Coronavirus narrative under threat

Since March of 2020 the United States, and to a lesser extent the rest of the world, has labored under a peculiar narrative. That narrative has centered upon the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, or simply coronavirus. The narrative reads like something out of Stephen King’s The Stand and basically says freedom must yield to disease control. The alternative: a massive die-off and crippling hospitalization rates. Among the activities medical authorities must forbid are large gatherings.

Last weekend saw two large gatherings and a peculiarly selective outrage against one, but not the other. These were the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (still going on) and the Barack Obama Birthday Bash. Authorities, with Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. leading them, condemned the first but not the second. In fact, both gatherings pose a serious threat. But not to public health – but instead to the narrative.

The basic coronavirus narrative

The narrative about the contagiousness and case-fatality rate of coronavirus suffers from some strain as it is. All but the most die-hard supporters of the narrative concede that the case-fatality rate for coronavirus is less than one percent. Even so, they say, the case-fatality rate for influenza is one hundred to one thousand times less than that. Of course, no one has ever set a standard of the highest acceptable case-fatality rate of any communicable disease, whether that disease spread through direct contact (from a handshake to sexual activity) or indirect contact (simply being in the same room).

Containment of any airborne pathogen (i.e., what causes disease) is an impossible dream anyway. The Narrators at first said, “Lock everything down for two weeks, and the virus will die for lack of hosts.” Two weeks spread to two months and then to all summer, fall and winter. (They also made possible the unilateral relaxation of election laws in nearly every State in the Union. But that’s another topic.)

The first crack in the coronavirus narrative

Over the winter of 2020-2021, a few venues opened under very tight restriction. All guests and staff wore masks that covered mouth and nose. Staff cleaned benches every half hour, on the theory of letting no virion escape their sanitation measures.

What resulted from all these measures? A rather curious thing. Coronavirus still infected people. But, strange to report, influenza did not. No one reported a single case of influenza, or absenteeism therefrom.

What happened? Did the sanitation methods just happen to erase the ‘flu while still not proof enough against coronavirus? Or did health authorities misattribute cases of ‘flu as cases of coronavirus? This much we do know: hospitals had every incentive to report a death with coronavirus as a death of coronavirus. Quite simply, the government paid them more. This placed hospitals, and epidemiologists, at moral hazard. For that reason, reliable data, free of self-selection and other biases, is completely lacking.

About those vaccines

Emergency Use Authorizations for three coronavirus immunization preparations, mis-called “vaccines,” now exist. Two of these use messenger RNA (mRNA) to cause the body’s cells to copy out the coronavirus “spike protein.” A patient having antibodies to this protein should be immune to the virus. So the theory states. (This applies only to the preparations by Pfizer and Moderna. The preparation from Johnson & Johnson uses a different principle.)

In fact “breakthrough infections” are common – so common that the CDC has stopped counting them. Not only that, but the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports more adverse events from these three preparations than from all other immunizations combined. Many of these are fatal within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. The fatal mechanism: blood clots, due to the actions of the spike protein itself or of its antibodies.

Two scientists (Luc Montagnier and Michael Yeadon) have separately stated that only in two or three years will we know the full effects. The worst-case scenario: death within that time frame, from pulmonary hypertension due to disseminated intravascular coagulation (or a DIC-like syndrome) with the spike protein as instigator. The Internet has suffered much scrubbing of this information. (Dr. Joseph R. Mercola, after authorities threatened him with who-knows-what, announced the take-down of all his 25 years of content.) So no one can properly judge those claims. Authorities simply say, “Trust us.” But their behavior does not engender trust.

The two events

The Obama event, at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, drew at least 700 guests. Pictures – which guests posted, then scrubbed, but not before other social-media users scraped the photos off, saved them, and re-shared them – show these guests wearing no masks and making no attempt to stay six feet from one another. Furthermore, when the party broke up, the guests causes traffic jams that prompted local residents to describe it in scatological terms.

The Sturgis event was much larger. By one estimate, 700,000 people attended the rally and various side events. USA Today has the most comprehensive article that does not lie behind a pay wall.

The difference in health-authority attitudes toward these events cannot have been more stark. Authorities described the Sturgis event in lurid terms. In response, users of Quora.com actually posted questions about cordoning off Sturgis. That, of course, would be a scene right out of a cheap Hollywood thriller. But about the Martha’s Vineyard event? Crickets.

But of one thing we have no reports concerning either event: new coronavirus cases.

According to the prevailing narrative, at least ten percent of attendees should have come down with it. That’s enough to kill at least one person at Martha’s Vineyard and as many as seven hundred at Sturgis. But how many cases, and how many deaths, have made it into the news? Zero!

The Texas Democratic Flight(s)

In July of this year, almost the entire Texas State House Democratic Caucus fled the State. They did so to deny a quorum to that House as it considered new laws to stop such practices as unattended drop boxes, universal mail-out of ballots, and so on. They chartered at least two airliner-size jets. According to at least one “brag picture” aboard one of the jets, they flew without masks.

Of the fifty-plus fugitive legislators, six “tested positive” for coronavirus. All had taken the vaccine. So these are “breakthrough cases,” or “false positives.” But none is in danger of dying or will even require hospitalization. Nor has the disease “spread” any further.

Which reminds one of one specious excuse a New York Times reporter offered for the Martha’s Vineyard crowd. “A sophisticated, vaccinated crowd,” Annie Karni told CNN.

If you have to use that kind of language to describe it, it’s ninety-proof bull and I’m not buying any.Actor Burl Ives, as “Big Daddy” Pollitt, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).

“Sophisticated” one might call those people. But at least two of them did not take the vaccine. (Afraid of dying of pulmonary hypertension from DIC, perhaps?)

Coronavirus, where is thy sting?

So what do we have? Two large events, plus one smaller one. All three broke the rules of the coronavirus narrative, one way or another. Two of them involved hypocrisy of the highest order. But what they did not involve, were fatalities or even hospitalizations!

So much, then, for the narrative about a disease that has people dropping like flies! And so much for the expectation of a mortuary crew pushing carts down the street, ringing bells, and shouting, “Bring out your dead!”

And so much for any urgency for mask or vax. The practical results of these events clearly demonstrate that we don’t need them.

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