The Coronavirus Cure Is Killing Us
. . . Is the current cure right-sized for the illness?
by Mark Alexander: Not to diminish the fear people feel – that is real, but given that the current viral fear pandemic besieging our nation is a medical issue, let me draw a rough healthcare analogy.
If a woman goes to her doctor and tells him that she is having chest pain, she should get ready for a battery of tests, especially if she is well insured. One reason for all those tests is that the physician wants to help determine the cause and will call in other specialists who will keep ordering tests until the cause can be identified and the risk quantified. If it turns out to be a heart condition, a proper course of treatment can be determined. But if the physician assumes it is heartburn with no further assessment, sends the patient out the door with a roll of antacids, and that patient dies of congestive heart failure in the parking lot, there is an enormous liability, not to mention the fact the patient is dead.
In the case of COVID-19, the diagnosis is out of order. The mainstream media is playing the medical team who worry the patient to death, the politicians are playing role of the doctor trying to cover their rear end, and Americans are the patient being subjected to all the tests.
Here in Tennessee, there is another analogy.
If weather reporters predict a big snow (“big” is relative), knee-jerk school administrators close schools. This creates a significant local disruption and financial burden on working parents and the businesses that employ them. This is particularly true in the case of lower-income single parents. The administrators force these closures because of liability — if a bus driver or parent has an accident on a slippery road trying to get kids to school, they can be held legally liable. In the meantime, the snow panic results in a consumer run on basic necessities, and the accidents mount up because people are still out and about.
In the nationwide viral fear pandemic currently sweeping our country, the “weather predictors” represent the mainstream media, the “administrators” represent the politicians, and the “working parents” represent anyone with a job, particularly actual working parents and their families. On those occasions when the weather prognosticators were right, the administrators can claim they made wise decisions that protected many people. However, more than a few times, the snow never fell (insert eye rolls here).
Now, as we have written repeatedly, this will be a bad flu season — it is not just heartburn and the snow is going to fall. In the U.S., there have already been 26,000 flu deaths this season, and WuFlu casualties could far exceed the 2017-18 flu season, when the CDC estimated the U.S. flu death toll was 80,000.
As COVID-19 viral infections and deaths accumulate — and they will continue to do so — politicians have attempted to indemnify themselves from voter liability, regardless of the burden they have created across the nation for working men and women and their families. And in two months, when the threat has subsided and the fear dissipated, the politicos and their Beltway media echo chambers will be preening their feathers, reminding you that if you survived WuFlu, you owe them an eternal debt of gratitude for saving your life, regardless of the price you and the rest of the nation paid for the cure.
The school shutdowns, which have enormous impact on families, are based in part on the lowest common denominator factor – the parent who is going to send their child to school sick because it was not convenient to keep him or her home. And when Americans begin to figure out the economic consequences of the state and local actions which have shuttered schools, events and businesses, there will be political HELL to pay. Thus, in April, the Left will begin to crank up its finger-pointing machines, especially using “coronavirus policy leaks” as fodder for blaming Trump.
But the most pressing question now: Is the current cure right-sized for the illness? Hindsight is (mostly) 20/20. We may look back in six months at the devastation of hundreds of thousands of deaths. We don’t know.
But we also don’t know if wiping out billions of dollars of income and trillions of dollars of equity value in investment and retirement accounts, home values, etc., in the end, will prevent this disease from ultimately taking the toll it was going to take regardless.
The fact is that all the extraordinary measure taken to, in effect, shut down the nation under the auspices of “social distancing” will help mitigate the spread of coronavirus and the rate of COVID-19 cases and deaths. That will buy our nation additional time to develop treatment regimens — but at what price?
This viral contagion is already nationwide, and it will continue to creep and hopefully slow with the weather gets warmer. It has mutated into two strains, and one may be much more aggressive. The “S-type” appears to be milder and less infectious, but the “L-type” is more contagious and accounts for 70 percent of cases. Unfortunately, though human vaccine trials will begin in early April, if successful the vaccine will still take 8-12 months before it is available.
What we do know for certain is that we have demonstrated to the world that, as a nation, the mass media can generate mass hysteria. Are we going to shut the nation down next fall when somebody sneezes in China?
All the coming political self-congratulations, spin and finger-pointing aside, the response to coronavirus is certainly a case study of the most grossly negligent media-driven panic in decades, and it’s indicative of the degree to which the MSM can drive fear and panic. The resulting WuFlu viral fear pandemic is the biggest load of crap ever dumped on American workers. They and their families are absorbing the financial shock of this monumental malfeasance, and the nonstop 24/7 news cycle is responsible. Every media talkinghead fomenting the fear and those politicians who are using it as political fodder should be exiled to Wuhan.
As one of our editors noted this morning, “We founded a nation out of wilderness, settled the great untamed West, survived a Civil War and two World Wars, and a Great Depression between them. But today we seem like a nation of chicken littles.”
As President Donald Trump prepares his National Emergence declaration today, it is worth reconsidering what he reminded us Wednesday: “No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States. We have the best economy, the most advanced healthcare, and the most talented doctors, scientists, and researchers anywhere in the world. We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family. As history has proven time and time again, Americans always rise to the challenge and overcome adversity.”
And we will again.
Fear not. Panic is not a strategy — unless you are a Democrat wanting to defeat Trump.
(Visit our updated COVID-19 contagion preparedness and response resource page, “WuFlu and You,” and see our related pages.
-----------------------
Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Patriot Post.
Tags: Mark Alexander, The Patriot Post, The Coronavirus Cure, Is Killing Us To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
If a woman goes to her doctor and tells him that she is having chest pain, she should get ready for a battery of tests, especially if she is well insured. One reason for all those tests is that the physician wants to help determine the cause and will call in other specialists who will keep ordering tests until the cause can be identified and the risk quantified. If it turns out to be a heart condition, a proper course of treatment can be determined. But if the physician assumes it is heartburn with no further assessment, sends the patient out the door with a roll of antacids, and that patient dies of congestive heart failure in the parking lot, there is an enormous liability, not to mention the fact the patient is dead.
In the case of COVID-19, the diagnosis is out of order. The mainstream media is playing the medical team who worry the patient to death, the politicians are playing role of the doctor trying to cover their rear end, and Americans are the patient being subjected to all the tests.
Here in Tennessee, there is another analogy.
If weather reporters predict a big snow (“big” is relative), knee-jerk school administrators close schools. This creates a significant local disruption and financial burden on working parents and the businesses that employ them. This is particularly true in the case of lower-income single parents. The administrators force these closures because of liability — if a bus driver or parent has an accident on a slippery road trying to get kids to school, they can be held legally liable. In the meantime, the snow panic results in a consumer run on basic necessities, and the accidents mount up because people are still out and about.
In the nationwide viral fear pandemic currently sweeping our country, the “weather predictors” represent the mainstream media, the “administrators” represent the politicians, and the “working parents” represent anyone with a job, particularly actual working parents and their families. On those occasions when the weather prognosticators were right, the administrators can claim they made wise decisions that protected many people. However, more than a few times, the snow never fell (insert eye rolls here).
Now, as we have written repeatedly, this will be a bad flu season — it is not just heartburn and the snow is going to fall. In the U.S., there have already been 26,000 flu deaths this season, and WuFlu casualties could far exceed the 2017-18 flu season, when the CDC estimated the U.S. flu death toll was 80,000.
As COVID-19 viral infections and deaths accumulate — and they will continue to do so — politicians have attempted to indemnify themselves from voter liability, regardless of the burden they have created across the nation for working men and women and their families. And in two months, when the threat has subsided and the fear dissipated, the politicos and their Beltway media echo chambers will be preening their feathers, reminding you that if you survived WuFlu, you owe them an eternal debt of gratitude for saving your life, regardless of the price you and the rest of the nation paid for the cure.
The school shutdowns, which have enormous impact on families, are based in part on the lowest common denominator factor – the parent who is going to send their child to school sick because it was not convenient to keep him or her home. And when Americans begin to figure out the economic consequences of the state and local actions which have shuttered schools, events and businesses, there will be political HELL to pay. Thus, in April, the Left will begin to crank up its finger-pointing machines, especially using “coronavirus policy leaks” as fodder for blaming Trump.
But the most pressing question now: Is the current cure right-sized for the illness? Hindsight is (mostly) 20/20. We may look back in six months at the devastation of hundreds of thousands of deaths. We don’t know.
But we also don’t know if wiping out billions of dollars of income and trillions of dollars of equity value in investment and retirement accounts, home values, etc., in the end, will prevent this disease from ultimately taking the toll it was going to take regardless.
The fact is that all the extraordinary measure taken to, in effect, shut down the nation under the auspices of “social distancing” will help mitigate the spread of coronavirus and the rate of COVID-19 cases and deaths. That will buy our nation additional time to develop treatment regimens — but at what price?
This viral contagion is already nationwide, and it will continue to creep and hopefully slow with the weather gets warmer. It has mutated into two strains, and one may be much more aggressive. The “S-type” appears to be milder and less infectious, but the “L-type” is more contagious and accounts for 70 percent of cases. Unfortunately, though human vaccine trials will begin in early April, if successful the vaccine will still take 8-12 months before it is available.
What we do know for certain is that we have demonstrated to the world that, as a nation, the mass media can generate mass hysteria. Are we going to shut the nation down next fall when somebody sneezes in China?
All the coming political self-congratulations, spin and finger-pointing aside, the response to coronavirus is certainly a case study of the most grossly negligent media-driven panic in decades, and it’s indicative of the degree to which the MSM can drive fear and panic. The resulting WuFlu viral fear pandemic is the biggest load of crap ever dumped on American workers. They and their families are absorbing the financial shock of this monumental malfeasance, and the nonstop 24/7 news cycle is responsible. Every media talkinghead fomenting the fear and those politicians who are using it as political fodder should be exiled to Wuhan.
As one of our editors noted this morning, “We founded a nation out of wilderness, settled the great untamed West, survived a Civil War and two World Wars, and a Great Depression between them. But today we seem like a nation of chicken littles.”
As President Donald Trump prepares his National Emergence declaration today, it is worth reconsidering what he reminded us Wednesday: “No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States. We have the best economy, the most advanced healthcare, and the most talented doctors, scientists, and researchers anywhere in the world. We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family. As history has proven time and time again, Americans always rise to the challenge and overcome adversity.”
And we will again.
Fear not. Panic is not a strategy — unless you are a Democrat wanting to defeat Trump.
(Visit our updated COVID-19 contagion preparedness and response resource page, “WuFlu and You,” and see our related pages.
-----------------------
Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Patriot Post.
Tags: Mark Alexander, The Patriot Post, The Coronavirus Cure, Is Killing Us To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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