WATCH OUT The Food Industrys LIES and How they are Slowly Poisoning Us 23:55 Jun 01 0 comments How Euthanasia Has Been Hijacked in Canada for very Ridding of People who are a Burden to the State 22:35 Dec 08 0 comments Australia sees 63% drop in births after introduction of covid “vaccines” – what will t... 23:10 Nov 22 0 comments 6 Canadian Medical Doctors Died Within 2 Weeks After 4th COVID Booster Shots for Employees Started a... 00:38 Aug 12 3 comments WHO Declares Monkeypox “Global Emergency” After Vaccine Approved by EMA for Europe - Outbreaks are O... 21:57 Jul 27 1 comments more >>Blog Feeds
Anti-EmpireNorth Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi? Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi? Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi? ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi? US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty
Human Rights in IrelandPromoting Human Rights in Ireland
Lockdown Skeptics
News Round-Up Tue Dec 03, 2024 00:43 | Richard Eldred
Cost of Switching Off U.K. Wind Farms on Windy Days Hits ?Absurd? ?1 Billion Mon Dec 02, 2024 20:00 | Will Jones
David Starkey is Right That Blair Destroyed the British Constitution But Wrong About This Mon Dec 02, 2024 18:03 | James Alexander
Jaguar?s ?Barbie Pink? Electric Car Leaked Online Mon Dec 02, 2024 15:45 | Will Jones
Trump Asks if Biden Will Now Pardon the ?January 6th Hostages? After He Pardons Son Hunter Mon Dec 02, 2024 13:41 | Will Jones
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international editionVoltaire, International Newsletter N?110 Fri Nov 29, 2024 15:01 | en Verbal ceasefire in Lebanon Fri Nov 29, 2024 14:52 | en Russia Prepares to Respond to the Armageddon Wanted by the Biden Administration ... Tue Nov 26, 2024 06:56 | en Voltaire, International Newsletter N?109 Fri Nov 22, 2024 14:00 | en Joe Biden and Keir Starmer authorize NATO to guide ATACMS and Storm Shadows mis... Fri Nov 22, 2024 13:41 | en |
Why Is Everyone in Texas Not Dying?
international |
health / disability issues |
other press
Tuesday April 06, 2021 22:47 by 1 of indy
News from Texas where all lockdowns and restrictions have been removed
I’m sitting at a bar in Texas, surrounded by maskless people, looking at folks on the streets walking around like life is normal, talking with nice and friendly faces, feeling like things in the world are more-or-less normal. Cases and deaths attributed to Covid are, like everywhere else, falling dramatically. If you pay attention only to the media fear campaigns, you would find this confusing. More than two weeks ago, the governor of Texas completely reversed his devastating lockdown policies and repealed all his emergency powers, along with the egregious attacks on rights and liberties. There was something very un-Texan about those lockdowns. My hotel room is festooned with pictures of cowboys on horses waving guns in the air, along with other depictions of rugged individualism facing down the elements. It’s a caricature but Texans embrace it. Then a new virus came along – as if that had never happened before in Texas – and the new Zoom class took the opposite path, not freedom but imposition and control. After nearly a year of nonsense, on March 2, 2021, the governor finally said enough is enough and repealed it all. Towns and cities can still engage in Covid-related mischief but at least they are no longer getting cover from the governor’s office. At that moment, a friend remarked to me that this would be the test we have been waiting for. A complete repeal of restrictions would lead to mass death, they said. Would it? Did the lockdowns really control the virus? We would soon find out, he theorized. I knew better. The “test” of whether and to what extent lockdowns control the virus or “suppress outbreaks” (in Anthony Fauci’s words) has been tried all over the world. Every serious empirical examination has shown that the answer is no. The US has many examples of open states that have generally had better performance in managing the disease than those states that are closed. Georgia already opened on April 24, 2020. South Dakota never shut down. South Carolina opened in May. Florida ended all restrictions in September. In every case, the press howled about the coming slaughter that did not happen. Yes, each open state experienced a seasonality wave in winter but so did the lockdown states. So it was in Texas. Thanks to this Twitter thread, and some of my own googling, we have a nice archive of predictions about what would happen if Texas opened.
There are probably hundreds more such warnings, predictions, and demands, all stated with absolute certainty that basic social and market functioning is a terrible idea. The lockdown lobby was out in full force. And yet what do we see now more than two weeks out (and arguably the lockdowns died on March 2, when the government announced the decision)? Here are the data. The CDC has a very helpful tool that allows anyone to compare open vs closed states. The results are devastating for those who believe that lockdowns are the way to control a virus. In this chart we compare closed states Massachusetts and California with open states Georgia, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina. What can we conclude from such a visualization? It suggests that the lockdowns have had no statistically observable effect on the virus trajectory and resulting severe outcomes. The open states have generally performed better, perhaps not because they are open but simply for reasons of demographics and seasonality. The closed states seem not to have achieved anything in terms of mitigation. On the other hand, the lockdowns destroyed industries, schools, churches, liberties and lives, demoralizing the population and robbing people of essential rights. All in the name of safety from a virus that did its work in any case. As for Texas, the results so far are in. I’m making no predictions about the future path of the virus in Texas. Indeed for a full year, AIER has been careful about not trying to outguess this virus, which has its own ways, some predictable and some mysterious. The experience has, or should have, humbled everyone. Political arrangements seem to have no power to control it, much less finally suppress it. The belief that it was possible to control people in order to control a virus produced a calamity unprecedented in modern times. What’s striking about all the above predictions of infections and deaths is not just that they were all wrong. It’s the arrogance and confidence behind each of them. After a full year and directly observing the inability of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” to manage the pathogen, the experts are still wedded to their beloved lockdowns, unable or unwilling to look at the data and learn anything from them. The concept of lockdowns stemmed from a faulty premise: that you can separate humans, like rats in cages, and therefore control and even eradicate the virus. After a year, we unequivocally know this not to be true, something that the best and wisest epidemiologists knew all along. Essential workers still must work; they must go home to their families, many in crowded living conditions. Lockdowns do not eliminate the virus, they merely shift the burden onto the working class. Now we can see the failure in black, white, and full color, daily appearing on our screens courtesy of the CDC. Has that shaken the pro-lockdown pundit class? Not that much. What an amazing testament to the stubbornness of elite opinion and its bias against basic freedoms. They might all echo the words of Groucho Marx: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” |
View Full Comment Text
save preference
Comments (3 of 3)