When Russia invaded Ukraine two weeks ago, some were quick to quip that Vladimir Putin had single-handedly killed Covid. As the story goes, worldwide collapse of public support for Covid restrictions, abysmal approval ratings for the Biden administration, and internal Democratic party polling warning of a political bloodbath in November necessitated a shift in the news cycle away from the pandemic. In characteristic lockstep, jurisdictions around the world began hastily walking back their mandates because, you know, science.
Putin’s war in Ukraine certainly provided a much-needed diversion from Covid woes. Yet we should not conclude that the unconscionable precepts underpinning the pandemic response have been definitively shelved, and content ourselves with gawking at the unfolding disaster in Eastern Europe. Indeed, the hoaxers who used the pandemic as an excuse to crush fundamental liberties are the same warmongers who want you riled up over Ukraine’s borders and transfixed by a regional dumpster fire that their own meddling, grubby hands have been pouring gasoline on for years.
Those behind the trucker convoy that has descended on D.C. have proven less easily distracted. As we mark the two-year anniversary of “15 days to slow the spread,” the truckers understand better than anyone that Covid is not dead until every child’s face is uncovered, every emergency order rescinded, every public health edict shredded, and every worker fired over vax mandates reinstated or compensated. To prevent the Covid cartel from ever pulling this stunt again, every lockdown-advocating, mask mandate-imposing, vax pass-wielding politician and public health mystic needs to answer for the destruction they have caused.
At a press briefing last week with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and representatives of the People’s Convoy, one reporter seemed confused as to the point of the truckers’ protest, given that many mandated have now been lifted. Even conservatives like The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh have superciliously questioned what difference any of this makes.
Cruz explained it this way: “It makes a difference to everyone who’s lost their jobs over these mandates.” For Johnson, it’s about “bringing the truth to the American public.” He argued that although “our response has been a miserable failure … the people that foisted this response on us … will never admit they were wrong.”
Clinging to their Power
Many of these tyrants are not only failing to acknowledge wrongdoing, they’re also not even conceding defeat. The White House has stated that President Joe Biden will veto any resolution passed by Congress to repeal the federal state of emergency, claiming “the virus continues to pose a risk,” and the federal government must “be prepared to respond to potential future variants.” The Biden administration also just extended the mask requirement for airlines and airports.
The trickle-down effect of this belligerent fear-mongering is evident in school districts nationwide, including San Francisco and Boston, as well as institutions like George Mason University, that still cling to mandates. New York City Mayor Eric Adams just announced that masks will continue to be required for all settings for children younger than five. Worse, the city’s new color-coded system for the Covid alert level reveals that lockdowns are very much still on the table.
Elsewhere in the world, repeals of mandates conceal sneaky clauses permitting future draconian action if the despots so choose. Austria has already announced a U-turn on its egregious general vaccine mandate, which would have entailed roughly $4,000 fines for adults who refused to comply. Yet EU Minister Karoline Edtstadler emphasized this is only a temporary suspension, which allows the legal framework to be “kept in place in case another, more dangerous variant became dominant in the future.”
Similarly in Germany, where authorities announced the lifting of Covid restrictions by March 20, masks and testing will still be mandatory in some settings and individual states can continue to impose vax passes. The new legislation is supposed to guard against future waves.
Indeed, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach warned on Friday that the pandemic was certainly not over, the situation in Germany was critical, and the easing of restrictions was to blame for the record high daily case numbers. He also speculated that without a general vaccine mandate, autumn could bring a new surge of infections, a view shared by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
This Covid forever hysteria is by no means confined to outliers. One hundred and thirty politicians, officials, Hollywood A-listers, and other grifters just signed an open letter insisting that the pandemic is not over, warning western leaders against complacency, and urging more spending on vaccines, testing, and PPE.
This attitude underscores the argument by People’s Convoy spokesman Brian Brase that this is not just an American but a global issue, describing it as “a renaissance of freedom.” States of emergency and mandates must be rescinded worldwide, and investigations launched into the public health measures adopted by our elected and non-elected officials. If not, the pandemic campaign will continue, with a continually-stocked arsenal of variants, surges, and boosters serving as weapons with which to dominate populations and punish dissenters.
There Must Be a Reckoning
It was never the prerogative of politicians, health agencies, and international organizations to snatch our rights away. Enormous suffering has been inflicted as a result, and the working and middle classes throughout the world are shouldering the burden of this outrage.
A 2020 UNICEF analysis projected that an additional 150 million children will be plunged into multidimensional poverty. UNICEF’s latest findings, using data from 35 countries, revealed that at least 68 percent of households with children have lost income since the start of the lockdowns. Roughly a quarter of adults living with children reported going without food for a day or longer. Among households with children who were attending school before the pandemic, only one-half reported children participating in any educational activities after authorities shut down schools.
Here in the United States, where millions of students were forced out of their classrooms for the better part of a year, studies warn of serious language and literacy deficits among children in the earliest grades. The long-term cognitive, emotional, and physical impact of muzzling our little ones against their will, including elementary school students, toddlers, the hearing impaired, and other special-needs children for several hours a day may never be fully comprehended.
Those who crowed about an overall 5 percent drop in U.S. suicides for 2020, did not seem particularly concerned by indicators that suicides for blacks and Latinos surged during that period. Another sobering statistic is the 30 percent jump in drug overdoses during 2020 to an estimated 93,331 deaths, the highest number ever recorded in a 12-month period.
Thousands of Americans have lost their jobs thanks to vax mandates, despite the admission by Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky that vaccines do not prevent transmission and revelations the CDC has been withholding key data on vaccine and booster efficacy. Late last year, the largest health care provider in New York fired 1,400 doctors and nurses who didn’t want the injection.
Corporations including Google, Facebook, Tyson Foods, Verizon, Nike and Columbia Sportswear have all imposed vaccination requirements for staff. Even a Catholic Priest in Vermont, who has served as pastor of his parish for two decades, was just dismissed by his bishop for resisting the diocese’s intrusive vax and mask policy.
Now the authors of this debacle expect us to ignore the wreckage and ogle at Ukraine, or whatever freakshow they parade before us next, while they get to withhold and dispense freedoms as they desire, whenever the political moment is right.
Covid will not be “killed” by Putin’s war in Ukraine, or any other impeccably timed, amnesia-inducing catastrophe. It will be destroyed by ditching the fake science and superstition, recognizing the people’s sovereignty over their own lives, and holding accountable the gang of self-serving officials and petty tyrants who spent two years crushing us.
