would like to see it become. Some Democrats have even said that the closing down of much of the economy will wean Americans away from such cheap energy as fossil fuels and usher in the Democrats implausible Green New Deal. It is what they want, and they see in this crisis, in the constantly frightening comments of the news media, the way to change our successful capitalistic society into a socialistic hell hole like Venezuela.
Will this virus continue to be a risk? For a while, yes, but beyond that the experts are only guessing as they have guessed about everything having to do with this illness. And they have, as we have seen, mostly guessed wrong. We have always been a country willing to take risks. It was a risk to rebel against England, a risk to expand into the untamed country of the west, a risk to go to war against the Japanese and Germans. But we are good at risk-taking. We are good at winning! Our economy was booming before the shutdown and it will boom again. Just give Americans the chance to do what we do best.
I would emulate Ralph Waldo Emerson here, by suggesting some civil disobedience. Wear masks for a while, continue the social distancing if you are in the vulnerable category, but let’s start to take control of our lives again. Start bombarding the governor of your state with requests to reopen businesses. Hold drive by protests in front of the governor’s office as they did in Michigan. Start a recall petition as they have also done in Michigan if your governor will not listen to reason. Start a class action law suit against your governor for denying your constitutionally protected liberty to conduct a legal business, for your freedom to congregate, for your freedom to be out of your house, for your freedom to worship. They have held us prisoners by our fear long enough! It is beyond time for us to crawl out from under our blankets and stand up for our rights!