Politics

The first week of June, I received an e-mail from one of my best friends in London. Her flatmate had committed suicide. Across the world, rates for attempted suicide are growing dangerously amid the continued lockdowns¹. Serious child abuse emergency room visits have risen by by over 35%, while surveillance into abuse incidents is hindered with many schools remaining closed². The civil unrest, riots and other secondary effects are from the response to the pandemic, but not the virus itself. So far, every indication shows the fatality rates for this virus are in decline. Yet despite what should be good news, leaders from around the world seem to be doubling down on the existing narrative of fear to justify continued behavior modifications, despite the growing secondary effects of the lockdowns.

Models

The Imperial College study predicted that America would see 2 million dead from COVID-19 without any mitigation³. The world media ignored the part about mitigation and used the 2 million number to terrify people. But even that original estimate is based on thousands lines of poorly documented C code⁴, of which the original code is not available⁵ and which is non-deterministic, poorly engineered and filled with race conditions⁶.

People who died of gunshots are being classified as COVID-19 deaths if they tested positive for SARS-CoV-2⁷. A number of hospitals are showing increases in cases, yet many of the patients coming in and testing positive report only minor symptoms⁸. Researchers are complaining that PCR tests and antibody tests are being combined into the total number of cases published by the CDC⁹, even thought they obviously measure two very different things.

Ministry of Truth

Two emergency room doctors in Bakersfield, California challenged some of the lockdown decisions as being unsound, in an interview with their local news station. YouTube pulled the video¹⁰. Karol Sikora, an oncologists in the United Kingdom, also criticized the response to the virus, claiming that the fear will cause much more damage than the virus¹¹. His video was removed by YouTube as well¹².

“Clearly, there is a switch that the media uses, and when they want to report on police brutality and make it an issue, they can flip that switch on, and do so. But of course they could do so on any given day, because there are dozens of such incidents day in and day out … here’s a crisis. It shows that we can flip a switch, and people will do what we say, so now we’re going to flip a switch, and you’re going to do this … and it’s not your place to reason about it or ask questions …“ -James Corbett, New World Next Week¹³

Some oppose Sikora’s prediction that this virus will burn itself out long before a vaccine is developed¹⁴, but people should be free to listen to all those voices and come to their own conclusions. The Internet, once heralded as a bastion of information that would pull humanity away from the one-direction narratives of media companies, has turned into a system of giant platforms and ushered in a new era of corporate censorship. Google/YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others have turned into the censors, only allowing in officially disseminated information from government entities. Big tech has become an Orwellian style Ministry of Truth.

Asymptomatic Spread

The World Health Organization told the world asymptomatic spread is rare, then immediately walked back their statement¹⁵, possibly caving to political pressure from the United States¹⁶. A study from Germany back in February questioned the asymptomatic narrative by showing carries who had been labeled as asymptomatic previously, did in fact have major symptoms¹⁷. Another study in May, once again challenged the assumption of asymptomatic carriers¹⁸. There is published research that contradicts the possibility of asymptomatic spread. Despite that, asymptomatic spread is the central reasoning behind governments promoting and enforcing new norms, such as social distancing and the wearing of face coverings.

Masks Hurt our Perceptions of One Another

Human beings have evolved to read each other’s facial expressions. When we see someone wearing a mask, it can decrease our perception of their empathy¹⁹. Wearing masks can disinhibit the wearers, reduce their sense of self-awareness and make them feel less identifiable²⁰. We can’t easily smile at other people when they’re wearing masks. We can’t make that connection where we look into the eyes of another person, and let that person know that we’re here, and we see them.

A study publish in 2013 by the journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness found that cloth masks wouldn’t be effective during an outbreak of a respiratory infection²¹. The Center for Disease Control was recommending that people not wear face masks back in February²². UIC Health said in April that there was no scientific evidence masks reduced COVID-19 transmission and did not recommend the general public wear them²³. Cloth masks can also cause carbon dioxide buildup²⁴, and although not harmful for short periods, high levels of continued CO2 can affect cognitive abilities over time²⁵. N95 masks can reduce blood oxygenation by up to 20% and lead to headaches²⁶.

A surgeon often works in an operating theater, with a full mask and protective equipment from four to ten hours at a time without ill effect. It’s not the single occurrence that’s troubling, it’s the cumulative effect that should concern people. We’re exposed to higher amounts of CO2 while we’re indoors all day, and now with masks, we might be in the same situation while outside. Even Dr. Fauci has claimed, at one time, that masks were symbolic²⁷.

The Politics of Masks

The masks are purely a political statement at this point. If someone refuses to wear a mask in a store in a densely populated city, there’s a good chance they lean politically right. If someone is wearing a mask outside in a park in Oklahoma, there’s a good chance they lean politically left. Politicians are being excluded from legislative sessions for refusing to wear masks²⁸. Nothing codifies this as significantly as the fact that Oregon enacted mandatory masks, except for black people²⁹.

After the riots broke out, I thought we’d finally see an end to masks. Instead, every political leader seems to be doubling down on them. No one is even willing to consider the normalization of face coverings may have contributed heavily to many of the protests bleeding into civil unrest. The masks provided the perfect cover for Black Bloc³⁰ anarchist groups to incite violence.

It’s not just a piece of fabric. It’s something that is affecting us at a very deep psychological level, and has turned into a pure political statement and signal of virtue. At best, the mask is a placebo, and at worse, it’s a tool used to sow division³¹, inhibit personal freedom, control the public³² and promote a new belief system.

Everyone is going to die

Over 70% of Coronavirus deaths in the state of Ohio occurred in nursing homes³³. Over 80% of Canadian fatalities were in nursing home and long-term care facilities³⁴. Governor Cuomo of New York is often criticized for sending COVID-19 positive patients back to their nursing homes³⁵. Yet even in a place like Sweden, which attempted to focus on assisted care facilities, was still unable to prevent a large amount of fatalities among their elderly³⁶. Still, despite Sweden’s more limited lockdowns, their infection and fatality curves were that of many nations with more stringent actions³⁷, which should cause us to question the effectiveness of lockdowns. The following chart shows Sweden’s fatalities in decline, with no indication of a second wave³⁸.

“According to CDC data, 81% of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States are people over 65 years old, most with preexisting conditions. If you add in 55-64-year-olds that number jumps to 93%. For those below age 55, preexisting conditions play a significant role, but the death rate is currently around 0.0022%, or one death per 45,000 people in this age range. Below 25 years old the fatality rate of COVID-19 is 0.00008%, or roughly one in 1.25 million, and yet we have shut down all schools and day-care centers, some never to open again! This makes it harder for mothers and fathers to remain employed.” -Wesbury and Elass³⁹

COVID-19 is a virus that has killed half a million people world wide. For comparison, mosquito borne illnesses kill over 700,000 people around the world every year⁴⁰, and heart disease kills over 600,000 annually in the United States⁴¹. A completely unknown amount of people have died from being unable or afraid to seek medical treatment during the lockdowns. A vaccine for any coronavirus is unlikely, and the vast majority of narratives around vaccine development uses the number 18 months. Efforts are being led by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, an alliance of vaccine manufacturers. I do not understand how everyone is suddenly willing to trust the man behind the company who produced Windows 95, to somehow lead the organization that’s expected to give us a safe vaccine in under two years!

“…those two states have been locked down the whole time, while we have been open. So locking down doesn’t work. If it did, those two states would be doing better than Texas. Fauci said today that he’s concerned about states like Texas that skipped over certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him … he has been wrong every time on every issue. I don’t need his advice anymore. We’ll listen to a lot of science. We’ll listen to a lot of doctors, and Governor Abbott, myself and other state leaders will make the decision. No thank you Dr. Fauci” -Lt. Governor Dan Patrick of Texas⁴²

For the past few weeks I’ve been driving down to Indiana to walk along the beaches of Lake Michigan. They are all filled with hundreds, if not thousands of people, with parking lots and overflow lots full. I’ve walked by baseball fields filled with high school athletes; the stands filled with their family members. Few people at these gatherings have been wearing masks. I’ve heard similar stories from friends in Florida, Texas and many other states for weeks. From the 18th floor of my building, I watch thousands of truckers and workers, hauling cargo distances both great and small, every day. There have been no massive increases in fatalities. The idea that we’ve collectively reduced spread by restricting things via arbitrary rules⁴³, seems asinine. Many of these surges and spikes that are being reported by the media, are done so in percentages, because a 50% surge sounds worse than cases going from 5 to 10 in a single county.

Critical Thinking

If, from the beginning of 2020, you believed COVID-19 would be absolutely disastrous, believed every official message, and still to the end believe the lockdowns were completely necessary, you might not have the ability to think critically. If, from the beginning, you thought the entire narrative over the SARS-CoV-2 virus was overblown and taken way out of proportion, and didn’t waver in those beliefs for a single moment from the beginning of the year, you too might have difficultly thinking critically.

Those who are scientifically minded were watching the narrative, reading the papers, and listening to news sources with vastly different political leanings. Those looking at the facts, most likely varied how serious they thought the situation was from week to week; continually reevaluating the information. Those who paid attention noticed how many of the news narratives, as well as the actual data, varied wildly from day to day and from paper to paper. COVID-19 was watching the reproducibility crisis play out on our planet, in real time, with disastrous consequences.

2020 Is the Year of Hindsight

COVID-19 is a virus, but it is also a new emergent religion. The mask is its symbol; its crucifix. The data is its sacred text, the news analysis is its Bible commentary. Those academics who question the conclusions of study by the blessed government priests are considered heretics. Their reputations are called into question, their history explored for fault, and their words excommunicated from the blessed big networks of Silicon Valley.

Some will claim that without the measures taken, ten or hundreds of thousands of lives would have been lost. Others will claim such statements are hyperbolic. Both will hide under the banner of science and neither will offer unbiased interpretations of their evidence. We are all watching the same film, but seeing two entirely different screens.

COVID-19 is fear of the unknown, and the inability for members of our population to properly evaluate risk. It is a news media feeding in on its own contradictory narrative like a Ouroboros consuming its own tail.

While some might say it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, I challenged the erosion of our civil rights in May, criticized data integrity issues in April, and grew exhausted with the constantly changing media narrative in March. Every fear I had concerning the dangers of overreacting are becoming part of our daily reality.