Red State:
These days I’ve been fielding a lot of questions from friends who aren’t that politically involved but know what I do for a living and trust my opinion. They want to know what sources of information they should believe when it comes to COVID and the ensuing politics of it all.
“I see this doctor saying one thing, and that doctor saying another and depending on what news channel I watch the information is either encouraging or very, very bad but everyone is showing me numbers and statistics…who do I believe? How do I know who to vote for?”
When the COVID madness first started, I can remember one evening early on in my sleepy suburb our neighbors decided to organize a “clap out” for healthcare workers on their evening shift change – you remember those…everyone claps and shouts out their windows at the same time to thank the brave essential workers. At this point there were still a lot of unknowns out there, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it all. I was definitely scared, but I was starting to notice the numbers didn’t seem to be adding up to the panic. I had expected to see bodies in the streets, hospitals overflowing, third world conditions but our hospital didn’t have a single COVID patient, and we’d had a mere 11 cases in our whole community of 100,000. So when our neighborhood organizer posted about the “clap out” my first thought was…for who? Who exactly were we clapping for? Who was going to hear us?
I kept trying to make sense of the lockdowns in comparison to the numbers and I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around any of it. I kept trying, because the SCIENCE™ (as reported by 24-hour cable news) was telling me that I must be an idiot if I thought we were overreacting. So I kept trying to wrap my mind around it, kept trying to convince myself that I just wasn’t smart enough to understand the data. And still…none of it made sense.
It continued to make no sense until the day I decided to take all the competing information, all the SCIENCE™ and all the DATA™ and all the news reports and combine them with what my eyes were actually seeing. I decided that I’m old enough and intelligent enough to make assessments for myself, particularly if I’m being diligent about seeking out information.
Be sure to add this to your considerations: https://www.studyfinds.org/recovered-coronavirus-patients-still-test-positive/
Give particular thought to its fufure political ramifications (which re the ones that really count).
The latest statistics from the CDC indicate this is a normal flu season with the footnote that respiratory centric flu is more dangerous to elderly and people with preexisting conditions. The WHO is saying that the only thing that lockdowns accomplish is poverty. Especially since when the first world suffers financially, the third world suffers exponentially more. None of this is being reported by the MSM.
My wife recently had a Covid test done because her idiot son insisted on one before went to visit the grandchildren. It came back positive, so she immediately had another, more accurate, test done. Results took three days. In the meantime, our local health department contacted her (and me) with instructions on what was expected as we quarantined, and how to stay in touch with them. I immediately tossed mine. Eventually, the second test results came back as negative, which was good enough for her to make the trip to see the grandkids. She contacted the health department to inform them of the negative result and was told that it didn’t matter. ANY positive result was counted, and was grounds for quarantine. I asked her “Do you believe me now?”