A new " Bad Santa " strain of coronavirus emerges but sorry I'm "sold out" of being afraid anymore
Have you ever seen a herd of cattle in the moments after they’re released from the winter confinement of a slatted cowshed?
No, well it’s a scene of wild abandonment, zig-zag running and jumping & constant bucking of their hind legs. They’ll shoot off in every direction of the surrounding fields, joyous in the freedom and their escape from containment. There is no rhyme nor reason to their movements. In those minutes and hours they are totally, totally uncontrollable.
As you glance around the world at the moment, whether in reality or digitally, that in essence is what government and global entities are most afraid of losing now. Control of the herd. A rising percentage of people are now numb to fear tactics, for good or ill, and want their freedoms back regardless of the consequences. It is clear that media outlets and the political class don’t know what to do about this phenomenon or how to report it, as they mostly seem to be ignoring it. The louder they scream the less people listen.
In Ireland, flights and sea travel between the UK & Ireland have been completely stopped for the next 48 hours. Some new Bad Santa strain of coronavirus has been found in the Southern UK apparently. When I heard this on the radio, I shrugged, blew a few potato chips off my mask and got on with my day.
Six months ago, this would’ve made for a couple of days of fear porn. But 2020 has been a bad year for science and facts. And as a result fear tactics are having a depreciating level of impact. Immediately, on hearing the above news, one part of my brain wondered if this new Bond villain mutation of COVID-19 will be immune to all of these new vaccines, that appeared out of the mist like daffodils in spring-time. Will the media marketed 95% efficacy soon drop to 85% and then 60% and down and down in the vaccine fine print. Time will tell. The distrust is founded on what has come to pass before though.
I remember in April, a rolodex of different scientists and politicians screaming about the shortage of N-95 masks. That everybody, not just medical professionals would need them. Between you, me and the wall, I must confess I had never heard of such a mask. Except that all of a sudden we needed billions of them. This was well before any country-wide mask mandate too. Nonetheless I started googling the bejesus out of N-95 masks just to be on the safe side.
Fast forward to today, & we are living in our 4th or 5th month of compulsory mask wearing and I’ll be damned if I have heard any scientist or politician talk about the N-95 mask. Or the need to wear one. Now, it seems, any old mask will do.
This is only one small example of something that was a fact that either turned out not to be a fact or worse a fact that governing bodies ignored due to cost. Maybe the N-95 mask will come back into fashion soon again.
Another big fact during this pandemic was that Hydroxychloroquine in combination with a couple of other drugs was not effective in the treatment of COVID-19. This too is not true. India flooded the country and in particular the slums of their cities with this treatment. To great effect - in both early stage treatment and curiously as a preventative medicine. Why did they do this?
A country where tens of millions of people live on the streets in over-crowded shanty towns don’t have the luxury of clean running water, never mind washing their hands every twenty minutes or keeping 2 meters apart. Life must go on or you die of starvation before any virus will take you out. India’s case and death rates plummeted once they flooded the zone with HCQ. Maybe it’s just a co-incidence except about 40 other 2nd and 3rd world countries are doing the same thing with similiar results.
The cherry on top of this HCQ cake, is that not three weeks after the US election, the American medical association did a curious thing. The American Medical Association (AMA), in a surprising move, has officially rescinded a previous statement against the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, giving physicians the okay to return to utilizing the medication at their discretion.
Previously, the AMA had issued a statement in March that was highly critical of HCQ in regards to its use as a proposed treatment by some physicians in the early stages of COVID-19. In addition to discouraging doctors from ordering the medication in bulk for “off-label” use – HCQ is typically used to treat diseases such as malaria – they also claimed that there was no proof that it was effective in treating COVID, and that its use could be harmful in some instances. Oops.
The other scientific problem with HCQ is that it’s dog cheap and what kind of self respecting 1st world global crisis doesn’t give birth to a few dozen billionaires that profit from said crisis.
So in summation of the HCQ debacle - the 3rd world had to teach the 1st world about effective coronavirus treatment. Go Figure.
The rest of the western world took it’s lead from the US in it’s approach to HCQ. How many people needlessly died because the United States & WHO medical leadership politicized a drug?
The most over-used phrase on television is “ trust the science and trust the experts” We did and they got it wrong too many times on issues big and small. Plain and simple. Now my motto is question the scientists. Question everything & everyone that is involved in running this pandemic.
If they engage in answers great but if they start engaging in condescension and a patronizing roll of the eyes chances are the science of what they are talking about is sketchy or non-existent.
Unlimited power has gone to the heads of many doctors and a scientists in this pandemic, in just the same fashion as it goes to a politician’s head. Now, when we question the science or the politics of it they all bristle with indignation. And demand more power over our lives. As if we the people, the ones listening to them, are the ones who have failed in this crisis. They point the finger at the great masked and unmasked and shout: “ it’s your fault this pandemic is not under control and FYI we need more control over your lives! “
Fortunately, too many cattle are out of this daft shed now and I suspect applying herd mentality again will be about as likely as controlling the herd of escaped cattle that I started this story with.