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The COVID Narrative Is Changing ... Why?
Townhall.com ^ | January 6, 2022 | Laura Hollis

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; covid19; flu; media; narrative; omicron; vaccines; vaxxx; wuhancoronavirus
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To: Kaslin

The election fraud will be broader in 2022. It won’t be 20 million extra votes for one person. It will be spread across hundreds of strategic races.

They will do it again because they always do it and because they got away with it last time on an epic scale.


21 posted on 01/06/2022 7:37:23 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant (The pandemic we suffer from is not COVID. It is Marxist Democrat Leftism.)
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To: rdcbn1

Wasn’t China welding people into their homes when this thing first broke in 2020?


22 posted on 01/06/2022 7:45:19 AM PST by cuban leaf (My prediction: Harris is Spiro Agnew. We'll soon see who becomes Gerald Ford, and our next prez.)
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To: CIB-173RDABN

Another very good YouTube video related to this topic is the one below. It seems to be the Laura Southern has come out of retirement for this.

https://youtu.be/a3HxELvHhiU


23 posted on 01/06/2022 7:48:53 AM PST by cuban leaf (My prediction: Harris is Spiro Agnew. We'll soon see who becomes Gerald Ford, and our next prez.)
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To: Kaslin

The narrative always changes in an election year. But did they dig their hole too deep this time? Or will the sheeple forget all about this COVID fear mongering by November? We’ll see.


24 posted on 01/06/2022 7:50:49 AM PST by MulberryDraw (Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?)
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To: Nifty

I’ve suspected as much all along, namely that figures and reports in the news are largely false. Even inquiries of hospitals can render false information as they are not obligated to answer truthfully.


25 posted on 01/06/2022 7:56:59 AM PST by Fester Chugabrew (No nation that sanctions the wholesale slaughter of its unborn citizens is fit to endure.)
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To: Kaslin

Why? Cause they want to win this years elections and then BOOM back to COVID forever or at least until the 2024 elections start showing up on their radar!


26 posted on 01/06/2022 7:58:04 AM PST by Harpotoo (Being a socialist is a lot easier than having to WORK like the rest of US:-))
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To: cuban leaf
When this first broke out in Wuhan it was very deadly. During the first wave people in Wuhan were known to drop dead while walking down the street. Entire apartment neighborhoods were cordoned off by military units; and, food was just dumped at the boundary for people to pick up.

I saw pictures of people in the Wuhan hospital who had blackened extremities that were eventually amputated. People coughed up chunks of lung.

In one virus generation it was not so terrible. By the time it reached the US it had become fairly tame, by comparison. This thing has all the earmarks of a bio-weapon.

27 posted on 01/06/2022 8:08:35 AM PST by GingisK
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To: Kaslin

F Joe’s main campaign promise to shut down the virus proved to be empty. Obviously F Joe failed miserably to keep an impossible promise. The new narrative is: this the new normal, the pandemic is over. Once the winter flu season is over, Covid will be disappear from the news in time for the mid terms.


28 posted on 01/06/2022 8:14:59 AM PST by DeplorablePaul (s)
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To: GingisK

I believe no news coming out of China. None. Nada. Zip.


29 posted on 01/06/2022 8:19:14 AM PST by cuban leaf (My prediction: Harris is Spiro Agnew. We'll soon see who becomes Gerald Ford, and our next prez.)
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To: cuban leaf

My wife is Chinese, generation zero from Shanghai. She gets news from family and friends that did not go through any Chinese news agencies. Her information consists of messages and photographs from ordinary people in her extended family.


30 posted on 01/06/2022 8:21:55 AM PST by GingisK
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To: GingisK

A lot of the early 2020 videos out of China were shown to be fakes.

The guy “dropping dead in the street” and then when you watched it again you saw that he stuck his arm out to break has fall.

Even the NY Times had an article early on about how bots traced back to China were flooding twitter and other social media to influence public policy in the West.


31 posted on 01/06/2022 8:22:30 AM PST by AC86UT89
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To: AC86UT89
The guy “dropping dead in the street” and then when you watched it again you saw that he stuck his arm out to break has fall.

There were also a lot of similar videos from Iran early on, were they in on the hoax?

32 posted on 01/06/2022 8:23:32 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Kaslin

It was useful as a tool to get rid of Trump.

But they cannot cage their monster now, and it is threatening to devour them.

COVID is real, and it’s bad. But it’s not controllable to a satisfactory level by governments, EVEN UNDER PERFECT CONDITIONS like New Zealand, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, or remote research stations in Antarctica.

The Deep State did a great job selling “The reason you suffer is Donald Trump”, but unfortunately for them people continue to suffer while they are in charge.

Sucks to be them.


33 posted on 01/06/2022 8:23:51 AM PST by Jim Noble (The nation cannot be saved until the GOP is destroyed)
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To: GingisK

How many of them died?


34 posted on 01/06/2022 8:27:08 AM PST by cuban leaf (My prediction: Harris is Spiro Agnew. We'll soon see who becomes Gerald Ford, and our next prez.)
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To: cuban leaf

Good question. I’ll ask her when she comes home. (I’m retired, but work from home anyway. She still goes into to the sweat shop.)


35 posted on 01/06/2022 8:30:27 AM PST by GingisK
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To: Kaslin

“The COVID Narrative Is Changing ... Why?”

it’s the only way that dementia joe can claim “victory” over covid ... leftist fascist media has been forced to shift from Pandemic Porn to Victory Porn ...


36 posted on 01/06/2022 8:44:57 AM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: Kaslin

why? So they can say “JOE BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATS ENDED THE PANDEMIC!!! “

What else do they have? Their ideas? Nope. Will they pass their democrat takeover of the voting system bill? Nope. Can they brag about their accomplishments when real inflation is 30% their first year? They will go for the hail Mary “We beat the virus despite republicans”


37 posted on 01/06/2022 8:52:07 AM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: GingisK

Something was very dangerous and bio-weapon-like in the first wave here. Not like limbs falling off, but not “tame”. In a month or two, that first wave here was nearly all gone. Personally, I think the next waves were actually flu strains, with almost identical mortality.


38 posted on 01/06/2022 8:57:32 AM PST by ReaganGeneration2 (Widespread belief in asymptomatic spread of a low-risk virus hastened the end of the West by 100 yrs)
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To: redfog

Yep! The status quo didn’t test well in the focus groups.


39 posted on 01/06/2022 9:42:06 AM PST by FrankRizzo890
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To: CIB-173RDABN
Your reasons make sense. But I can probably capture the single biggest reason in one hypothetical conversation that has probably taken place in one form or another TENS OF MILLIONS OF TIMES since March 2020:

Employer (to employee): "You must get a COVID vaccine, wear a mask, and stay six feet apart in the office."

Employee: "If this virus is so dangerous that I need to do all that sh!t, then your workplace isn't safe and I'm staying home."

That's it in a nutshell, folks. They squeezed all the toothpaste out of the tube with this COVID hysteria, and now they can't figure out how to make simple sh!t work anymore.

40 posted on 01/06/2022 10:10:54 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("All lies and jest; still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.")
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