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From FL lawyer Jeff Childers’ email today, 2/7/22:
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🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🔥 Narrative 2.0 is coming. The Hill ran a story yesterday headlined, “White House Gets Set for Cautious Pivot on Pandemic.” A pivot! Biden is pivoting! Cautiously. Because safety.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, but “pivot” is the euphemism that they always use for “flip flop.” Sometimes they say “evolve.” Like, “Kerry’s position on gay marriage has evolved since his first campaign for president.” Anyway, here’s how “cautious” they are being: the article does not identify a SINGLE change in policy. Not one. It’s a “pivot” to … something! You’ll find out later.

The Hill sets the stage for its article by observing that “new evidence is now emerging that gives the White House and plenty of others hope that the nation is veering out of the pandemic.” Hope! The White House is looking at new evidence; the new evidence is giving the White House “hope.” They’re hopeful — not worried. A pivot.

What we’re seeing now is the backroom strategy of hauling out the “experts” to confirm that the pandemic is over to give the White House cover to pivot. “It’s definitely time to move towards a more ongoing, robust, resilient strategy to prevent a surge from ever happening again while enabling people to get back to more normal life,” former FDA commissioner Mark McClellan told The Hill. “The public needs some more straight talk and guidance on what to do in this new phase.”

Straight talk! Wouldn’t that be nice for a change.

Here it is, the mask torn off, Narrative 2.0 in all its glory: “It’s unclear whether or when Biden himself plans to outline the way forward in the pandemic. White House officials and health experts say the country still has some time before reaching some kind of ‘new normal’.” Well, maybe its not clear to The Hill, but it’s clear to me when “Biden himself” will outline the way forward. How about March 1? Would that work?

“Covid as it is today is not Covid forever and we’re actively working towards that and what that will look like,” an ANONYMOUS administration official reportedly said, emphasizing that “the tools the U.S. has to fight the virus are working.” It’s working! They’re shutting down the virus. Just like Biden promised.

And guess what? A new gold-star panel is working on a new plan RIGHT NOW. “A group of outside health experts are preparing a detailed plan on a forward-looking Covid-19 strategy that they hope to have completed by early March and are planning to send to the White House.” Early March. Early. Great timing.

The Hill reported that Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau said, “It’s time to have a serious conversation with the American people and say that we are going to be living with this for a long time. We’ve been looking at this in a very binary way. Things are likely to never go back to normal, but it doesn’t mean we have to live in fear.” No more living in fear.

Remember, about ten seconds ago, the public health experts were predicting a “winter of death and suffering.” But now, Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor (a LAW professor) at Georgetown University said “we need to assure the public that, unless some really serious variant causes another emergency, that we’re going to soon stop our emergency response and start with a ‘living with COVID’ response.” Soon stop. Soon.

Soon? Like, maybe in about three weeks? Remember you read it here first.