"I'm From The Government And I'm Here To Help"

"I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.” George Orwell, 1984

As Christians celebrate the most joyous week on the calendar, we can also be thankful, in this year of Covid-19 for the arrival of so many secular saints. 

One of the more startling developments of the pandemic has been the public veneration of the various Health authorities on both sides of the border. From Doctor Anthony Fauci to Dr. Theresa Tam to the provincial holiest of holy doctors Bonnie Henry, Deena Hinshaw, George Williams and their chief medical officer colleagues across the country they’ve become heroes.

And let’s not forget the Vatican of Covid-19 orthodoxy, the World Health Organization. To criticize these bureaucrats has been an invitation to cancel culture from a population— and politicians— bowing and scraping at their feet. We have not been worthy.

What’s most interesting about this college of Covid cardinals is that they have managed to get almost all the major calls wrong. Not once. Not twice. But at virtually all the moments of crisis they went left when they should have gone right. 

And then flipped those earlier commandments 180 degrees without batting an eye. The phoney death projections, flattening the curve, border closing, masks, lockdowns, the threat to children, the ability to have a vaccine in nine months. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Tragically wrong.

Even giggling on open mikes about bringing useless papers to press conference where they read the words of “others” did little to tarnish the Ontario civil servants running their policy.

As another example, here’s Canada's point person on Covid-19, Dr. Tam, speaking on Feb. 4 about following WHO's recommendations on not stopping direct flights with China. "Having measures that very negatively affect a certain country that’s trying very hard to do its best can impede whether this country in the future will ever share anything transparently with others. China posted the virus genome very quickly. What are they getting out of it? I think the idea is to support China.”

Yet even as this was proven tragically wrong, the public cried, “More!” The media required that, like “Follow The Science” Biden, elected officials should cede authority over destroying the economy and society to bureaucrats whose record had more holes than Bonnie and Clyde. 

There was no greater policy fraud than “flattening the curve” in the spring. It’s now clear that this lockdown prescription did little more than kick the virus surge down the road to the present while sentencing the critically ill and needy to early deaths by denying hospitals treatments and surgeries. Even as hospitals sat largely empty from April- June.  And citizens shouted “killers” to fellow citizens exercising their civil rights in public.

In normal times this gross error of judgment would have demanded removal. But no one besides Covid’s victims, will ever pay the price. The bureaucrats seem like us, nice people doing a job. And we can never be wrong. So, while these deadly blunders were unfolding, the Media Party instead fretted about the implications of the U.S. president calling it the Wuhan Virus. The fight against a pandemic that, in Canada, will kill just four percent of expected deaths this year was the only narrative allowed.

Offered the choice between reporting fairly on the devastating blunders of health officials, the press instead pivoted to blaming politicians with whom they disagreed.  For the howler monkeys of MSNBC, the Washington Post or the Toronto Star, that meant the deaths with/ of the virus fell entirely at the feet of Donald Trump, Doug Ford and Jason Kenney— not those who advised them in these policies.

While this trio were accused of mass murder, progressive politicians who’d truly screwed up were given the love tap. Notably, Justin Trudeau— who went full recluse in his cottage with the permission of the media— failed to close borders till well after Trump had done the same in the U.S. (deemed a horrible mistake by Trump by CNN standards). All forgiven.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who sent infected seniors back into homes with the virus to kill an estimated 7,500 people in NYC alone, has been given awards and book contracts for his service by a slavish media. Gavin Newsom, caught disobeying his own locked-down mantra, was given a love tap by Woke media.

Aiding in the media and public celebration of sainted health advisors has been amnesia of any facts that can be used to criticize. It’s now gospel that this “plague” that 97 percent of its victims will survive is an extinction event.  Yet, as we wrote in August, “In the 1968 Hong Kong flu epidemic that killed approximately 100 thousand of all ages in America (pop. 202 million), there was no testing for those who did not show symptoms. We have no data on whether a large cohort of “cases” silent spread the virus. Or why they didn’t move from positive to active cases.”

The second surge was greater than the first. Yet, society did no lockdowns of healthy people. Sports leagues didn’t shudder to a halt. Small business wasn’t destroyed by the fiats of epidemiologists. People mourned their dead and toughed it out. 

The recommendations from that virus and others in intervening years were seemingly abandoned in the face of Covid-19. Health officials soiled the sheets on a range of fronts in January- February. Only to be celebrated as gallant soldiers of truth by a gullible public snd their media.

As Ronald Reagan famously said, the scariest words you can hear are, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”.

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 new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx