No One But The Chinese Knew Anything About Covid19

The real story of COVID19 is not found in author Bob Woodward’s book on Donald Trump, timed for maximum impact during the U.S. presidential election. The real book of Covid19 won’t be written honestly for years, when the success or failures of masks, lockdowns, vaccines and political opportunism have run their course. 

There are still many nations— including Canada— that elected to lock down hard but still must face the virus. The death toll in those countries will then be seen in its true perspective. Only then will we know if masks, lockdowns or vaccines were a solution or a placebo. And whether the virulently anti-Trump media backed the wrong epidemical horse in the race to sway the 2020 election. 

The book will called No One But The Chinese Knew Anything. 

Many journalists now crowing their expertise will be seen to have used the pandemic to play politics. Speaking of blue-check media, have you noticed how many of Trump’s most persistent critics are Canadians working in the U.S. media? Smugness about America— not hockey— is Canada’s most enduring past-time. As we explained in January, they may pay for our defence, prop up up our economy and defend our trade lanes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t endlessly bitch and moan about America’s uncouth ways.

MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi— whose father was Liberal member of the Ontario Legislature— regularly castigates Trump on that Democratic house organ. Velshi’s campaign of rage reached its apogee when— while standing in front of a blazing inferno— he explained that the #BLM Minneapolis riots were contained, a localized blip.

But he’s got lots of Canadian company. David Frum, son of CBC legend Barbara Frum and a former member of George W. Bush’s staff, leads the NeverTrump Republicans from his perch at The Atlantic. In choleric prose he berates Trump as the “worst president in U.S. history” while making common cause with Democrats in trying to stop Trump’s re-election. This from a man who backed the 2003 Iraq War.

Daniel Dale, ex of Toronto Star, plays human polygraph on CNN, cataloguing Trump’s public record for “lies and misrepresentations” against the liberal catechism (for some strange reason he’s yet to criticize Joe Biden’s veracity). Comedian Samantha Bee is a late-night mocker of the president. Ex-CTV anchor Paula Newton toes the CNN line on Trump’s handling of #COVID19

Ashleigh Banfield works over at CNN’s sister HNN. Kim Brunhuber, formerly CBC’s L.A. presence, is now at CNN as well. They and others are all down with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  And don’t forget the CBC Washington bureau that religiously turns around MSNBC/ CNN talking points for Canadian viewers.

They don’t understand that when you’ve played all your Trump music at 11 on the amplifier that people become deaf after a while. As a result, they’re now reduced to talking to each other.

The latest cudgel gleefully employed by Canadians was the accusation by Woodward that Trump tried to “downplay” the virus, his alleged inaction making him responsible for the estimated deaths of 190,000 Americans. (This “gotcha” became a popcorn fart when tape emerged of Trump discussing trying to prevent panic at a press conference in March.) 

According to Woodward, Andrew Cuomo sending infected seniors back to retirement homes to die (6,500 and counting) is a rounding mistake. But Orange Man Bad trying to protect the economy? Got it.

No matter, the Canada Corps stands on guard for thee in demonizing the brazen Trump metier (even as their colleagues back home give Justin Trudeau the comfy chair and soft slippers approach on Covid19). 

Repeat. No one but the Chinese knew anything till at least March.

Despite his bragging to Woodward, Trump only knew what he was told by his crack science team of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Karen Birkx, Dr. Anthony Redfield and the armies of CDC and Health Department apparatchiks. Who said in March that masks were ineffective. But now science proves they’re boffo. (In DC opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody’s got one.)

Trump is not an epidemiologist. He’s a businessman, a salesman whose focus was on preventing a total collapse of the economy. So when the initial calming sounds from his advisors proved fatally wrong, Trump played for time. He mobilized supply chains, supplied states with ventilators, PPE and beds. Even his bitter enemy Cuomo, governor of New York, was forced to concede that Orange Man Bad had done alright by the people of the Empire State. His policies did “flatten the curve”, preventing a meltdown of U.S. hospitals and their health system.

Likewise, Trudeau is not an epidemiologist. The PM got his talking points, largely,  from his virus expert Dr. Theresa Tam (via the WHO). Reading from the Chinese script she scorned masks and the closing of borders. While Trump closed America’s borders and sanctioned China, Trudeau, Health Minster Patty Hajdu and senior public health officials insisted that the risk of transmission was low in Canada right up until early March. 

“When the risk level suddenly jumped to ‘high’ on March 15, the government scrambled to impose an economic lockdown to curb the spread of the virus” reports CBC.ca.

The only difference between Trudeau and Trump is that Bob Woodward doesn’t give a flip about Trudeau. Woodward wants to isolate Trump from global comparison with a story that he defied conventional wisdom in February. Woodward ignores British PM Boris Johnson— who just announced a further crackdown until as late as spring 2021 in Britain after his numero uno, Dr. Neil Ferguson, predicted deaths in the millions.

Likewise the records of New Zealand PM Jacinta Ardern or Australian PM Scott Morrison or others are ignored unless it’s to score Trump points. Their failures are forgotten, their temporary successes amplified to attack Trump. (The U.S.is tenth worldwide in per capita COVID deaths behind most of the top European counties.)

But that’s secondary in the hunt to stop Trump. Remember no one but the Chinese knew anything. That goes twice for smug Canadians in the media.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is 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, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be launched Nov. 3 on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca .