By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – A few loose ends remain but this whole virus thing is about to be wrapped up, with all the states reopening to some degree, so far no virus rebound evident and a vaccine candidate or two coming along fine.
Once that vaccine is nailed down and a few hundred million doses administered, back to revving up the economy again. And as the two quarterbacks of the government’s massive virus response programs told Congress Tuesday, several hundred billion in additional business aid will be pumping up the Main Street economy maybe by early next month.
Was there anything else? What if a lot of people refuse to take the vaccine? Silly question. Why would anyone refuse the virus salvation?
“We will not be traced!” Whups, a glance at one of the many anti-vaxxer Twitter accounts is a reality check that hints at how many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of strangers are sharing their abhorrence of a loss of privacy threatened by contact tracing.
They already know, from experts like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., how the elite medical establishment backed by Bill Gates and so many others want to inject their children with mercury, formaldehyde, acetone, calf serum and worse, all under the guise of a vaccine of one sort or another.
Some surveys suggest that years of anti-vaxxing ferment may have 30% or more people disinclined to get vaccinated. And they dream that maybe even someone named Trump, who they think is already secretly on their side, will show his true colors when the time comes.
After all, the president said as recently as a few hours ago it’s “my decision to make” whether to consume hydroxychloroquine, confident in the belief that “thousands of front-line medical personnel” are taking it too.
He seems as buttressed against all arguments to the contrary as much as the anti-vaxxers.
Sure, the FDA warns that the anti-malarial medicine can trigger cardiotoxicity, whatever that is, and the clinical reports have phrases like, “thirteen days later the patient died suddenly at home.”
Whatever evidence there is that it might help in treatment of the corona virus, the health experts insist there is no evidence hydroxychloroquine can prevent it. Nor is there any evidence thousands of medical personnel are using it.
Anyway, on a widely read anti-vaxxing twitter account, there is Trump’s picture and his exhortation that, “We’ve got to reopen the economy.” It’s all the same thing, heroes fighting the establishment one way or the other, from the inside or the outside..
“I thought as a front-line defense, I thought it would be good,” Trump said during the day’s Cabinet meeting, showing how anyone can render themselves impervious to counter arguments no matter how many experts are in the neighborhood.
It can be stirring, a sort of triumph of the human spirit, a statement of the kind of rugged individualism that built this country, a “don’t tread on me” kind of rebuke of the monarchy – or at least of the tyranny of the know-it-alls who want to control us.
Or is it simply the self indulgence of interim privilege? What? That’s how we can be protected by the slowness of the march of time against inevitable consequences. No one can know the future so who is to say what’s inevitable? Any casino operator might interject that probabilities eventually catch up with you. In time probabilities become more probable. Until … don’t listen. That’s then, not now.
“I view it as a badge of honor,” Trump said during the day of America’s million and a half virus cases. The more you test, the more cases you’ll find.
If the corona virus could talk, perhaps it would offer a rebuttal. The more people my asymptomatic minions are allowed to infect because of insufficient testing and contact tracing, the more cases there will be, it might say.
Viruses can’t talk according to the latest research, though you’re welcome to reserve judgment on that. In fact viruses are hardly alive. Little submicroscopic particles that use human hosts to replicate. That’s all they are.
Let’s zoom back to a wide-angle view. What is the difference between enjoying the privilege of what all those pro-vaxxers – maybe pro-vaccinners – call the “free riding” of the anti-vaxxers from what the entire nation does regarding another important subject.
Regardless of political or anti-authoritarian persuasion, the country can blithely run up trip-to-the-moon level debt and now multi-trillion dollar annual deficits? Who’s to say what are the inevitable consequences? Well, whoever they are, we can choose to ignore them.
Anti-vaxxers are free to wage their battle against inevitability courtesy of the herd immunity built up against, say, measles by their fellow humans. One day, if their numbers mount, the herd immunity is overwhelmed and whatever virus or bacteria are hanging around sweeps through the small community of anti-vaxxers or the large community of everybody. Then the disease casino wins in the end.
Back to wide angle. Most of America is blissfully unaware of the immensely consequential immunity the country enjoys, with its reserve currency, to the exchange-rate crises that can bring down other governments, sweep entire continents with punishing austerity, spawn refugee camps and impel nations to war. They somehow missed any acquaintance with the “Argentine Paradox” – a great Wiki by the way.
So meanwhile, let’s put off the kind of debt and spending policies that would prolong that immunity. In the midst of a pandemic is “not the time” a nearby central banker said again during the day. In fact the time was back when the economy was gangbusters. And hold the calf serum.
After all, it’s our decision to … we’re making a decision? And you thought we were putting off a decision.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com.
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