Our new normal is not normal or even necessary

Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today is Friday May 29, 2020¹. On this Report I will be talking about what the journalists and “experts” offer us as the new normal. They tell us we are just going to have to get used to it.

Getting back to normal, or close to it

Today would be day 70 of house arrest for the Castle family or 10 full weeks without outside human contact. But we are free now, having gone back to our Law Office on Tuesday of this week. The family daughter remains marooned on a small island at the bottom of the world. But at least she is free of the virus.

The return to the office with all my staff has been uneventful so far. The staff voiced no concern or fear at coming out of their homes and into the world. So right now, I have my staff back and all I need are the clients back. So we will be at least approaching a state that we once referred to as normal. Sixty-six days of quarantine, to which Joan and I faithfully adhered, finally comes to an end. (As eventually all things do.)

Some believe normal has changed forever

Strangely, although normal obviously varies from person to person, there are some who believe they know what the future normal will be for all of us and they are not shy about telling us. My hometown newspaper published a long article last Sunday entitled “Our New Normal.” In that article, the writer makes many statements which I presume she believes to be factual. Further, she assumes that her readers will believe them to be factual as well.

For example, she writes,

The new normal is not just referring to life after the pandemic, for we have no idea when that day will come. Until we get a COVID-19 vaccine, and it has been proved (sic) effective, the highly contagious coronavirus will be a threat to our health and our lives. It will be a part of our daily lives and consciousness. The sooner we accept and realize this fact, the better off we will be as a people and a nation.

But must normal actually change?

So, she states that we must accept and realize the “fact” that she gives us. Well, Ms. Norment, I beg to differ. Indeed I submit that very little of the long article is fact, and a great deal of it is simply the opinion of the writer and possibly the editorial board of The Commercial Appeal. She voices a high level of fear bordering on paranoia. I have seen and heard this fear from many people since this has been going on.

The CDC abandons the narrative

The interesting part of all this is that even the once alarmist CDC no longer agrees with Ms. Norment. They certainly don’t agree about the terrible long term affects of this virus on our daily lives, possibly forever. It doesn’t seem to matter what anyone says, however. Because many strong advocates of long-term lockdown, or lockdowners, if I may use that term, hold that view with religious zealotry.² They passionately believe the end justifies the means, and to leave confinement will expose everyone to an apocalyptic scenario.³

The CDC published its latest report in The New York Times, last Sunday edition. They now say many of the things they told us early on about the dangerous effects of the virus turned out to be incorrect. For example, it now seems that that virus spreads only by human contact and close quarters breathing, coughing, sneezing, etc. It does not spread by touching a doorknob, sink, etc.

Outdoor spread next to impossible

It also said that the virus is almost impossible to transmit outdoors. So there is nothing wrong with going to the beach or for a walk or bicycle ride. To enforce rules against such things in light of this new information is to exhibit some type of totalitarian psychosis.⁴ That is my assessment, not that of the CDC. How does that statement fit in with the video images we have all seen of Chinese trucks spraying disinfectant up and down Chinese streets? I don’t know.

Why don’t you lockdowners leave the rest of us alone?

I will admit that it is hard to make sense of anything these days. Perhaps you are one of the true lockdowners who demand that we stay locked down until no human on earth ever dies from a virus again. There are parallel views of the same thing and each lead down parallel rabbit holes into different universes. For example, in answer to a very passionate lockdowner I might ask this. Why can’t you stay locked down, if that is your preference, your fear? In the meantime, why not let me live free of confinement and harassment?

Can a collective have rights that supersede those of the individual?

The answer, of course, is that I will endanger the health of others with my irresponsible behavior. So, we are back to the collective again. Or at least some view of the collective which is more important to lockdowners than any individual and his rights. I always wonder, though, what the lockdowner has to fear from me? He has locked himself in his home. so why is he afraid that I will infect him?

The same question exists in the world of mandatory vaccines. If someone has taken the vaccine, he is rendered immune to the virus in theory. So why would he fear someone who has not taken the vaccine? I don’t know any logical answer to these questions accept possibly some type of herd programming.⁵

The M&M on the disease is far less than the CDC predicted at first

The CDC also reassessed its estimate of mortality. And guess what? It is much lower than previously thought! The new mortality rate is 0.26% or roughly one quarter of one per cent. That assumes the tests are 100% accurate which is probably impossible.⁶ The CDC death rate for those under 50 is now 1 in 5000 for those with symptoms. It falls even lower for those without severe comorbidities. For those without comorbidities, one could extrapolate from the most recent CDC numbers, that they are more likely to die in a car accident. Kids are more likely to get struck by lightning, but we terrify them anyway.

Basing a new normal on a prediction that was always faulty

The authorities overblew the threat from the beginning, and that much at least is clear. Hindsight is 20-20 and I know we all understand that it was foggy and scary out there at first. The question now is why do some of those in authority, elected and bureaucratic, insist on trampling the rights of free people when they can no longer justify it? They told me to quarantine my law office for 2 weeks to flatten the curve. I remember Dr. Fauci holding up a sign that said 17 days to flatten the curve.

While we were in quarantine, the goalpost kept moving. Every time we were about to score, we had another few yards to go. Two weeks of quarantine morphed into 3 months and counting. Now that we can see it is not as bad as we first thought, why not try to recover as quickly as possible? Most seem to agree with that, but many governors, and mayors apparently do not.

The dark side of the new normal – contact tracing…

There are worrisome signs coming to us from around the country. Some governors are requiring small businesses, especially restaurants, to collect personal information from their customers. That is supposedly to make contact tracing easier. In California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom plans to hire 20,000 contact tracers to chase people who have a positive test.

Should you test positive someone will ask you where you have been, what you did, who you did it with etc. In the case of a restaurant, where did you eat. Then the restaurant should have a list with names and addresses of all who were there at that time. And then the tracers will contact each of them and tell them to have a test. Should anyone test positive, the whole process starts over again.

…and vaccination

In the case of a vaccine when one is finally available, and several Dr. Fauci/Bill Gates companies are racing to bring one to service, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be mandatory. President Trump has said that the military will have to be used to vaccinate everyone in 2021. The federal government issued a contract of $178 million for several hundred million self-contained vaccine ampules. What if there is resistance? Or should I say when there is resistance, how will this order be enforced, or will it? We will see how serious the government and its experts are about bending us to the will of authority.

The new normal – rude behavior…

Back to The Commercial Appeal, we hear what our new normal is to be, at least until we have a vaccine that is proven effective. Wear masks in public at all times, thoroughly wash hands often, use hand sanitizer, wash all surfaces often with disinfectant. We might as well accept the wearing of a mask as the new normal according to The Commercial Appeal. I suppose that is the case even though new evidence reveals much of it to be false.

No more handshakes even in church, certainly no hugs and kisses. And as respected immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci says, “We can all forget about shaking hands.” That’s what The Commercial Appeal is telling me my future looks like. But that quote from Dr. Fauci deserves some explanation. The explanation should read that respected immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has a financial stake in several vaccine companies, and who stands to profit quite handsomely by suppressing all treatments not based on vaccines, says we can forget about shaking hands.

…and disruption of life

The rest of the new normal will be changes at the office, at church and other places. Ms. Lynn Norment who wrote this piece may not mind having her life turned upside down until Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates have their vaccine proven to be effective, but I do. Something tells me I am not the only one who does not intend to accept this new normal. That is especially true in light of the CDC’s most recent report.

A second wave – from seasonal factors only

If that were all it would be plenty, but it gets worse. Another article dated Wednesday May 27, 2020 in the same Commercial Appeal tells us that a November “surge” will happen. The article talks once again about the huge overflow hospital available for COVID patients. I have no doubt that cases will return to us in the late fall and winter. People will come indoors and vitamin D levels will fall. That result is perfectly normal for even cold and flu season, so why not COVID-19?

Remotely possible death from SARS-CoV-2 v. certain economic death from lockdowns

I would hate to have people close to me live in this kind of fear just because of mistakes or rumors. Why disrupt our lives and our ability to earn a living not to mention daily pleasures of living just because someone tells us to. Life is short and it gets shorter each day, and it is not something to waste in an unnecessary lockdown. There is the certainty of eventual death and the very remote possibility of death from this virus. But there is the very real probability of economic death if we don’t get the workplace functioning again.

Since when is investigation no longer normal in journalism?

I look at the new evidence with its:

1. Reduced mortality,
2. Questions regarding whether masks help or damage health,
3. Questions whether social distancing ever helped anything or whether it made things worse, and
4. The virtual certainty that the lockdown destroyed more than it saved.

And I wonder. Why don’t reporters investigate these questions and report their findings early before the damage is already done? Maybe its because what we now call journalists aren’t really reporters anymore.

Stunting of intellectual growth

People tend to work on the problems on which the answer is already clear to them. In other words, the simple, already solved problems, get the attention, and that stunts the reporter’s intellectual growth. Avoiding problems that seemingly can’t be solved, also limits growth because people become increasingly unaware of what they don’t know. Science, that is all the rage now, is about knowing. And the first step to knowing is finding out what you don’t know. When we become aware of our insufficient knowledge or skill then possible solutions can start to suggest themselves. Otherwise we are handicapped and stuck in our own world of politics and agenda forever.

Finally, folks, In the words of Paul Craig Roberts, as you age you watch your world disappear to serve present day agendas.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.

Editor’s Notes

1 The article appears after the original radio address of which it is a transcript.

2 Or they promote that view to serve a hidden motive. Your editor discusses hidden motives here.

3 In fact, certain officials have actually predicted a second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infection in riot-torn American cities. These officials include the mayors of Minneapolis and Atlanta and the chair of the epidemiology department at Cal-Davis. The rioters don’t seem to care. What remains to see, is whether they have to care—about SARS-CoV-2, not about the laws they break. CNAV predicts, for the record, that these dire predictions by mayors and epidemiologists will come to nothing, or almost nothing.

4 Or, to repeat, to serve the hidden motive of “fundamentally transform[ing] the United States of America,” Cloward-Piven style.

5 See Barbara Loe Fisher’s special report on SARS-CoV-2 and on vaccines in general.

6 Make that “certainly.” Your editor learned in medical school that no test scores 100 percent at distinguishing the sick from the well.

About the image

“File:Public Bus.png” by Mohamed Hozyen Ahmed is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0