Virus Porn Has To End

I'm amazed at how many people continue to live in terror of a virus with well over a 99% survival rate--and that's before they were vaccinated against it, lowering their chances of getting it in the first place.  I genuinely believe that for some people, this "big deal" somehow adds meaning to their lives, like they're facing down the Axis Powers in WWII or something.  

Here are some excerpts from three posts I've read recently.  First:

Even as a just published new study has shown once again the utter uselessness of masks to limit the spread of respiratory diseases like COVID-19, the control freaks of our now largely oppressive society are clamping down with new totalitarian rules requiring masks to be worn at all times, no matter what.

First let ‘s look at the study, which was published by the National Center for Biotechnological Information government website, a branch of the National Institute for Health. From the paper...

Read it all. It shows, based on extensive research, that even when worn properly masks are relatively useless in stopping viral diseases. And since as mandated no one ever uses them properly, they end up becoming likely collectors of pathogens instead, at the very spot where people breath, thus contributing to the spread of infection...

These conclusions by the way match up with more than a hundred years of research into mask use. While their benefit in surgical settings is considered helpful but very limited (merely acting to keep sanitary a patient’s surgical site), research for decades has found masks to have of little or no significant benefit in protecting against most viral respiratory diseases.

The second:

Politicians, government officials, and pundits who are committed to lockdowns and to opposing us anti-lockdowners are angry at AIER’s unrelenting exposure of the countless exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies about lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures, and Covid’s dangers.

But of course the single most significant of AIER’s efforts is the Great Barrington Declaration.

AIER arranged for the October 2020 meeting that led to this document’s drafting, and the Declaration is hosted on a website maintained by AIER. It’s important to note, however, that no AIER personnel – no board member, columnist, intern, accountant, receptionist, or groundskeeper – played any role in writing this document. The Declaration is co-written by Prof. Jay Bhattacharya of the Stanford medical school, Prof. Sunetra Gupta, a theoretical epidemiologist at Oxford University, and Prof. Martin Kulldorff of the Harvard medical school.

Because this clear and concise anti-lockdown Declaration is not only infused with much good sense, but also proposes, as a response to SARS-CoV-2, what was regarded as mainstream public-health practice until early 2020 – and even well-regarded by SAGE as recently as May of last year – pro-lockdowners and anti-anti-lockdowners cannot easily attack the Declaration’s substance. And so pro-lockdowers and anti-anti-lockdowners resort to ad hominem argumentation.

Rather than consider new information, why do they so desperately want to believe that they're in mortal danger?  Perhaps they don't, perhaps they just like trying to force people to act against their own wishes.  Compulsion is a strong suit of the left.

The third:

A PLAGUE OF CHILD ABUSE: Masking Children Is Unnecessary—and Harmful. The pandemic has turned American adults into selfish neurotics who have been punishing innocent children for over a year, and still can’t restrain themselves. Social distancing and masks hinder learning while harming children emotionally, socially, and physically, all for no purpose other than providing false comfort to adults who ought to know better. In my City Journal article, I present the evidence that these restrictions are both pointless and damaging.

You can't be a good person if you knowingly harm children for your own political benefit.

Update, 4/22/21:  Calling out virus porn:

Yup, That Maskless Texan Apocalypse Still Hasn’t Arrived

You can bet that plenty want it to arrive, though.