Before we flip the calendar the nation is beginning to see the delivery of the first batches of the vaccines to battle the coronavirus pandemic. In media circles this is not being regarded as the great news most would have expected. Despite calls in the press on the need to have a vaccine this development has led to rather subdued, and basically contrarian responses. The reasons are both rather clear, and completely disturbing.
Over the weekend on CNN’s State Of The Union Bill Gates sat in with host Jake Tapper to discuss the future of this country regarding the pandemic. Gates stipulated that for the next 4-6 months we should maintain the strict lockdown standards, and the country will not return to normal until 2022. It is always a joy to listen to proposals of extending our economic morass and continue the ruination of lives from a billionaire who is essentially insulated from the adverse effects of shutting down the country.
Gates delivers his grave messaging in the face of a cure arriving, and he is hardly alone in the call to continue our shackled social condition. On Meet The Press Chuck Todd entertained Dr. Vin Gupta, and the doctor was there to deliver the solemn news; even if you receive the vaccine you need to remain in your shutdown state.
‘’Just because you get vaccinated after the second dose does not mean you should be traveling,’’ reports Gupta. ‘’You could still get infected and pass it along to others."Everything still applies until all of us gets that two-dose regimen. We don't think that'll happen til June or July."
This continues the patterns we have endured already this year. One of those is the ever-shifting requirements to keep this country in lockdown control. First it was masks that were mandated, then a 2-week quarantine was said to be required. Following this we graduated to a need to stay locked down until the curve was flattened. Upon that goal beginning to be achieved it was moved to a second wave needing to be avoided, and then we were told that things cannot be reopened until a vaccine was realized.
Now that the arrival of that called-for solution is here we are being given yet another reason to remain shut down, remain closed, and remain under government control. This call for us to continue surrendering our liberties is linked to another pattern we have witnessed all year - the refusal to see anything positive in the developments. As a country we have fallen well short of the promised 1-1.5 million deaths said to occur this year. This is only the start of the avoidance of good news.
Recall when ventilators were said to be the most vital device needed to combat this outbreak, and that President Trump had failed to supply these life-saving machines? Well, after we managed to meet the demands and the predicted supply requirement was found to be wildly overblown, that subject has disappeared from the headlines. The low death rates have been downplayed, the very low transmissions among children have been ignored, the promised overflow hospital conditions have been overhyped, and the high recovery numbers are never addressed. In October we even saw the press turn 180 degrees on the year-long call to listen to medical professionals.
When President Trump contracted the virus the doctors caring for him announced his rapid recovery, and the media turned on them instantly. The medical team was branded as a group of liars, and there was a call to defund the Walter Reed medical facility. As the World Health Organization began to suggest lockdowns were a terrible idea the press suddenly ignored the organization it had hailed as an elevated authority.
As this year of the pandemic has unfurled with all the urgency of a glacier’s advance it has become increasingly obvious that good news of any sort must be sidestepped in order to continue the dramatics, to prolong the misery. Now that the vaccine is on arrival the excitement is calmed -- or outright muted. This is due to the media refusing to report on anything of a positive nature involving the President, specifically in regards to the pandemic.
This summer as Trump called for an accelerated rollout and announced Operation Warp Speed for the vaccine to arrive before year’s end he was mocked mercilessly in the press. Now that his unrealistic and allegedly unscientific proposal has become a reality the press avoids any connection. They refuse to recognize his call for this goal and even suggest Pfizer arrived at this stage absent any Warp Speed involvement. They also downplay any thought for this country seeing a path to return to normalcy.
This is the condition of our modern media. They were the ones to call for a vaccine, but now that it has not only arrived but done so in far more rapid fashion than planned they are calling for still more restrictions to be imposed. When the very voices who declared we cannot be opened without a vaccine are now saying the vaccine does not allow us to open back up you see the fix is in.
Once again as a threshold is reached we are being given an all new standard to justify our suppression. When the authoritarians display how they can not be satisfied they are telling us exactly why they should not be listened to any longer.
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