Are Our “Leaders” Lying to Us About COVID-19? If So, Why?

By George Miller

It’s a little early to be doing a post-mortem of the handling of the COVID-19 crisis, but it could be helpful in mid-course corrections now, even if it runs the risk of looking foolish later as new information and subsequent events differ significantly. So, here goes ….

Are Our “Leaders” Lying to Us?

When reporting statistics first started on COVID-19, the graph slopes were steep and projections had “hockey stick” curves, like the now discredited Global Warming “models”, rapidly accelerating, alarming numbers, frightening the heck out of us. It looked like another Bubonic plague which would sweep us back to the dark ages. Two million deaths were predicted in the USA alone.

We were told that infections couldn’t be stopped until we had a vaccine, but lockdown measures, hand-washing, testing and “social distancing” would at least help keep the numbers down sufficiently so that we wouldn’t run out of hospital and ICU beds, not to mention respirators (don’t hear much about them or hospital ships anymore).

We were told that masks weren’t recommended, might actually be counterproductive in laymen’s hands. Then we heard that CA Governor Newsom arranged to buy a billion dollars worth of masks, which was quickly followed by mandatory mask-wearing, even after we had been told they really weren’t so useful. Masks have now become de rigueur, symbols of virtue-signalling. Even a local hard-line Conservative pastor won’t start a service if you aren’t wearing one in church.

We were told that if we would only stay at home a couple of weeks, quarantine if we had symptoms or contact with anyone with symptoms or exposure, then we would “flatten the curve” sufficiently to avoid disaster, while the medical geniuses developed vaccines and cures in record time via a modern day “Manhattan Project.” The goal was to flatten the curve, not eliminate it. It looks like it worked, at least somewhat. But, have the goalposts now been moved?

Well, the two weeks turned into 2 1/2 months before we started having significant “reopenings”, some of which are now being reversed, because of “spiking” in cases. Paddle-boarders were arrested, churches bullied, beaches and parks cleared, store patrons ejected, shops ordered shut, aisles closed in otherwise open stores, cities now planning to fine mask scofflaws, 40,000,000 MILLION jobs lost- a national tragedy.

But, this did not happen for SARS, which infected 60,000,0000 people, or for H1N1, or other pandemics. In fact, this is the first time in history that the US has been locked down for a disease.

The early tests weren’t available and weren’t very accurate. Now, many more tests are conducted, but we are still hearing that there are many both false positives and negatives, which severely reduces their utility. We are also hearing that when in doubt, cases are designated COVID-19. “Co-morbidity”- having another serious disease while also having any symptoms or positive COVID-19 test results- is considered a COVID-19 case. We also hear that hospitals are incentivized to declare COVID-19 cases. One thing I learned in business is that anything rewarded is far more likely to occur, or at least be claimed to occur.

With far more testing, far more incentives, far more co-morbidity and far more things re-opened, is it any wonder that reported COVID-19 cases are increasing?

But, let’s take a look at deaths. Their rate is NOT increasing, even with all of the above factors at work. They are actually decreasing. In fact, even those numbers are probably significantly inflated, with all of the aforementioned hanky-panky. So the US provides an incentive to inflate cases, while most other countries, such as China, provide a disincentive to do so. IS it any wonder that the USA leads the world in number of reported cases?

So, forgive us if we’re a little skeptical about the politicians, media and medical establishment hand-wringing, school-marmish lectures and demands for ever more draconian returns to lockdown-land.

It looks as though the government-forced lockdowns have caused the greatest economic contraction in US history. This may cause more harm than the virus itself. Fortunately, the economy has been snapping back very rapidly as government so reluctantly relaxes its death grip on the lifeblood of our economy- businesses and jobs.

Have you noticed that daily death figures as well as new infections and hospitalizations were always featured in media reports- and now deaths no longer are? Why is that? Could it be that they no longer fit the narrative? Meanwhile, al we read about is “COVID-19 cases increase,” “spikes” and “hotspots.” In contrast, the most recent actual national forecast projection and actual death numbers I could find appear below:

More statistics

Voila!  The curve did NOT bend up, even with all that stuff and high side forecasts blended in, although there are some hot-spot locations. Might any of those hot spots be due to widespread protests by millions of people? Might any be due to forcing old, sick people into nursing homes (Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Newsom), which are the very definition of hotspots?

If case growth is up, but deaths are NOT, what does that tell us? Possibilities- greatly increased testing discovers many more cases, better protecting the most at risk people reduces deaths and cases, better hospital treatments/medications are saving more people.

The fact that the aggregate death growth rate has not increased much even with massive reopenings is a very good sign.

IF Our “Leaders” Are Lying, WHY?  There is little doubt that we are being misled. But is it really lying?

We were in the fog of war early in the pandemic and maybe still are.  With those responsible for managing the Chinese Communist Party virus, lying, withholding information, failing to cut travel to other countries, we were ambushed and unprepared. Flying blind. Politicians told us we had nothing to worry about and even encouraged mass mingling events in San Francisco and New York.  Thanks, Pelosi, Cuomo. Trump.

Once they finally began to realize that this was a pandemic and lots of people were dying in Wuhan, they belatedly started to react and sometimes (over)react. Trump stopped inbound flights to the US from some COVID-19 hotspot countries. But he was immediately accused of “racism” by the left. He has since been proven correct.

The situation quickly became political when it should have been based on science and the Peoples’ best interests. In addition to pulling  the “race card” on stopping flights, The Left openly speculated on how keeping the nation “locked down” and squashing the economy like a bug would hurt Trump’s chance of re-election and keeping the Senate out of Democrat hands. Some of them are OK with hurting us so they can get more power.

But the political maneuvering wasn’t restricted to the Left. The Republicans realized that if the economy wasn’t well on the way to recovery by election day, that they would likely no longer be in power, unless they could write the narrative of an economy shut down over politics, or get said economy restarted. So they have applied huge pressure to reopen the country regardless of the consequences and accused their opposition of deliberately creating the worst depression in US history. They blamed cases on “democrat-controlled cities.”

Extending the lockdown also provides a rationale for an all-mail-in ballot election. Given the state of voter registration lists, this is a huge opportunity for election fraud. Why, you say? This should improve turnout and be more “democratic.” Maybe, in a perfect world. But there are huge numbers of invalid voter registrations, inactive voters, duplicate registrations, deceased, non-citizens, imaginary people. Just one example: Judicial Watch and Election Integrity Project teamed up to get a settlement with Los Angeles County to delete 1.25 MILLION invalid registration records. The County is dragging its feet, which means they will be in play this year. And those are just the tip of the iceberg, just some in just one of California’s 58 counties with 40,000,000 people.

Some officials, including in the medical-industrial complex, are telling us that the lockdowns and pandemic can’t and won’t end until a vaccine is developed and administered to everyone. This is troubling because unnecessarily keeping the economy, even some of it, closed down, unnecessarily per some knowledgeable people, is unacceptable. Even more troubling is that other pandemics were handled without lockdowns and vaccines were never developed. SARS and H1N1 come to mind. Some experts say that an effective COVID-19 vaccine will never be developed, or it it is, that virus mutations will make it ineffective.

Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly altered his stance on masks: not needed, counterproductive, save for health care professionals,  risky in hands of non-professionals, might be nice, should wear. Did knowledge of masks and their use really change so much and so rapidly, or was he buffeted by political winds and confusion?

Some officials won’t admit that COVID-19 was not as bad as predicted and that the measures to combat it are either overkill (no pun intended) or simply don’t work. Yet they persist in applying them.

Some now blame others for their own policies of sending old and people sick with the virus  into nursing homes, a proven disastrously dangerous move.

Are officials overreacting because they are worried about being accused of not doing everything possible as soon as possible to stop COVID-19?

Then why did they allow millions to “protest” and riot without a peep, while forbidding singing in church and going to the beach?  Yes that was a rhetorical question.

And what about the so called “contact tracing” initiatives which would allow unprecedented manual and cybersnooping invasions of privacy and state surveillance that make George Orwell’s 1984 look benevolent in comparison?  We’re talking GPS-powered cell phone apps, drone snooping, facial recognition cameras, even implanted chips and COVID “passports.” Big government is already greasing the skids for all this with “laws” like the $100 billion annually funded HR6666 (I’m not making this up) and California’s Orwellian AB262 (already passed and signed), which gives “Public Health Officers” Hitlerian powers.

Was it withholding critical information/deceiving the public  to downplay and even distort the leveling and reduction of COVID deaths, while hyping the increase in cases?

Are some of the lockdown and other measures an attempt to control the population and COVID-19 merely “a good crisis” opportunity to force them on an unsuspecting and/or resistant public? Just asking.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.

George Miller is Publisher/Co-Founder of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard

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