One of Albert Einstein’s many aphorisms, “three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed,” is particularly apt in the Covid era.
Our government’s duty is to warn the public of a possible pandemic and recommend precautions.
However, the initial Covid tactic was to strike fear into our hearts and minds.
The constant display of Covid “cases” on the nightly news suggested certain death awaited those who ventured out of their homes.
During the Diamond Princess cruise ship’s outbreak in early February 2020, we had a real world demonstration of the behavior of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. … Because 80 percent of those infected were in cabins that didn’t have a previous confirmed case, the likely mode of infection was transmission of aerosols (in contrast to large droplets that quickly fall to the ground) through the ventilation system.
Locking people in proved counterproductive.
We also learned from the Diamond Princess episode that the median age of symptomatic folks was 68 years—50 percent of whom had underlying medical conditions, and the deaths were in those over 70 years of age.
Despite this real world clinical experience, the CDC and Dr. Fauci advised state governments to quarantine every living human being in the country. The lessons of the Diamond Princess faded from the news while a never-ending campaign of fear persisted.
After more than a year, the CDC finally acknowledged real world evidence and “the science,” and announced that “less than 10 percent” of transmission occurred outdoors.
Data shows the actual outdoor transmission is somewhere between 0.1 and 1 percent. While technically true, one wonders whether the CDC used purposefully misleading wording to cover its tracks after mask recommendations for children outdoors at summer camp and mandates for seafaring commercial fisherman.
Fear fuels stupidity. By June 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) had announced that asymptomatic transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is “very rare.” And study after study after study have shown that cloth masks do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other similar viruses.
When political pundits see unmasked people as a threat and a fully vaccinated physician Covid expert found it “psychologically hard” to dine unmasked with a vaccinated friend, masking has become not “following the science” but an obsession.
Patients and physicians have a choice. Despite the vaccine über alles narrative, only 60 percent of Dr. Fauci’s staff have taken “the shot.” The NIH’s Covid-19 Treatment Guidelines are not mandates. Patients can opt for early treatment at a cost of $10 to $125 per entire course with effective repurposed generic drugs supported by real-time worldwide evidence.
Sadly, as Kaiser Health News noted, despite being a “godsend” to reduce death and hospitalizations, “drug companies have no incentive to spend millions to test new uses for cheap, off-patent drugs.”