Tag: covid

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Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall

Instead of Kidnapping

Regarding the lockdowns, I said in the last episode of my podcast, “we’ve kind of accepted the Chinese model.” 

You know: extreme; cruel; totalitarian. 

And few officials in these United States seem more “Chinazi” than Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her Attorney General Dana Nessel. 

Their authoritarian behavior has inspired quite a bit of anger, and even, it appears, plotting for a kidnapping.

Fortunately for citizens who voted these two lockdowners into office, insurrection is not necessary to re-​establish a rule of law. Let mlive​.com explain: “Earlier this month, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a 1945 state law Whitmer used to sign executive orders during the extended COVID-​19 state of emergency was unconstitutional. The court said Whitmer did not have the authority to continue a state of emergency without the support of the Legislature, essentially ending her orders signed past April 30.”

Yet the AG has decided to enforce Whitmer’s unconstitutional edicts, nonetheless.

The political backlash is now quite legal and above-​board, for the state’s Board of State Canvassers has approved petition language to recall Nessel.

On the petitions, which will be circulated on Election Day, the explanation for the recall will read as follows: “Dana Nessel, on Thursday, August 6, 2020, Announced plans ramping up efforts to enforce Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Executive Order 2020-148.”

The petition has been spurred by Albion, Michigan, resident Chad Baase. He is incensed, as he should be, that Nessel “violated her oath of office by enforcing an executive order which violated the Michigan constitution, therefore she violated the constitution.”

 “She needs to be held accountable,” Baase insists, and it’s great that he has found a peaceful way in democracy’s ultimate recourse: the recall vote.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies

For WHO the Toll

flatten the curve, hospitals, Covid, virus, pandemic

When the World Health Organization did an about-​face, last week, advising against the lockdowns that have constituted the most-​touted and most common extreme pandemic response around the world, many wondered: what could the WHO be up to?

David Nabarro, the organization’s special envoy for Covid-​19, explains that lockdowns are useful only to buy time “to reorganize, regroup, rebalance” health care resources, and that we are obviously not in such emergency conditions now.

J.D. Tuccille, writing at Reason, provided us with the most astute news angle from the WHO’s apparent turnabout: “At long last, months into the pandemic, the debates over the proper response to COVID-​19 have begun.”

We can hope so, anyway. Enough with bullying by government edict or inane “follow the science” rhetoric!

But what the WHO’s new clue should highlight is how we got here. The lockdowns were first offered as a way to do precisely what Mr. Nabarro said, buy time to reorganize medical resources so as not to induce chaos — you know, “flatten the curve.”

It did not take long, however, before a very different rationale for harsh “mitigation efforts” became the rule: buy time for a vaccine.

This plan was strenuously argued against by a trio of doctors in their eyebrow-​raising “Great Barrington Declaration.” Continuing the lockdowns until a vaccine emerges “will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”

The lockdown obsession may misdirect our attention from actual treatments for the disease — which President Trump has touted from the beginning. Indeed, Trump’s quick exit from his own bout with the malady may serve as an effective reminder that our options are not limited to (a) quivering in sequestration till vaccinations roll out or (b) mass death.

There is hope.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

The Really Slow Fast COVID-​19 Test

virus, Covid, mask, testing

A rapid test for COVID-​19 that you could perform in homes, workplaces, and classrooms would be less accurate than the best slower tests. But even somewhat accurate fast tests would help many to cope with the disease more effectively.

If necessary, asymptomatic persons who test positive could be retested by another method while staying isolated. If test-​takers have already exhibited COVID-​like symptoms (but also bad-​cold-​like symptoms), a quick positive result means that they could more quickly start appropriate treatment.

An easy, rapid test would be a godsend in situations where it is advisable for people to be retested continually.

In late August, Abbott Labs announced that production of a credit-​card-​sized, “$5, 15-​minute, easy-​to-​use” test is being increased “to 50 million tests a month.” The U.S. has approved its mass-​scale use.

Hooray! Another positive development in efforts to cope with a scourge that is not the Black Death but not just-​the-​flu either.

Not so fast. 

Great as far as it goes, but as FEE writer James Anthony notes, this is only one approval of one test produced by one company. And the test can be performed only at “point-​of-​care” sites able to flourish special regulatory approval. So not at every workplace, classroom, or home. 

Yet, according to Abbott, the test delivers results “in just 15 minutes with no instrumentation.” 

Sounds like mere lay persons like you and me would have to . . . follow instructions. 

Like governments should follow ours … and get out of the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom responsibility

Bath Tub Fails

Coronavirus, Covid, panic, risk

“Barely one in 1,000 Britons has died from coronavirus,” states Tim Harford, in U.K.’s Daily Mail, “and yet the economy is in cardiac arrest, Government debt has run into hundreds of billions and many parents are terrified of sending their children to school.”

Trying to put the pandemic in context with actual numbers, to assess realistic risk, Harford goes on to argue that “given the current low risk of infection, combined with the low risk from the disease, a 30-​year-​old is far more at risk from riding a motorbike, going skiing or horse-​riding — let alone sky-​diving, rock-​climbing or scuba-​diving — than from the virus.”

He makes the startling claim that a trek outside, with possible SARS-​CoV‑2 exposure, “is not much more serious than taking regular baths over a year.”

Harford makes many attempts not to minimize the danger, and assuage Brits’ past and present concerns, thus acknowledging that they weren’t exactly crazy, but in the end the situation is like this: “The prospect of bathtime tragedies has never shut the country down.”

People die of risky activities every day, and not just on slippery porcelain: we risk our lives on asphalt, staircases, and in the air. Yet we go on, plunging ahead.

Brave people, we?

Not now. The worldwide government response has been, with a few notable exceptions — Sweden and South Dakota, to name the two most famous for bucking panic and lockdowns and mask-​wearing mandates — a pitch to people’s fears.

Maybe in Britain thought leaders and statesmen have praised valor and fortitude as well as caution and individual responsibility. But in America, calls to courage have been few and far between.

Hey: I just noticed something, “panic” is contained within the word “pandemic”!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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general freedom ideological culture responsibility

Racism as Health Crisis?

George Floyd, race, racism, Covid, Coronavirus

How can you tell when people really care? 

It is not when they mouth the right platitudes.

Or advance a carefully crafted political agenda.

What counts more? Something practical.

Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer cracked down further with COVID-​related health care mitigation efforts this week. One stands out: on Wednesday she “declared racism a public health crisis, ordered implicit bias training for all state employees, and,” reports Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press, “created a state advisory council to focus on issues affecting Black people in Michigan.”

“We have a lot of work to do to eliminate the systemic racism that Black Americans have experienced for generations,” the governor said.

Whitmer noted that black Michiganders are four times more likely to die from COVID-​19 than white Michiganders — because, well, you probably do not need to read deeply into her communiqués or watch USA Today’s helpful video. The arguments are familiar.

And not completely without merit.

But notice what she did not say.

She did not advise darker-​skinned people to take Vitamin D supplements and go outside and soak in more rays than they might, otherwise.

Vitamin D deficiency has been repeatedly linked as a co-​factor for the development of severe COVID-19.

Race, not racism, may be what’s most relevant. Or, as the president might say, “it is what it is”: white skin more efficiently absorbs solar radiation to produce Vitamin D than higher-​melaninned skin, an adaptation for northern climes where solar radiation is less intense than in the tropics.*

While this is certainly not the only factor in susceptibility to the virus’s worst effects, and it is still unproven — a word to the wise.

From the caring.

Not the politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “According to a CDC study published in 2006,” offered the Arizona Republic, “21% of non-​Hispanic white people are at risk of having inadequate levels of vitamin D, versus 73% of Black people and 42% of Hispanic people.”

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international affairs national politics & policies scandal

WHO Don’t You Love?

WHO, World Health Organization, Coronavirus, Covid,

“It leaves Americans sick,” tweeted Sen. Robert Menendez, the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, “and America alone.”

Feeling lonely? 

The Trump administration has officially informed both the United Nations and Congress that the U.S. will withdraw from the World Health Organization effective July 6, 2021. 

“China has total control over the World Health Organization,” the president asserted, and covered up critical information about COVID-​19, thereby enabling a very deadly worldwide pandemic.

And did so with the WHO’s help, he argues.

“Elements of Trump’s critique have resonated well beyond the White House,” notes the virulently anti-​Trump Washington Post. “Foreign governments and current WHO advisers have questioned why the WHO amplified false Chinese claims in the early days of the outbreak and repeatedly praised Beijing as the virus spread.”

Back in April, President Trump demanded the WHO agree to “substantive improvements” within 30 days. “We will be terminating our relationship,” Trump announced a month later, “and directing those funds” to other global health efforts. This week, it was made official.

Funds? The U.S. is the largest donor nation, providing 15 percent of the WHO budget — more than $400 million in 2019. The BBC reports, “The withdrawal will call into question the WHO’s financial viability.”

Of course, many Democrats, global health experts, and editorial pages attacked the move as “dangerous,” “likely to cost lives” and lead to a loss of U.S. “influence.”*

Influence? 

Those running the United Nations or its agencies cannot now ignore U.S. complaints. 

The threat of funding cuts? 

No longer are they mere bluster only for show.

Mr. Trump may feel lonesome … what other U.S. president would buck** the establishment to stop our tax dollars from flowing to an unaccountable U.N. agency? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “On my first day as President,” Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden pledged on Twitter, “I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

** Some have disputed the president’s constitutional authority to unilaterally withdraw from the WHO. “[T]he U.S. joined the WHO via a joint resolution rather than through the mechanism set out in the Constitution’s Treaty Clause, it is what is sometimes termed an ex post congressional-​executive agreement,” explains University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Jean Galbraith. “Presidents have withdrawn the U.S. from such agreements on a few prior occasions.”

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