America’s Pyrrhic Victory

Let’s begin with the premise that we know almost nothing with any certainty about the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. We don’t know with certainty how it began, or whether it occurred in nature or was created in a lab. There is also great confusion and uncertainty regarding how cases are confirmed, and whether the number of deaths being reported in Italy and in the U.S., at any rate—since we can trust nothing coming out of Communist China—are accurate, since co-morbidities are generally not being factored in.  In addition, many assert the tests themselves are woefully inaccurate, producing both false positives and false negatives. Furthermore, last week the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent American hospitals a new directive to count COVID-19 as the cause of death even if it is merely “suspected” when a patient dies in the hospital. According to the directive, signed by Secretary Alex Azar, they are required to list: “Number of patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 who died in the hospital, or any overflow location on the date for which you are reporting.” (Italics mine).

So, what do we actually know for certain?

We know that the mainstream media has churned up enormous fear over the Wuhan flu, aka COVID-19. In fact, we can’t escape the ubiquitous picture of that spiky red ball that is out to get us. Does it strike you as odd that we were never on such intimate terms with any virus before? Apparently, none of them merited an artist’s rendition, let alone a fraction of the publicity this infinitesimal critter has amassed. If there were a virus Hall of Fame, we know who’d be in pride of place. We also know who can promote such stardom or notoriety overnight: our echo-chamber media propagandizers.

Truth be told, the media has not had such a field day counting up dead bodies since the war in Vietnam. Even the President is calling this flu epidemic a “war.” So we know there is a huge media campaign to impress us with the danger presented by this virus which is hyped as if it were the Black Death.

Turns out that COVID-19 is far less deadly than many other coronaviruses

Trouble is, the ballyhoo doesn’t fit the reality. Turns out that COVID-19 is far less deadly than many other coronaviruses have been, including SARS, MERS and Ebola, with their death rates of 20-40%, or the Avian flu with a whopping 60% mortality rate, whereas COVID-19 clocks in at a modest 1% or well below, closer to .1%, depending on whose data you trust.

In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci himself affirmed in an article he co-authored for the New England Journal of Medicine’s March 26th issue, that COVID-19 is essentially “a severe seasonal influenza,” i.e. a bad flu. Nothing we haven’t seen before in terms of its death rate. Perhaps Fauci quietly published this article a couple of weeks ago to give himself plausible deniability later on when the public may well be clamoring for his scalp.

We also know that, as with the seasonal flu, most who succumb are our frail elderly—which is why we call them “frail.” Even a cold can result in pneumonia and death for our octogenarians. Have we forgotten that people grow old and eventually die of one thing or another? But I digress.

Let us now leave behind all thoughts and conjectures about the Wuhan flu/Chinese Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, as if it had never occurred. Instead, let’s examine only the resultant facts, the way Poirot does as he separates out stories and fabrications from verifiable information to get at the truth. Let’s regard the reality before us without the distraction of the clangorous, anxiety-producing reports that are filling the airwaves.

Here then, are the facts stripped of all narrative: In America today, our Constitution and our Constitutional rights have been suspended. Our entire economy has been shut down. Schools have been closed.

Here then, are the facts stripped of all narrative

Churches and synagogues have been closed. A pastor was arrested for holding a church service in this country which was founded upon religious freedom. People are forbidden to congregate not only for religious worship, but even for their own weddings, bar mitzvahs, baptisms, and funerals, let alone birthday or anniversary celebrations.  Many states are under lockdowns in which you can be fined and/or arrested for leaving your home for an “unnecessary”  purpose. Public parks have been closed off to the very public they were intended for. Small businesses, the lifeblood of America and of our middle class, are dying in plain sight—many shutting their doors for good as the shutdown drags on.

Americans, in arguably the foremost of all first-world countries, suddenly can’t find toilet paper. And for weeks now, under draconian lockdowns in nearly every state, you can’t get a fast food hamburger, let alone sit down to a medium rare ribeye or grilled salmon at your favorite local restaurant; in many places you can’t get your pants hemmed or your dress dry-cleaned; you can’t get your teeth cleaned or cavities filled; you can’t get a haircut, manicure, pedicure, or a hip replacement, as these are all deemed “non-essential.”

By the way, did you ever stop to wonder just who is determining what is “non-essential”?  Funny, I don’t remember voting on this. When exactly did we surrender all power over our lives in the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Our men are humiliated and subdued, our women demoralized, and our children traumatized. But none of this is due to the Chinese coronavirus. Rather it is due to dictatorial governmental edicts, i.e. tyranny—exactly the kind of abuses that led to the American Revolution in the first place. On second thought, no, not exactly—the current abuses are much, much worse.