I’m feeling festive on this unholiday, and so want to go over a few of the more interesting stories from the front in the war against The Great Hysteria.

It’s Temporary, Trust Us

This year should have taught everyone a very important lesson in civics if they didn’t already know it: when Vaunted Experts or politicians say “just for a little while”, what they mean is “until you force us to stop”.

15 Days to Slow the Spread, for example, was advertised as a way of trading two weeks of economic productivity for the proposed benefit of spreading cases out over a longer period of time, thereby keeping hospitals from overflowing with patients. No overflowing happened – and indeed it looks like it never would have – but 15 days transformed into 40 days, and the US still acts like it’s March.

Don’t trust anyone who suggests lock downs work or are worthwhile even if they did. Fight them, instead.

Masks for All Time

In keeping up with the subject of mandates extended into oblivion, consider masks. The Wall Street Journal of all places suggests that “the science is in”, and that “if we wear masks for four to eight weeks, we can get this thing under control”. (Interestingly enough, the study cited says “…these results support universal masking as part of a multipronged infection reduction strategy in health care settings.”; this is taken to mean “this will save the whole world”, which is a case study in the abuse of logical inference).

What “under control” means is anyone’s guess, as the virus seems to be fading like all viruses do:

Still, what’s fascinating is that while the CDC estimates “just 4 to 8 more weeks, honest!”, Joe Biden and his equally abominable VP pick have said three months! What will be most interesting is when flu season hits the same as it normally does and masks don’t stop it, as they don’t stop it in Japan or China:

It doesn’t help when Vaunted Experts falsify evidence and lie in order to justify their demands:

The Overreaction Policy

Leaders and Vaunted Experts seem to treat every new outbreak of the coronavirus like a meteor hurtling toward the Earth. It’s good to see some efforts by more level-headed men to dispute their hysterical raving:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/13/massively-overreacting-new-covid-outbreaks/

Panic is Not Associated with Danger

Lock down orders came months after the coronavirus appeared and long after any isolation orders would have had an effect. Out of fear and panic, we listened, anyway. Mask orders, too, came months after the peak had come and gone.

And that’s only the beginning.

Not that it seems to matter, but the crisis, what little of one we had, has been over for a long time. I don’t mean to make light of the tragedy of losing someone to this illness. But in historical terms, it just isn’t very deadly.

Lost Wisdom

Our ancestors knew that life was short. Most of them lived brutal lives of subsistence farming. Americans and Westerners in general seem to have forgotten their mortality, and so they cling to it in unreasonable fear of a virus that is probably like other viruses that have come before it which we now treat as annoyance.

What if the ultimate medical “benefit” of The Great Hysteria (beyond the economic, social, cultural, etc devastation) is that we will extend the deadliness of this virus longer than it needs to be?

Health at the Cost of a Functioning Society

In Maryland, and probably eventually elsewhere, it looks like snitching is becoming a civic virtue. If you listen to the politicians and Vaunted Experts, anyway.

Health is important, but it isn’t supremely important. It would be better to be able to trust your neighbors during hard times than to distrust everyone, no matter how good things got. 2020 is many things, but it’s also the year that many Americans of the Expert variety proved their inability to perform elementary risk analysis.

There’s No Escaping It

Sweden continues to be mocked while nations which were praised for their efforts are seeing resurgences in the virus. This, despite strong lock downs and mandatory mask-wearing.

It’s almost as if people have overestimated their powers. As others have said, “virus gonna virus”.

Something to Genuinely Be Concerned By

Something tells me that wearing masks and urging caution are not going to make these numbers go down. If we are going to love our neighbors, it seems reasonable that not contributing to their fear would be part of the project.