Posted on 01/06/2022 6:59:32 AM PST by Kaslin
Over past week or so, the powers that be have begun changing the narrative on the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve come across probably a dozen articles in decidedly mainstream news sources that reflect an abrupt about-face on COVID.
Throughout the fall and even up until Christmas, the mainstream media was pitching the usual panic porn about COVID: clamoring for third and even fourth “boosters”; defending the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates and the layoffs and firings of the unvaccinated; cheering for New York’s and other cities’ vaccine “passport” requirements; and – of course – echoing Biden’s apocalyptic prediction that the omicron variant was going to bring a “winter of severe illness and death” for the unvaccinated.
Then suddenly, everything started to change.
The first article I noticed was in SFGATE, an online San Francisco news source. On December 28th, writer Eric Ting published a story in which he noted that COVID-19 cases are “skyrocketing.” But that wasn’t the story’s hook. “Despite the case increase,” Ting wrote, “the city’s hospitalization numbers have remained mostly flat.” Ting quoted public health experts who said that infection rates and hospitalization rates are “definitely decoupling.” Epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford told Ting, “If this were like past waves, we’ve have seen a bigger [hospitalization] increase by now.” Rutherford’s assessment was echoed by Dr. Robert Wachter, who ascribes the phenomenon to omicron being a less severe strain of the virus. “If we were mirroring Delta’s severity,” Wachter said, “we’d see a big impact on hospital numbers by now.”
An NBC article on December 29th also pushed this new narrative, saying, “The Biden White House, to its credit, is attempting to shift public discourse surrounding COVID from a focus on the total number of cases …to a reporting of its resulting deaths and hospitalizations.”
On January 2nd, Dr. Anthony Fauci was described in The Guardian as being among “a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.”
This followed a December 31st New York Times article heralding studies from South Africa and the UK showing that omicron was less likely to result in hospitalization.
Also on January 2nd, a Wall Street Journal editorial posited that omicron may end up saving lives by pushing us toward real “herd immunity.”
On January 3rd, Dr. Leana Wen (infamous for insisting that “life needs to be hard” for the unvaccinated) wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post titled, “Omicron is bad. But we don’t need to resort to lockdowns.”
Since when? Why the sudden shift?
Some writers think it’s because omicron has been breaking out in vaccinated people. (This despite Joe Biden’s latest distortion that omicron is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”) Since it’s no longer possible to point the finger at the unvaccinated as (sole) disease vectors, it’s time to start softening the story.
I think the Biden administration, the powerbrokers and government functionaries propping him up behind the scenes now find themselves in a bind.
First, Biden ran on “shutting down the virus, not the country.” A year later, case numbers are exploding (this week, the U.S. hit a million new cases in one day) and he looks like a failure, even to his base. Now, it behooves him to explain that more cases don’t translate to more serious illness or death.
Second, Americans are fed up with government overreach and the never-ending “emergency” policies in response to the virus. Multiple federal courts have ruled that federal vaccine mandates are absurdly overbroad and unconstitutional. Increasing evidence shows that schools’ COVID policies (closures, social distancing, elimination of sports and activities, online classes and mask requirements) were probably never helpful and have done damage to children academically and emotionally. Businesses have been decimated. Prices and inflation have skyrocketed.
Third, the silencing of all dissent – including medical experts like Drs. Peter McCullough and Robert Malone - under the guise of “misinformation” has backfired badly. McCullough's interview with podcast superstar Joe Rogan has had more than 40 million views. Malone’s will quite likely be even higher. Rogan’s podcast viewership now averages 11 million people, surpassing even media heavyweights like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. People with common sense see the truth: that the latest strain of the virus is weaker, has fewer symptoms, and poses a far lower risk of serious illness or death. Americans are beginning to understand that they’ve been lied to for two years by the government and their propaganda peddlers in broadcast, print and social media.
Most importantly, the Democratic Party is getting reamed on this and other issues, with the 2022 midterm elections on the horizon. At this writing, 25 Democrats in the House of Representatives have announced that they will not seek re-election to Congress. Democrats currently control the House by only nine seats, and public sentiment in the polls is running strongly in favor of Republicans. That means the possibility of losing control of the House – and perhaps the Senate as well – is stronger than ever. If Republicans retake control of Congress, the Left’s legislative agenda is dead in the water.
All of which makes the backpedaling on creating constant COVID crisis mode a mixed bag. On the one hand, ever-larger numbers of Americans can see through the hysterical rhetoric and are demanding accountability from the party they view as largely responsible.
On the other hand, in 2020 the Left’s political powerbrokers were able to parlay their COVID panic pimping into voting procedure changes like mandatory mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, ballot dropboxes and minimized poll-watching. Those procedures (and Mark Zuckerberg’s nearly half a billion Zuckerbucks) provided excellent cover for election manipulation – if not outright fraud. Without those procedures (and the public fear that fueled them), it’s almost certain Democrats are going to lose big in November.
Either way, a reckoning is coming.
Because the democrats have to face the voters in November 2022.
Michael Knowles gets it right, IMO. The State has gotten almost everything they wanted from the pandemic, and have reached a point of diminishing political returns.
Not to mention few deaths from Omicron.
Two reasons
First the lies about the virus are no longer scaring the people
Second the lies about the virus is generating hate against the establishment (Democrats, media, Hollywood and the usual gang of liars).
As a previous poster noted - there is an election coming soon.
This game is about over.
Because it is all Trump’s fault.
The public may be nearing its propaganda saturation point and the media is recognizing that their credibility is zeroing out.
I hope so, but I don’t see restrictions on freedom, such as the employer mandates and proof of vacinated status to enter restaurants in many blue cities being rescinded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFOExJGwXM
Dr Tully talks about this issue.
On a side note he talks about the NETWORK SOCIETY which is the first time I have heard of it. Interesting stuff.
When has facing the voters ever bothered Democrats? They just trot out the same old playbook that the GOP are racist, sexist homophobes who are both evil and incompetent while they use every underhanded trick in the book to disenfranchise conservatives and drop in fraudulent ballots.
It worked like a charm in 2020. Trump was going to win until 3 a.m. when the Dems snuck in fake ballots in five states that overturned the results. Why do we not think they’ll do it again in 2022?
If the Dems have changed their minds on totalitarian overreach while prepping all of us for the Mark of the Beast economy, amen. But fear of the voters isn’t in the Democrat vocabulary. As long as I’ve been alive, they’ve never moderated their tone. Ever.
True story....... a few weeks ago a relative was in the hospital, but he went through the ER route first. My sister and I sat most of the day day in the ER waiting room, which was outfitted with furniture all socially distanced. For nearly 8 hours, we saw a few people walk up check in. Parents with infants, some elderly, usual stuff. Half the ER waiting room wasn’t even open. They roped it off.
That night, I was back in the ER patient room with dad, who was waiting on a room to be admitted. I was so bored I was reading through the local news for the nth time that day. And came across a new article about the local hospital - the very hospital we were in. (There are two in town). The article was a story how the ER was overrun with COVID patients. And the hospital was concerned about bed shortage.
Dad and I were talking about I said the ER waiting room was nearly empty. I mentioned I dont know how they came to this conclusion. I basically lived in the waiting room all day and it was never full - even with limited seating.
So I walked out to the nurses station and showed it to the nurses who were sitting there. One looked at it and said, “I don’t know where that came from. We’ve only seen ONE positive test since I’ve been here today.”
Two days later, there was a second story written, but this one didn’t contain the scary descriptors. I would call it more of a correction. (The first story is gone). It was an article written about getting tested, and you didn’t have to go to the ER to get a test, yada yada.
A few days later, I inquired how many covid ppl were at the hospital. The answer multiple people gave me was 6 at the most. One technician thought 4. Dad’s night nurse told us 6 but someone went home.
>>Because the democrats have to face the voters in November 2022.<<
I hope and pray these leftists in the senate and house are thrown out of power for what they’ve done to this country.
How we could go from a strong, prosperous nation to a weak, pathetic social welfare state in a year should be a wakeup call for everyone...even the leftist’s base.
Tagline.
The wheels are falling off the storyline wagon, and the geniuses want to tell us that we will be floating in the air , until it’s all in the ditch.
However the OP is right - they quickly move on to other things. They don't want people asking or even considering the natural follow-up question -- how many lives are lost? Because Omicron is turning out to be relatively mild. Hard to generate the requisite fear levels from common cold/flu like symptoms.
However, if you can talk about hospitalizations. Especially if you can do a little hand waving and relate it to some percentage of capacity. Now, they'll never admit capacities have been decreased rather than increased here of late. Too many staff members fired or left due to vaccine mandates. "So never mind why the capacity is what it is, just know that covid is pushing hospitals to their limits!"
People are covid-fatugued. No-one wants to hear about another variant or any more bad news. For two years now it has been non-stop fear porn. People are literally and figuratively exhausted.
People are vaccine-fatigued. People were sold the vaccines as a return to normal. Then they were told no normal for you, because of those dirty un-vaccinated types. Then they were told they'd need a booster after just 6 months. Then maybe another booster, in fact maybe boosters as often as every 4 months. Then maybe as often as every 2 months since Omicron could get you if your last shot was more than 60 days prior... What's the end state, continuous suckling at the mRNA teat?
The fascist left has about wrung all they can out of covid and the vaccines. But they've tasted more power and control than ever before (in the US). They will not voluntarily give it up. We are going to have to fight to return to normal. My concern is what are they planning next. What crisis to justify maintaining, even expanding their draconian un-Constitutional controls.
COVID-19 Has been a scam from day one and to say that they're moderating because omicron is less virulent is just you lying to yourself.
You are either an idiot or a newbie troll.
What Zuckerberg did wasn’t illegal, and the GOP better adapt and adjust. Set up Ballot harvesting operations like the Dems did. Go to Gettr or Gab for social networking. Use Rumble for videos. An alternative to PayPal for fundraising. Dan Bongino laid it out very well.
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