Lack of a BLM Covid Spike Should Make Us Listen to Epidemiologists
Though joined by many other outlets, the Atlantic was particularly urgent in its warnings that protests against police violence would create a new spike of Covid-19 cases. “The wave of mass protests across the United States will almost certainly set off new chains of infection for the novel coronavirus, experts say,” Robinson Meyer (6/1/20) wrote. Conor Friedersdorf (6/4/20) told readers that “the risks involved…include at least some chance of death and disease on a terrifying scale.” Alexis C. Madrigal and (again) Robinson Meyer (6/7/20) stated bluntly:
If the country doesn’t see a substantial increase in new Covid-19 cases after this week, it should prompt a rethinking of what epidemiologists believe about how the virus spreads.
In fact, as FAIR (6/10/20) predicted, the Black Lives Matter protests did not result in a surge in disease: “Black Lives Matter Protests Did Not Cause an Uptick in Covid-19 Cases,” the Economist (6/30/20) reported; “Research Determines Protests Did Not Cause Spike in Coronavirus Cases,” said Forbes (7/1/20); “Parties —Not Protests—Are Causing Spikes in Coronavirus,” NPR (6/24/20) told listeners. Did this mean we need to rethink what epidemiologists believe? No, it means that we need to listen when they say activities are much safer that are done outdoors and with masks, like most protests—and unlike the premature reopening of bars and restaurants (FAIR.org, 7/2/20).
Are Swedes Shunned Because of Coronavirus—or Jealousy Over ABBA?
Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the coronavirus, which once made the country a media darling (Extra!, 7/20), has made it a pariah among its Scandinavian neighbors, which in June closed their borders to Swedish residents. Is this because the neighbors had rates of new Covid-19 infection that were 1/12th to 1/100th of the pace of new cases in Sweden? Maybe, reported the New York Times’ Thomas Erdbrink (6/22/20)—but maybe it’s just that they don’t like Swedes. “Sweden is a sort of regional hegemon, and, its critics say, given to a certain arrogance and exceptionalism that can be grating,” he wrote, suggesting there is jealousy at Sweden’s “successful brands like Volvo, Ikea and H&M, as well as the band ABBA.”
Imagining that there is some reason besides an out-of-control pandemic that causes them to be shunned must be comforting for Swedes—and perhaps for Erdbrink, who earlier wrote (New York Times, 4/28/20) of “Sweden’s apparent success in handling the scourge without an economically devastating lockdown.” “Sweden does seem to have been as successful in controlling the virus as most other nations,” he and co-author Christina Anderson asserted. “Sweden’s experience would seem to argue for less caution, not more.”
When Keeping People Miserable Is an End in Itself
Applauding Congress for imposing ever-more draconian sanctions on Syria, the Washington Post (6/23/20) editorialized:
While the demise of the Middle East’s most brutal dictatorship does not appear imminent, its prospects of stabilizing the country under its rule or reconstructing the economy have suffered a severe setback — as have the strategic ambitions of Russia and Iran.
In other words, while sanctions have little prospect of making Syrians any freer, they will prevent a country devastated by nearly a decade of civil war from rebuilding—and that’s an end in itself, as well as a victory over our Official Enemies. High five!
‘Confrontational’ Headline Does Violence to the Facts
“Grocery Store Worker Reportedly Used Pepper Spray on Customer Who Refused to Wear Mask, Became Confrontational,” was the headline of a piece in The Hill (7/16/20). You get an image of someone standing up for what they saw as their rights, and getting a faceful of Mace, right? In reality, according to witnesses, the customer who refused to wear a mask “then began to ram a woman with his shopping cart.” He was pepper-sprayed not for not wearing a mask, nor for being “confrontational,” but for being violent—the word that was in fact used in the headline of the CBS story (7/16/20) the Hill report was based on.
Limbaugh: Adapt to Covid, Like the Donner Party Did to Cannibalism
[The 1918 flu pandemic] was just the next in a long line of things that happened to people that they dealt with, like the Donner Party. You’ve heard of the Donner Party. Maybe some of you haven’t.
The Donner Party, the Donner family and a bunch of travelers trying to get to California over the Sierra Nevada mountain range. They made the mistake of trying to make the trip in the middle of winter. We’re talking the Lake Tahoe region. They get to the peak. It was so bad that they had to turn to cannibalism to survive. That’s what’s noteworthy about the Donner Party.
If you read the diaries written by the leaders of the Donner Party, the only reference to how cold it was was one sentence: “It was a particularly tough winter.” It’s just what was. They didn’t complain about it, because there was nothing they could do. They had to adapt. This is what’s missing. There seems to be no concept of adaptation. There seems to be no understanding in the Millennial generation that we can adapt to this, and that we’re gonna have to. Because there’s nothing stopping it right now.
—Rush Limbaugh Show (7/14/20)
