Kansas GOP Insider (wannabe): September 2020

Monday, September 28, 2020

Dear Karen: You Don't Get the COVID Moral High Ground

There are an awful lot of leftists and their media allies attempting to take the moral high ground by demanding more shut downs, continued cancellations, keeping schools closed, shuttering bars and restaurants, and generally increasing the malaise wrought by government response to the virus. Clearly, the moral high ground sits at an elevation where they aren't getting enough oxygen to their brains. 


Despite an early policy that absolutely devastated New York nursing homes and despite the fact that 18 percent of all (questionably counted) COVID deaths in the U.S. have occurred in the Empire State,  the media holds New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo up as some kind of sage who throttled the virus with his bare hands. Democrats even gave the guy a victory lap at the Democratic National Convention. In a pre-recorded address, Cuomo told the 5 people who could stand to listen to his self-righteous bloviating that they did things right in New York and Republican-led states failed in response to COVID-19. 


It would be laughable if the Cuomo circus wasn't inflicting real damage. 


Millions of Americans are out of work, but the Empire State is particularly hard hit. While unemployment nationally hovers around 10 percent, in New York City, the unemployment rate is 20 percent. The statewide unemployment rate sits at over 12 percent. Bars and restaurants in NYC STILL remain closed for indoor dining. Bang up job, Cuomo and clown show De Blasio. 


Meanwhile here in Kansas, we have a Governor and her "health" expert presenting conman-style charts and graphs to make the case for additional lockdowns and keeping children out of school. For people who supposedly care about The Children™ they have a really funny way of showing it.


More people are suicidal? So what. More people are getting fatally ill because they're too afraid to visit a doctor to get that lump checked out? So what. Substance abuse is up? Big deal. More women and children are being daily subjected to domestic violence? If you care about that, you want to kill grandma.


If I think too long about what is occurring in our nursing homes and from keeping kids out of school, I get so angry I can barely breath -- even without a mask covering up my oxygen intake valves.


All public policy is a balancing act. Say your local government wants to raise the speed limit on a local road. Studies suggest the danger of car accidents increases along with speed. So policymakers must decide whether the value of the extra time gained by people traveling along the road is worth the increased risk. Any policy you can think of -- no matter how mundane-- is a balancing act.  Every.last.one.


Except, somehow, in the case of COVID-19 policy. For our Governor, the number of cases is the only thing that matters. (Set aside for a minute the stories about whether those who are asymptomatic or those who receive a positive diagnosis after 40 PCR cycles are even capable of spreading COVID. Also, set aside the ever-moving goal posts. We're on month six of two weeks to "flatten the curve.") 





Make no mistake: Children are suffering due to draconian lockdown measures and repeated cancellations.  Actual researchers -- not the bureaucrats who masquerade as Scientists™  on TV-- are reporting severe trouble in children subjected to long-term lockdown. They are finding gadget addiction, mental health problems, and behavioral issues. That doesn’t even begin to account for the educational delays of students who aren’t in schools. 


This story in the New Yorker, about a bright, but poor kid in Baltimore is infuriating. It details the challenges inherent in trying to educate underprivileged kids like Shemar in a virtual environment. Spoiler alert: It's not going well.


Kids like Shermar might have a chance when in person at school, because they come into contact with caring adults and have meaningful interactions with people who can give them a tiny boost. Right now, however,  the Shemars of the world are sitting in dark rooms alone, not getting much of an education. Meanwhile, little suburban kids have parents and grandparents shuttling them to soccer practice and daycares (that never closed, by the way) and ensuring that they are doing whatever worksheet passes for an education these days. Shemar is falling further behind and may never recover, but at least the Karens raising those little suburban kids get to feel morally superior about their masks and “saving grandma.” 


They disgust me.


The kids are not alright.


Things aren’t that much better for adults. In fact, they may be worse because  adults are not as resilient as children. Suicides and drug overdoses are just the tip of the iceberg. In one Chicago suburb, overdose deaths spiked by 50 percent. Oh well, at least grandma is safe in isolation, say the monsters responsible for draconian lockdowns. Unfortunately, that’s not true either.


https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1310705415030628352


Granny is slightly safer in a nursing home outside of New York state, but she’s not doing well in the remaining 49 states. If she has dementia or Alzheimer’s, the lockdowns increased the likelihood of her untimely death. Back in June, the Center for Disease Control reported 15,000 more deaths than usual for age-related brain diseases. Humans are social creatures. Isolation is not just deadly; it’s cruel.


The average stay in a nursing home prior to death is a little more than a year. In that final year of life, nursing home residents deserve to benefit from the care and love of their families. I can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely speak for myself when I say given a choice between a few months shaved off of my life because of something like COVID or a bit more time in complete isolation, I choose actual living versus mere existence. Many people may choose differently, but they should have the choice. But that’s not what’s happening with COVID. A lunatic like Cuomo can isolate and quarantine nursing homes without any say from the people who live or work there. And he can do so while ordering those sickened with COVID to remain in the nursing homes, creating the precise conditions in which the virus thrives.


I can find approximately 95,000 stories about young, seemingly healthy  individuals who were severely ill and/or died with COVID, and almost nothing about the toll isolation is taking on nursing home residents. I can find a handful of stories about children suffering due to forced social isolation and lack of educational resources, but approximately eight billion stories a day about the number of COVID cases. (It’s funny how we hear so much about cases and statistical outlier deaths, but very little about the actual death rate. It’s dropping like a rock.)


The lopsided nature of this reporting isn’t because social isolation isn’t damaging nursing home residents or children. It’s because political allegiances now demand that half of society, and in particular the cultural elites and news media, avert their eyes to the horrors COVID policy has wrought.


I won’t even go into the demoralizing cruelty and insensitivity of not allowing people to visit their loved ones in hospitals or have funerals, because COVID. Apparently, you’re only safe from the clutches of the not-so-deadly virus in large groups if you’re throwing bricks into buildings, setting structures on fire, or looting private businesses.


The Karens of the world do not hold the moral high ground in this COVID insanity. They’re welcome to continue averting their eyes, but the rest of us shouldn’t. It's time our COVID policies take more into consideration than just case counts.