The COVID variants will be used for propaganda
The stage has been set for enormous fear around COVID. We’ve been conditioned to it and guided to it for almost a year and a half. At first it made some sense. The initial news and photos from China, and then from Italy and Spain, were horrendous and frightening and the death rates were climbing and climbing.
But over time the statistics have become clearer, although still not totally clear. We’ve grown to understand more about how the disease has been used to shape minds and accustom people to governmental restraints. And the death toll, although sad, has not been as high as the predictions. We’ve grown to distrust many of the medical authorities, as well as the press and the government in general, more and more.
COVID has been used to tear the fabric of the country apart and turn us against each other. It also was used to justify relaxing voting laws and increase distrust in the voting results and perhaps to facilitate fraud.
Once the vaccine began to be disseminated it was a relief. The original supposition was that if a great many people were vaccinated – say, 70% – we’d be able to open the country up entirely and go back to our previous existence or something akin to it, even though a lot of businesses would have failed and a lot of people would have suffered in the meantime. We threw off our masks with happy relief and hoped to never have to use them again.
Not everyone, of course. Some remained afraid, or some were unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons and still felt the need for extra protection. But most vaccinated people were ready to go about their business.
Then the variants began, and the drumming up of fear around them. Fear seems to have escalated even more around the latest one, Delta. Now that deaths are still low, the news seems mostly about cases. We really are not sure whether Delta will ultimately prove to be just a small blip or something more, but ignorance and fear is what the propagandists depend on to drum up fear.
In that way every new variant can be used to stir up fear, to blame the unvaccinated (falsely defined as the right), and to justify more Draconian measures of restriction of liberty as well as more government doles. More small businesses can go bankrupt, more large companies can get the spoils, Amazon will remain happy, local stores will be deserted, and people will have gotten used to being told what to do and what not to do.
And more variants will probably keep coming, so it can continue and continue. In particular, if that happens, the election of 2022 can be done by mail, too, with all the opportunities that affords.
The one thing that they have tried to drum up the hysteria on but mostly failed in the US is the so called ‘long Covid’. Apparently this is a bigger topic in the UK but here every time they start getting it warmed up to come in the game another more useful point of hysteria pops up.
In the last several days I have noticed a lot more people are masking up again. The local WM is now giving masks at the door. Yes Neo, you are right. Next in the line up is the Echo variant, followed by the “F” for Frank, then the “G” for George and on and on and on.
I am tempted to ask the next person who tells be to Mask Up because the CDC says so is the CDC said jump off a cliff, would they.
What happened to “Me Body, My Choice”.
Yesterday I noticed at both google and bing when you clicked on the box before typing anything in their suggestions included both the gamma and lamda variants in the autofill suggestions or whatever they call them.
These autofills are really shady because some of their suggestions are in no way believable as the most searched items so that tells me they are doing some manipulating.
Yesterday Fauci warned about the Lamda…again raising fears about an even more dangerous variant.
Obviously this is never going to end.
Florida and Teas are the test labs. The governors are not adding restrictions there and are being accused of being “anti-science.” The next five weeks should be interesting..
Our county health officer says many more young people are being hospitalized by the Delta variant. But both the County and the local newspaper no longer publishing those statistics it’s hard to know for sure.. Cases are up and hospitalizations are up as far as I cam tell. Deaths are still low compared to previous waves. Time will tell.
J.J.:
It also depends what “more” means. Sometimes if just means a higher percentage of young people than before among the hospitalized. But at this point a much higher percentage of older people are vaccinated, so it would make sense that a higher percentage of the more serious cases would now be young people. Also, what is “young”? It can mean younger but not necessarily children. Without figures or at least more details, the whole thing means nothing.
The Left never quits. For the Left, it is never enough.
Covid is very useful for the Left. For us, it reveals how much they want to control our lives.
Scott Adams says, “Two movies on one screen.” I was in LA and SF recently. Totally different from Omaha. 30k inside the new SoFi stadium. They’re all wearing masks except me.
Woman ran as a Dem for the Omaha City Council. She’s all freaked out and wants the schools to require masks for kids under 12. I posted on her Twitter feed a cite to a Lancet article that covid is very, very rare in healthy kids.
We knew the Left was nuts, but this really confirms it.
This has, however, distracted from China Joe’s “infrastructure” bill. The Green New Deal is insane. Joe issued an illegal and unconstitutional order about EV’s. I hope those EV’s sit unsold. I’ll never buy one.
People are so, so stupid. The automakers love the EV’s because of the tax subsidy and the higher retail price. Higher prices means higher gross margins. WMT learned that game with the lightbulbs.
Some signs the last few days that Florida’s ‘case’ rise is close to rolling over. Most of these waves last about 45 days and for Florida that would be about Aug. 14.
The fact that so many totally ignore seasonality and show no curiosity about why this is happening in the Sun Belt at about the same time as last year tells you a lot of people have no interest in understanding what is actually going on.
I’ve seen a few people hypothesizing the younger people being hospitalized is primarily for RSV but they are testing positive for Covid while in the hospital so of course that makes them Covid hospitalizations under are perverse reporting criteria.
And of the low numbers make it easy for the propagandists to put a scary number like hospitalized children up 100% which is true but it is from 4 to 8 patients.
TJ posted this on the 8/5 open thread.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/recovered-covid-patients-suffering-significant-cognitive-deficits-according-large-scale-uk
Needless to say, Tyler Durden had some skeptic caveats.
Another related post from ZH gets deep into tinfoil-hat-territory, which means it’s probably correct, these days.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-08-05/society-regressing-due-covid-19-pandemic
Well, not sure about the Russia section.
If I were Vlad watching the West implode, I would sit back and wait for the dust to settle, then scoop up anything worthwhile left in the rubble.
Nuking the USA (absent a credible first strike threat from Biden Inc.) would just devalue the leftovers even more.
Often it seems that they are not so much warning about a possible more lethal variant as hoping for one.
They like the power. They have tasted it and they want more.
If we would just stop resisting they could bring about the utopia. It will work this time because they are the good people not like the others who failed.
Booster shots will be the next big thing. Been double vaxxed? Not enough you need to be triple vaxxed then quadruple vaxxed.
majority have recovered – while up to one-third reportedly suffer from lingering symptoms of varying severity, known as ‘long covid.’
What, please somebody tell me, is the actual percentage, and what is the distribution of severity? Does severity correlate with the known co-morbidities and/or age? Does everybody have “brain fog”, or just a few? And what is the distribution of duration? Does it go away in a couple of months on average, or last forever (i.e. longer than 18 months so far) for a large majority?
I’ve been hearing scare stories about “long covid” for more than a year now, including from Bret Weinstein who I otherwise greatly respect, but no hard numbers or answers to my questions.
Anecdotes aside, I don’t really even know if “long covid” differs from “long flu” or “long pneumonia”. I’ve certainly been debilitated for months after a flu: tired, coughing, etc.
I think “long covid” is mostly a scare tactic aimed at people like me who are at low to low-ish risk of actual covid. “You probably won’t die, but you won’t feel like yourself again for the rest of your life! Booga booga!”
“curiosity about why this is happening in the Sun Belt ”
And how much in that area of the country is due to the 100s of thousands crossing the border and then the government distributing them to red states? One could almost believe this is all done on purpose.
Sarcasm. Of course it was done on purpose.
@ Bryan – I had many of the same questions, which I haven’t gone to the referenced reports to check on yet, and am not sure I could wade through them long enough to find the answers.
For others who haven’t looked at Durden’s post yet, he ends with this observation:
Ivermectin and others.
The residents of Dante’s Inferno will not lack for physicians or journalists.
Politicians are always a given.
@ AesopFan —
I strongly suspect that when the dust clears and the real data is winnowed from the corrupt, we’re going to find that long covid is about the same as actual covid: lots of people get a touch of it but recover just fine, and the bad stories we’re hearing will turn out to be worst-case anecdotes about as frequent as the “40 year old died from it” stories, i.e. terrible and surprising but rare.
The UK has been screwed up in their response consistently but they definitely do a more honest job with data collection.
The latest on the Delta variant doesn’t fit the current narrative.
https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1423758777103364106
Bryan Lovely,
There have also been numerous stories in the last 18 months of people (let’s be real it’s women almost exclusively) with horrible tales of ‘long Covid’ who have never actually tested positive for Covid.
A strategy built upon deceit, lies and oppression of rights is a strategy that only ideological fanatics and fools can believe will succeed. The left’s arrogant deceit will be its undoing.
“We knew the Left was nuts, but this really confirms it.” Cornhead
Rationalizing and self-justification are necessary when you base your life upon delusion.
I am not, and have not been, fearful of Covid. There was a time in mid-March 2020 that I was somewhat concerned, but all the data since then have convinced me that Covid is not a threat to me and my loved ones.
The mask mandators and lockdown lords have been lying all along. I don’t know their motivation but suspect the worst. At minimum they are irrational. They shall, and should, be ignored.
Says what we all know, and is willing to put his name and career on the line.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/medical_insanity_as_described_by_an_md.html
Covid residue, brought to you by the Environment Uber Alles Party.
https://baldilocks-talking.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-wordless-rant.html
This story did concern me, but I don’t yet know what to make of it.
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/08/05/scientist-i-partied-with-14-vaccinated-friends-and-11-of-us-got-infected-n406920
Aeksop, all those links? That is wh a t it is like becoming ymar 2007.
Enjoy
Aesop , thanks for the link at your 7:46pm comment. My sentiments and questions exactly. The medical establishment has some answering to do.
AesopFan and Bryan ask the questions I want answered.
I’ve seen claims that half or 75% of COVID-19 victims suffer cognitive declines or mood problems or physical challenges two months to sux months out, after recovery.
But detailed break downs? No. The helpful stuff Bret Weinstein wants to know? No. Not yet.
But contrary to a couple naysayers here (and many more not replying here), Long Covid was named a year ago in July when the clinical evidence first piled up.
The single longest account of Long Covid is over an hour long, posted at YT this July, produced by the prestigious UCSF med school. I think it’s real. For many, disturbing.
The best backup plan after vax is high Vitamin D. A new retrospective study using medical records from the past 2 years of measured But D levels and some 7,000 people tested for COVID-19 found no one with highest Vit D blood levels being hospitalized.
It’s cheap and you can get it free from the sun or inexpensively by pill.Just DO IT because it’s too easy and effective not to do
Best news from the UK says that what they have achieved by the vax there will prevent a new deadly wave of infections come Autumn.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9870649/Boris-Johnson-backs-plans-firebreak-lockdowns-needed-winter-months-NHS-faces-chaos.html
The US method of quick second jabs like in Israel – instead of many weeks delay after the primer as in the UK – looks increasingly dodgy by comparison.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/05/newsweek-takes-the-covid-fear-mongering-to-the-next-level-with-warning-about-looming-doomsday-variant/
The Doomsday-variant is coming
The first and most important variant was the TDS variant.
Twitchy: “Have you ever gotten the impression that the media’s actually enjoying the pandemic because it allows them to push the fear-mongering pedal to the metal? Newsweek is clearly enjoying their latest attempt to try and scare everybody to death:”
See this recent article by John Tierney at CJ about crisis journalism, h/t Powerline. Read his entire oeuvre for good information (it’s been censored by Big Media, so it must be right!)
https://www.city-journal.org/panic-pandemic?wallit_nosession=1
Steve Hayward’s TWIP is on target.
https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/08/image008.jpg?w=374&ssl=1
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/08/Screen-Shot-2021-08-04-at-11.54.20-AM.png?w=1160&ssl=1
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/08/image-3-copy-2.jpg?w=852&ssl=1