The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

COVID-19: The Fight Against Fear

Posted on | April 8, 2020 | 2 Comments

 

Mike Rowe: “We’re told to fall in line, trust the experts, and wait patiently for the all clear. Okay, fine. But for how long? What are the criteria for turning the country back on?” Many conservatives have become gun-shy about the COVID-19 outbreak. They don’t want to seem dismissive of the threat, or to undermine the message about the importance of “social distancing,” and I get that, completely. We must consider the influence of our words, but at the same time, I am beginning to hear, in the “social distancing” amen chorus, a creepy tone that reminds me of the rah-rah cheerleading for the Iraq War. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania:

A York County woman this week was the first person in Pennsylvania to be cited for violating Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order, according to state police.
The 19-year-old woman was given a nontraffic citation for allegedly “going for a drive,” according to the citation obtained by Pennlive.
State police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said Friday the woman initially was pulled over because of a vehicle code violation. Warnings have been issued by troopers in Troop A, which includes Westmoreland County, and Troop E in the Erie area, he said.
Troopers can use their discretion to decide if a citation is warranted, but they have been encouraged to use contacts with the public as a way to promote voluntary compliance, Tarkowski said.

She was alone in her car, but if this “going for a drive” business gets out of hand, people might start “going for a walk,” and next thing you know, they might peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, or something. The state police can’t allow that.

Remember my Monday column at The American Spectator about how the IHME (“Murray model”) projections were absurdly wrong? That got a lot of attention, including a link from Real Clear Politics, a substantial quote-out by Instapundit, and tweets by Megyn Kelly and Rush Limbaugh’s legendary producer James Golden a/k/a “Bo Snerdley.”

 

Of course, I was not alone in noticing the failure of the IHME projections (see Derek Hunter’s Sunday column at Townhall, for example), and it would be wrong to think I had any exceptional influence, but watching Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue Tuesday . . .

 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out that, even with the coronavirus infection and death toll “receding,” it’s still “taboo” in many circles to discuss getting things back to normal in the United States.
Beginning a lengthy monologue on Tuesday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News host discussed how once-dire COVID-19 projections “have been scaled back dramatically” in the wake of far lower numbers than any of the models anticipated, even taking social distancing measures into account.
“Whatever’s happening, this epidemic appears to be doing less damage than anticipated and it is receding more quickly.” . . .
“Now it’s time to look ahead,” Carlson said. “If the virus is doing less systemic damage to our system than expected, then presumably we can begin to consider how to improve the lives of the countless Americans who’ve been grievously hurt by this, by our response to this. How do we get 17 million of our most vulnerable citizens back to work? That’s the task.”

You should watch the whole thing, if you didn’t see it last night.

Perhaps some of you were worried by my lack of blogging Tuesday, and my apologies if anyone feared I’d been laid low by the ChiCom flu, but among other things, I was busy crunching through some interesting statistics about the coronavirus death rate in different countries:

Spain ………………………….. 311 per million
Italy …………………………… 283 per million
Belgium ……………………… 193 per million
France ……………………….. 158 per million
Netherlands ………………… 131 per million
United States ………………… 39 per million

The point should be obvious enough not to require comment. Anyone can look at those statistics and draw their own conclusions, but some in the media don’t want Americans to have an accurate perspective:

Two weeks ago, Dr. Deborah Birx warned against doomsday predictions that millions of Americans might die from coronavirus. At a White House press briefing on March 25, the coordinator of President Trump’s task force condemned media speculation based on claims that as much as half the country’s population might become infected with COVID-19. “I think the numbers that have been put out there are actually very frightening to people,” said Birx, adding that reported rates of infection in China, where the virus originated, were “nowhere close to the numbers that you see people putting out there. I think it has frightened the American people.”
Birx did not name MSNBC personality Chris Hayes, although he was one of the worst scaremongers in the media mob. On his March 23 program, Hayes warned that “millions of lives are on the line” if the economic lockdown response to the virus was not extended indefinitely: “There is no option to just let everyone go back out and go back to normal if a pandemic rages across the country and infects 50 percent of the population and kills a percentage point at the low end of those infected and also melts down all the hospitals.” . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

Category: Health Care, Media Bias

Comments

2 Responses to “COVID-19: The Fight Against Fear”

  1. The Lockdown Fascists. - Dark Brightness
    April 8th, 2020 @ 9:44 pm

    […] Mike Rowe: “We’re told to fall in line, trust the experts, and wait patiently for the all clear. Okay, fine. But for how long? What are the criteria for turning the country back on?” Many conservatives have become gun-shy about the COVID-19 outbreak. They don’t want to seem dismissive of the threat, or to undermine the message about the importance of “social distancing,” and I get that, completely. We must consider the influence of our words, but at the same time, I am beginning to hear, in the “social distancing” amen chorus, a creepy tone that reminds me of the rah-rah cheerleading for the Iraq War. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania: […]

  2. Friday Links | 357 Magnum
    April 10th, 2020 @ 10:26 am

    […] The Other McCain – COVID-19: The Fight Against Fear. […]