Psst. They Flattened The Curve. Someone Tell Our Politicians And Media
NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio has proposed a ticker-tape parade to celebrate the frontline medical workers. in the Covid-19 fight. Good idea. For some time in distant future.
But first, why not celebrate how they have actually “flattened the curve” in North America? You remember, the reason we’re all been sequestered indoors the past six weeks, harangued at length about walking in the park and masking ourselves at the Quiki Mart?
Locking people up was never about stopping Covid-19 or saving lives. The virus was going to virus. People were going to die. Flattening was about saving the healthcare system from being overloaded to collapse. Extending the reach of the infection over a greater period of time so that the healthcare workers De Blasio mentions can deal with the deaths and illness in a regulated, sane fashion.
Judging by the hospital furloughs, closings and empty beds everywhere outside NYC/ NJ, Detroit and New Orleans the curve has already been squashed. If you want a hospital bed you have a choice of many when admitted to the special Covid-19 wards.
(Typical of flattening the curve, in PEI— where there has been zero deaths and less than two dozen infections— means keeping the Causeway closed and people isolated till mid-May— just on the off-chance a spike should appear from the Northumberland Straight.)
Put simply, despite endless media briefings our media handlers still don’t seem to understand what flattening the curve actually means. If you watch news programs on CNN or FOX or CBC, the chattering class seems to think flattening the curve means flattening the virus. Crushing it. Nobody dying.
Nothing to do with unused beds. For this reason Wolf Blizter and Adrienne Arsenault will berate you about staying indoors, touching no one and, if you’re Mark Zuckerberg, never protesting on Facebook that the media is demented. (Or, if you’re MSNBC’s Joy Reid, that Covid-19 is a racist construct).
With all the Church Lady finger wagging, it’s difficult to get in a word edgewise about the hollowed-out healthcare industry outside downtown NYC or Toronto. Such as? As journalist Alex Berenson (who’s been pilloried for pointing this out) has said, “Ohio hospitals are losing $42 million a day? That implies… $36 billion a month for hospitals nationally. That figure cannot possibly continue.”
You’d think you’d hear more about this disaster-in-the-making in the mainstream media. But our crack journalists are still playing gotcha’ on what did/ did not happen in January or the number of swabs coming from major corporations or whether masks work to prevent anything. Hospital bankruptcies from under-use just don’t seem to register when you can have CNN’s Chris Cuomo emerging from isolation like Lazarus.
In Canada, the sheeple of downtown Toronto, led by their mayor, are staying in their condos till they can credibly say they had no responsibility for even one death. As if the binary choice that we discussed in March is still an option. Because, of course, to the blue checks of Toronto/ Muskoka no economic train wreck is worth a single human life. To spell out the game they’ve created a series of rules to make quarantine like joining The Heathers in that movie of the same name.
Heaven forbid any of them ask a question of the PM or some premiers or mayors about the great financial peril that lurks beyond their adopted narrative. Such as this one, from a nurse in B.C.: “What is the number of people that need to die from the “outfall-spin off of" of Covid-19 before the social distancing for medical care is lifted ?
“Meaning the people that have already died from : being too scared to go to the hospital ER with serious symptoms, strokes and heart attacks from ignoring stroke symptoms, strokes and heart attacks caused by delayed surgeries for new stents, angioplasty, tavi procedures, heart surgeries, deaths from delayed surgeries to remove cancerous tumours, prostate-surgery delays.
“Not to mention the patients out there that are not going for physicals, mammograms, PSA tests & prostate exams, pap smears etc. How many people have to die and how many have to get into dire situations from undiagnosed illnesses? I know that the number of people that have ‘already’ died from the outfall of ‘because of Covid” has outnumbered the three people on (Vancouver) Island that have actually died ‘from’ Covid.”
The same media fatwa has been imposed on anyone who suggests schools should be re-opened. The flattening earth society quickly reacted as if this would be a death sentence for children imposed by heartless right-wingers who cite conclusive data that children have an almost zero chance of Covid-19 death or transmission, .
In the media rundown there is no word about children left in abusive or economically depressed situations while we “flatten the curve”. Again, the real picture is ignored in the rush to compress all data into the approved (unrealistic) narrative of no opening before no deaths.
So sure, let’s have a parade,. But first figure out whether we’re missing the heroes in a battle that’s already been won.
Since this column was posted, three additional pieces of research buttress the pointlessness of continuing the total lockdown.
In NYC, testing reveals as many as 21% of those tested had the virus. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-york-virus-deaths-top-15k-cuomo-expected-to-detail-plan-to-fight-nursing-home-outbreaks/2386556/
2. Florida took a lighter hand in locking down and its numbers are the same or lower than states that imposed harsh curfews:
https://trendingpolitics.com/republican-gov-desantis-says-florida-is-flattening-virus-curve-without-draconian-orders/#.XqHwtoOvCn4.twitter
3. And earlier deaths and transmission show that the lockdown was useless in slowing the virus: https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-nyt-early-coronavirus-outbreaks-20200423-5ftx6w3rkbadlpkncljri4e6ti-story.html
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also the best-selling author of Cap In Hand which is available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca