'15 Days to Slow the Spread'

Townhall.com ^ | 20 March A.D. 2024 | John Stossel

[lightman]

Four years ago, government officials told us, "Stay home!" We have "15 days to slow the spread."

Days turned into months and then years, while officials chipped away at our freedoms.

I have long been wary of politicians, but even I was surprised at how authoritarian many were eager to be.

Some demanded police to go after people surfing. They took down the rims of basketball hoops. Children's playgrounds were taped up like crime scenes. They told people in rural Utah and Wyoming to stay in their homes.

In the name of safety, politicians did many things that diminished our lives, without making us safer.

They complied with teachers unions' demand to keep schools closed. Kids' learning has been set back by years.

Politicians destroyed jobs by closing businesses. Some shutdown orders were ridiculous. Landscaping businesses and private campgrounds were forced to shut down.

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden sharply increased government spending. Trump's $2.2 trillion "stimulus" package, followed by Biden's $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan," led to so much money-printing that inflation doubled and then tripled.

This week, the fourth-year anniversary of "15 days to stop the spread," my new video looks back at politicians' incompetence.

First, government probably killed people with its endless red tape.

At least the Trump administration broke FDA rules to speed vaccine approvals. But FDA rules kept perfectly good American Covid test kits off the market because they hadn't gone through its multiyear approval process. Recommended Too Dumb for Harvard? Lemon's Too Dumb for Twitter Ann Coulter

Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned "public and private gatherings of any size." Residents were told they could not see friends or relatives.

Many of her rules seemed random. She banned motorboats and jet skis, but allowed kayaks and canoes. She closed small businesses, but exempted big-box stores if they blocked off aisles offering plant nurseries and paint. Why?

Even the CDC's "six-foot rule" under Trump was arbitrary, says former FDA commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Covid travels in aerosols that flow much farther than six feet.

When some Americans became fed up and protested, they were vilified for "threatening the public." Some were fined. A few were arrested.

It's clear now that restrictive rules were not the best way to protect people.

Sweden took a near opposite approach. They mostly left people alone.

Swedish officials encouraged the elderly and other at-risk people to stay home.

But beyond that, they let life carry on as normal. Sweden didn't impose lockdowns, school closures or mask mandates.

They followed standard pre-Covid wisdom that the best protection is what epidemiologists call "herd" or "collective" immunity. Once a critical mass of people are infected and recover, collective immunity will reduce the total number of infections.

Arrogant American politicians and media "experts" sneered at Sweden's approach.

NBC "reported" on what it called, "Sweden's failed experiment. How their dangerous Covid gamble went wrong."

CBS confidently stated, "Sweden becomes an example of how not to handle COVID."

Time Magazine headlined: "Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster."

But the media's experts were just wrong. Swedish health officials were right.

Yes, at the beginning of the pandemic, Sweden suffered high numbers of Covid deaths, but as predicted, over time, herd immunity protected people. Sweden's excess death rate was the lowest in Europe.

Sweden's economy got through the pandemic much healthier than other countries. Because Swedish schools never closed, Swedish students didn't suffer the learning losses that American kids did.

Four years later, have media blowhards who were wrong apologized? Corrected their stories? No.

Have American politicians apologized and begged forgiveness for their arrogance, for destroying jobs, restricting our freedom and needlessly pushing us around? No.

Let's not give politicians power like that again.

[lightman]

DO NOT FORGET what they’ve done to you.
Do not let their sudden realization they are in bad shape politically excuse the last two-plus years of abuses.
They shut down your job.
Called many of you “non-essential.”
Closed your kids’ schools.
Expected you to live off $1200 for months while they got richer and richer.
Denied you the ability to be with your dying loved ones.
Then denied you the ability to give those loved ones a proper funeral.
While they let George Floyd have three.
While they went on vacation.
Visited family.
The hair salon.
They arrested you for paddle boarding by yourself.
They shut down the parks and the playgrounds.
They called you a grandma killer if you questioned them.
Suspended you from social media if you didn’t obey the narrative.

They called you domestic terrorists when you demanded your kids get the education your tax dollars paid for.
They mocked you when you demanded a return to normalcy for children.
They sneer at your concern over empty shelves and exploding grocery and utility bills.
They messed with supply chains and emptied store shelves, while the elites partied on yachts and Martha’s Vineyard.
They queered women’s sports and the military, and made the citizenry pay for it.
They sexualized schoolchildren, and persecuted parents at school board meetings.
They denied you the chance to try alternative treatments for COVID.
Then they fired you for not getting the vaccine.
When you stand up for your freedom, they call you Nazis and bigots.

Do not forget what they have done.
Do not forgive them.
They are hoping that, by November, you have forgotten the nightmareof the last 2+ years.
YOU struggle to make ends meet and the best the Biden administration can do is free crack pipes for “racial equity.”
This is on top of the woke, cancel culture bull they shove down our throats, the 2020 riots, being accused of racism and bigotry because we oppose their agenda.
As the election draws closer, they’ll pretend they didn’t do any of this.
They’ll gaslight us.
Project.
Blame the GOP (like they tried to when defunding the police went south).

DO NOT give them power.
They haven’t learned a damn thing from this.
You re-elect them, and you can expect masks and lockdowns and nonsense in perpetuity.
Not just for COVID, but for whatever else they deem a “public health emergency” (guns, climate change).
(Remember, they are the very same people who ignore a pubic health emergency aka AIDS.)
They will trample your rights.
VOTE THEM OUT.

NEVER FORGET.

REMEMBER…..in NOVEMBER!

[No name given]

I hope demonrats lose hugely this fall.

[Drew68]

VOTE THEM OUT.

NEVER FORGET.

REMEMBER…..in NOVEMBER!

I think Donald Trump would rather we forget all about it in November and vote him back in.

The sad truth is, nobody will EVER be held responsible for Covid, --the greatest domestic policy disaster since the Vietnam War.

It is what it is. Embrace the suck.

[nonliberal]

Terror is underrated. The only reason the politicians, businesses, and “public health” officials were able to do that was because they weren’t terrified of a long prison sentence or execution by a tribunal. This is a big problem.

[lightman]

Some of us knew we were being swindled the late March day when Mike Pence lowered the “15 days” sign and hoisted “30 days to flatten the curve.”

Mike Thirty-Pence sure proved himself to be a master baiter.

[cherry]

remember they made unvaxxed kids eat their lunch outside separately on picnic tables when it was 40 degrees or so....

don't forget they shamed anyone who questioned them or had them fired from top positions ....

do not forget that this govt FORCED people to take injections...as if we were prisoners...

maybe we are...

[Drew68]

Some of us knew we were being swindled the late March day when Mike Pence lowered the “15 days” sign and hoisted “30 days to flatten the curve.”

I seem to recall someone else on the news every day, standing behind Fauci and Birx at the presidential podium, nodding his head in agreement.

[sport]

It was a scam. But the people were willing victims. They blindly swallowed their lies hook, line, and sinker. And to add insult to injury, they thoroughly demonized and ridiculed those who tried to tell them the truth. The people created the monster. Just as they created the one we are living with today. We are reaping what they sowed.

[crusty old prospector]

“Put on your mask. You’re killing my grandma.”

[lightman]

I seem to recall someone else on the news every day, standing behind Fauci and Birx at the presidential podium, nodding his head in agreement....

..who less than six months later WHILE THE "EMERGENCY" WAS STILL IN EFFECT held massive, unmasked rallies while Xoe Biden was hidin' in his basement.

[Mr. Mojo]

<< Have American politicians apologized and begged forgiveness for their arrogance, for destroying jobs, restricting our freedom and needlessly pushing us around? No. >>

Apologized? Destroying small businesses and restricting our freedom was the desired and intended outcome. It was the plan.

[mass55th]

Oh, I thought you were talking about Kamala Harris’s legs.

[joe fonebone]

I actually bought into the 2 weeks scam. At day 1 of week 3, I knew that it was a lie. I watched all the lambs tell me how rotten I was for not wearing a mask, not abiding by 6 feet, and going the wrong way in the grocery store.
I will never believe anything that the fed says or does ever again.

[crusty old prospector]

How about the inflation they created by printing trillions of dollars to give to serfs to stay at home?

[NorthMountain]

At least the Trump administration broke FDA rules to speed vaccine approvals.

But they did not produce vaccines. They produced immoral, ineffective, unsafe synthetic mRNA injections. Too many politicians continue to brag and lie about them.

[madison10]

Happy Wuhan Plague Anniversary, y’all.

[NorthMountain]

Some of us knew we were being swindled when we heard the ridiculous phrase “Fifteen days to flattten the curve”.

[sport]

Every word you typed is true. What you omitted was that the American people created the monster. They gleefully and gladly believed every lie that were told. They fell for the scam like a ton of bricks and swallowed every lie hook, line, and sinker. And the people ridiculed and demonized those who tried to speak the truth.

[NorthMountain]

Why do you speak of the American People in the third person? Of what country are you a Citizen?