OK, we have had more than a year of what is referred to as the Covid-19 pandemic. One can make the argument that by some definitions, it is over. The news tracking service AXIOS has been tracking and publishing the number of cases (both by state and nationally) on a weekly basis since it was formally declared a pandemic 56 weeks ago. Their data comes from the Johns Hopkins University “Covid Tracking Project.” You will note that we were being hit by it for some time before it was so declared, but that this is one of the more straightforward and understandable analyses available.
Today, (6-3-21) they made an announcement. As of today, we are at the lowest case count we have had since it was declared a pandemic and it is falling consistently. They are sufficiently sure that it is over in this country that this is the last weekly series of maps and notices that they will publish.
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-vaccines-success-fa7673a1-0582-4e69-aefb-3b5170268048.html
They noted that one of the key items that have brought this towards an end has been the availability of vaccines and their widespread administration in our country. Other countries have neither the availability nor the widespread administration. Different countries, different political systems, different medical systems. I am not criticizing their differences at this moment, just noting that they are not working as well in this instance. But it cannot be denied that we are in better shape as far as protecting our own people from Covid-19, and from that position it may be appropriate to start to examine what worked and what did not, and what we were told that was true and what we were told that was not true.
Our first national reaction was both logical and effective. Once it was confirmed that there was a foreign disease that was moving across the world and that we could get it, President Trump acted quickly in ways that have been proven effective throughout history. Our borders were closed to non-Americans. Americans who were outside our borders were let in, but placed in quarantine for two weeks. Some came down with Covid and were treated; most were able to go home safely at the end of the quarantine. President Trump also ordered a major research effort on how to treat the disease, and to develop a vaccine.
Now this was not perfectly effective. The reason is that the disease had been spreading for quite a while before it was detected outside its own country. And what country was that? There is a reason it was known as the Wuhan Coronavirus. Wuhan is one of China's largest cities. And when they finally started tracing the disease back, the first cases they found were in Wuhan. Immediately, the politically correct started screaming about how it was “racist” to call it that. Well, it is and has been the normal epidemiological practice to name a new disease after where it first became known . . . for centuries. Calling it Wuhan Coronavirus is not racist against Chinese. I'm bloody well Chinese, and I understand it and do not consider it any more racist than the Spanish Flu that raced around the world in the 1920s. It is where the disease is first formally described.
Now, Wuhan is as I said a huge Chinese city. It is where three large cities grew together, and has 11 million + people. Apparently, the very middle of it is a perfect place for the Chinese government to put a biological warfare research facility. From the very first investigations here, the name of the “P4 Laboratory” in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is run by the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army came up. While the real first cases, from amongst staff at that lab, happened earlier in 2019; the disease came to public notice as it spread massively in China later in the year. Supposedly, it got lose accidentally in a nearby public “wet market” (imagine a multi-block street food market where there is no refrigeration and where butchering is done onsite) near the WIV. Not inconceivable for WIV employees to shop there. Being a curious sort, I looked up the WIV on Google Maps. It showed it just across the Yangtze River by a bridge from said wet market. I wish I had printed off the map. Because a few weeks later when I looked it up on Google Maps again, it showed the WIV was miles away across town. Keep in mind that one of the main functions of Google is to cover the gluts of China. I found a pair of maps from Google five days apart that show the difference:
https://i.imgur.com/JOH1wom.jpg (Gentle Readers, copy and paste into a browser)
China seems to be lying, with Google's help, to cover up the source of Covid. Interestingly enough, China did NOT try to restrict travel. In fact, they sent a lot of people to both Europe and to North America (Canada which had open borders with us, and the U.S.) AFTER the disease took off in China and before we knew to close our borders. So it had a head start around the world before we could protect ourselves. There are strong arguments both ways as to whether the spread of the disease around the world was deliberate or not. That is for another time.
Right now, I want to talk about the American reactions, since we seem to have survived epidemiologically. Economically is another matter, but once again, that is another topic.
As I said, we have more information coming out. As much as it micturates in the Wheaties of those of a totalitarian bent on the Left, at least parts of the country are coming out of personal and economic lockdown. The goal of the Left seems to have been to restrict freedom as much as possible, even if it makes the disease worse. The goal of conservatives, minus the GOPe, has been to beat the disease and restore freedom and the economy.
From the beginning, it was the Democrats who opposed efforts to fight the disease. When President Trump called for an emergency effort to develop a vaccine, it was the Democrats and their Media Apparatchniki who declared that it could not be done and opposed it in Congress. Trump ordered it anyway, and not only one but three vaccines were developed in record time before he left office. It is a matter of personal conscience whether to get a vaccine, and I leave that decision to individuals [noting that our household is fully vaccinated], but as AXIOS said, it is the vaccines which have set us apart from the rest of the world,
When the first efforts to close the borders were made, it was the Democrats who opposed them. Concurrently with that were the first urgings by the government to limit mass gatherings in public till we got it sorted out what we were dealing with? It was Democrats then who opposed that. I have a personal involvement in a way, because the disease started breaking in our country over Chinese New Years in 2020. Chinese New Years is a two week long celebration, and in 2020 it started in late January. In large cities with a good sized Asian population, there are parades, festivals and parties involving literally hundreds of thousands of people in close proximity.
Specifically, Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat New York Governor Cuomo, and Democrat New York City Mayor de Blasio all opposed limiting the Chinese New Year mobs (they are mobs, I've been to several in San Francisco) and in a lot of cities with Asian populations things went on unhindered. I suspect the following high Covid numbers were not coincidental.
As the disease spread, it became clear from who was struck first that it was the elderly and immune compromised who were at the most risk and who were catching it. And dying from it. In Democrat controlled polities, especially New York, but also other cities and states; the elderly who were not fully recovered (and it turns out were still contagious) were released from hospital beds and taken to elderly care facilities, where they infected other elderly and immune compromised. A major portion of the fatalities in our country is from that kind of cross contamination. When New York City was at its worst for fatality rates, President Trump ordered the Navy to send a hospital ship to help handle the Covid infections. New York City did not use the ship hardly at all despite the deaths, and finally it was ordered elsewhere.
Eventually, the country went into functional lockdown, closing businesses, masking everyone, and everyone keeping “social distancing” from each other. And the Democrats did a full 180 on isolation. At least if you were a businessperson or a working person. Businesses were closed. Working people were laid off. Supplies to stores were no longer reliably available.
But it did not apply to everyone. Once again, in Democrat controlled polities there were exceptions. If you were of a politically correct group according to the Left, you did not have to wear masks, stay distant from others, and incidentally refrain from robbery, looting and arson. People could not go to work and lost income if they were law abiding. All over the country, convicted criminals were released on the public. If you were a Democrat politician, official or ally for some reason the restrictions on contact did not apply. It is a good gig if you can get and they are trying to hold on to it.
Another thing that we will talk about later (this is already far longer than my editor likes) is Anthony Fauci, who is one of the people in charge of fighting Covid-19, and the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to Biden. He is also the government's spokescritter on Covid, despite the fact that he contradicts himself on a regular basis. What we will talk about in the future is the news coming out that in fact he was involved in helping get Federal funds years ago to the “P4” lab I mentioned earlier at the WIV. For Covid research. Specifically for what was called “gain of function” research. I urge the Gentle Readers to look up online what “gain of function” research for microorganisms is and to think about it.
Does this all sound like a deliberate plan, or a series of honest mistakes? Y'all judge.
I will leave you with another thought. Since the end of President Trump's term and the beginning of the current regime our border policy has been reversed. We have gone from trying to defend our borders and national sovereignty to welcoming any foreign invader that comes from the south. Between 1,500-3,500 of them cross the border a day and encounter Customs and Border Protection. They are taken into custody in mass camps. This does NOT count the much larger number that crosses our border daily without getting caught.
As of now the New York Times is saying that in Mexico. One in 53 people are Covid antibody positive. About 2 percent. This is not from vaccinations, because Mexico and Central America do not have the vaccines or systems to vaccinate people en-masse. It is from whatever level of infection by the actual virus that exposure gave them.
Of those we catch, it means 30-70 per day of Covid positive people are being crammed into camps where Covid may spread the way it did in our nursing homes. From Jan. 20 (the day Biden took office) to June 3 of this year is 134 days. Which means that 4,020 to 9,380 Covid disease vectors have been held in custody in mass camps. Where the disease can spread to more people to be disease vectors. Plus 2 percent of the larger number who were not caught are extra disease vectors all over our country. And to top it off, as the camps become overcrowded, the regime is bussing the invaders all over the country and turning them loose unaccounted for. While the news talks every day about numbers vaccinated, have you ever heard any mention of illegal invaders in camps being vaccinated? Because we can assume they are not.
And they are busing them out as we finally open our country up, hoping I am sure for an excuse to clamp down on freedom again.
Deliberate failure or honest mistake? When was the last time you encountered an honest Leftist?