The Lockdown Has Gone From a Mistake to a Crime

Four months ago, I wrote a column titled "The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History." I explained that "'mistake' and 'evil' are not synonyms. The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people."

Regarding the economic catastrophe in America and around the world -- especially among the world's poor who are dependent upon America and other first-world countries for their income through exports and tourism -- I wrote, "It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe."

The world should have followed Sweden's example. That country never locked down and has even kept children under 16 in school the entire time. As Reuters reported on July 15, the number of Swedish children between 1 and 19 years of age who have died of COVID-19 is zero. And the percentage of children who contracted the illness was the exact same in Sweden as it was in Finland, which locked down its schools.

As regards teachers, Sweden's Public Health Agency reported that "a comparison of the incidence of COVID-19 in different professions suggested no increased risk for teachers." Nevertheless, with few exceptions, teachers in Los Angeles and elsewhere refuse to enter a classroom that has students in it. Their disdain for their profession has been superseded only by that of the Los Angeles teachers union, which announced that teachers will not resume teaching until the police are defunded.

People who defend lockdowns and closing schools point out that Sweden has the eighth-highest death rate per million in the Western world. But, needless to say, this has no bearing at all on the issue of whether Sweden was right to keep schools open or whether our country was wrong to close them, let alone keep them closed now. The overwhelming majority of deaths from COVID-19 in Sweden were among people over 70 years of age, and most of those were people over 80 and with compromised immune systems.

Reuters reported that three separate studies, including one by UNICEF, "showed that Swedish children fared better than children in other countries during the pandemic, both in terms of education and mental health."

For more than a month, Sweden has had almost no deaths from COVID-19 while the entire society remains open and almost no one wears masks. (In Holland, too, almost no one wears masks.) For all intents and purposes, the virus is over in Sweden.

I live in California, a state governed by that most dangerous of leaders: a fool with unlimited power. Despite the fact that California ranks 28th among the 50 states in deaths per million, Gov. Gavin Newsom has destroyed and continues to destroy tens of thousands of small businesses and untold numbers of livelihoods. His continuing to forbid -- a half-year after the onset of the pandemic -- indoor dining in restaurants is leading to a projected permanent closure of approximately 1 in every 3 restaurants in the state. The same catastrophic destruction will likely affect retail businesses and services such as hair and nail salons. But all this human tragedy -- not to mention increased depression and suicides among the young and increased abuse of children and partners -- means nothing to Newsom, to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti or to the Los Angeles Times, whose editors and columnists continue to advocate for the lockdown while they receive their salaries.

Why can people eat with no mask in an airplane -- inches, not six feet, from strangers -- but cannot eat in a California restaurant, which is so much bigger than the inside of an airplane, while sitting six feet from others? Because Newsom ordered it, the Los Angeles Times supports it and, like sheep, Californians have accepted it.

According to the California Association of Museums, "Museums are losing over $22 million a day due to the statewide quarantine. As of August 1, 2020, California museums have lost more than $2.9 billion in revenue. Museums have a $6.55 billion financial impact on California's economy, support 80,722 jobs, and generated $492 million in tax revenues for the State of California in 2017 and over $1 billion in federal taxes."

And the American Alliance of Museums issued results from a survey on July 22, 2020, that warned 1 out of every 3 museums may shutter forever as funding sources and financial reserves run dry.

On Aug. 3, The Wall Street Journal wrote, "In March ... There was broad public support for the prudent goals of preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed and buying scientists time to develop therapies." But the left -- the media and Democratic governors and mayors -- immediately moved the goal posts to "bending the curve" and "saving one life," enabling them to get away with destroying lives and livelihoods.

"Covid is over in Sweden. People have gone back to their normal lives and barely anyone is getting infected any more. I am willing to bet that the countries that have shut down completely will see rates spike when they open up. If that is the case, then there won't have been any point in shutting down in the first place ... Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. That could take years. No country is willing to wait that long."

The lockdown is a crime. But even more upsetting is that it is supported by so many Americans. This country is unrecognizable to those of us who lived through the 1968-1970 pandemic, which killed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 100,000 Americans -- the 2020 equivalent of 170,000 Americans. Nothing shut down. Not one mask was worn.

coward:

1 Sept: 7 News Australia: Sam Newman backflips on COVID protest after police threaten jail
by Eamonn Tiernan and Hamish Goodall
Aussie Rules great Sam Newman has backflipped on urging 250,000 Victorians to protest the state government’s stage four coronavirus lockdown after being threatened by police...

But after police said they’d jail anyone involved, 74-year-old Newman claimed on Tuesday morning his words were “hyperbole” and cancelled his call to arms.
“It was hyperbole, it was an arbitrary figure,” Newman told Sunrise...
“I’m not asking people to come from all over Victoria to protest and I’m not trying to get the police involved.
“If they want to arrest me and put me in jail for this, that’s fine.
“But I’m not suggesting it and never did in the first place.”

Newman’s initial tweet sparked a strongly worded response from police, who told 7NEWS.com.au they are expecting to make arrests in coming days of individuals who they believe are “inciting illegal activity”...
https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/sam-newman-backflips-on-covid-protest-after-police-threaten-jail-c-1281533

1 Sept: The Australian: Founded on risk and reward, now too scared to go out
by Nick Cater, executive director of Menzies Research Centre.
The chance of contracting COVID-19 in Victoria at the moment is less than 0.002 per cent. If Victoria were a country, it would be the 90th least dangerous place on the planet in which to shelter from the pandemic.
In the light of these reassuring facts, it seems surprising so few Victorians are protesting at their government’s gross over-reaction to the virus.

The severity of the spread in Victoria is roughly similar to Canada, which is also experiencing a second wave. Yet there are no reports of Canadians receiving six-month prison sentences for crossing a state border or being wrestled to the ground by police for exposing naked faces.
No Canadian, as far as we can tell, has been harassed by police on their front lawn for having the temerity to put their bins out after 8pm...
The post-pandemic world belongs to those with the strongest entrepreneurial spirit. Those looking to government to solve their problems will wither and die...

Chief among the doom-mongers is the public health brigade, the experts who in Victoria at least have more power than the government...
COVID-19 is the pestilence of their dreams; a virus so easily transmitted you could catch it from a lift button but whose long-term risks were largely unknown in February, giving the health bureaucrats their chance to step in.

The worst-case scenario was extracted from the only modelling then to hand; the threat was amplified in those parts of the media that never miss an opportunity to turn it up a notch.
Pretty soon the doom-mongers had convinced us that COVID was potentially the new ebola, or could be, if we didn’t take drastic steps to restrict its spread, which they would largely dictate.

The same advice was being given to almost every government in the world backed by the same spurious modelling. Some, like New Zealand, folded immediately, introducing draconian restrictions from the start. Others, like Sweden, resisted...
Were it not for the Victorian outbreak, we would be tied with New Zealand in bottom place among the 37 OECD members ranked by infection per capita. Even with the latest outbreak, we are seventh from bottom, with 20 times fewer deaths per capita than France, Italy, Britain and the US.

Yet the opportunity to return to near business as usual quicker than the rest of the world is fast disappearing, a casualty of our premiers’ risk aversion. Our closed state borders, almost certainly unconstitutional, have become roadblocks in our domestic economy...
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/founded-on-risk-and-reward-now-too-scared-to-go-out/news-story/0cf12b9b789ddc7fc5be8cfd8722e24f

23 Aug: UK Express: Britain DUPED on COVID-19: We’ve been completely misled on coronavirus figures – COMMENT
By Paul Baldwin
Try this more succinct version uttered last night by Professor Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford – he said: “.. we can’t understand what is going on.” That is almost certainly the only unreservedly true, accurate and indisputable comment made about coronavirus since a Chinese scientist dropped a petri dish in Wuhan last Christmas. And from a bloke who you’d think probably knows what he’s talking about.

And it leaves you wondering, have we all been duped?...

The official Government figures show that, at the peak of the pandemic in early April, nearly 20,000 people a week were being admitted to hospital with coronavirus, which sounds super scary.
In fact the true figure is not known and will never be known – but it is universally accepted that it is much lower (which, coincidentally, sounds oddly like the situation with GCSE results this year).
So how much lower? And how much faith can we now put in official figures?
Again, truth is we don’t know and we don’t know.

Basically, an investigation for the Government’s Science Advisory Group for Emergencies found that people were being counted as COVID-19 hospital admissions if they had ever had the virus, and were added to those being admitted directly due to it – so thousands of people who died of other causes were being included in coronavirus statistics.
So all the decisions taken at every level, from No10 closing down the economy to you wearing a facemask in Asda, have been taken using incorrect data...
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1325790/Coronavirus-covid-19-economic-recovery-coronavirus-lies-how-many-deaths-statistics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQVVWl5BUEk

Incoming President of the National Education Association

Becky Pringle spars with Martha MacCallum over reopening schools. #FoxNews

https://www.essence.com/feature/national-education-association-covid-19-school-openings/

COVID-19 Is Not Over: Reopen Our Schools With Safety And Justice

BY BECKY PRINGLE · AUGUST 6, 2020

...And we are calling on districts and public institutions of higher education to address the twin viruses of COVID-19 and institutional racism in a systemic way that results in racial, social, economic and education justice.

http://neatoday.org/2020/06/19/nea-guidance-on-reopening-schools/

JUNE 19, 2020

Going Back to a Better School: NEA Issues Guidance on Reopening

https://learningfirst.org/sites/learningfirst/files/NEA_All%20Hands%20on%20Deck_Initial%20Guidance%20for%20Reopening%20Schools_2020.pdf

PDF: “All Hands On Deck: Initial Guidance Regarding Reopening School Buildings,”

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