USA's — "stupidity meets COVID experiment" — is heating up — and we're still not examining its data

© 2020 Peter Free

 

01 August 2020

 

 

Lordy, lordy — we's doin' it again

 

Schools should start up again, right?

 

Even though COVID's still barking at the door?

 

Who cares about accurately precise (infectivity, morbidity, mortality) numbers, pandemic slithery-ness and actually looking to see what will likely happen?

 

This be the 'Muhrikan Way, ain't it?

 

 

Background

 

We began our US-based "stupidity meets COVID experiment" in March 2020.

 

This unscientific, uncontrolled series of inadvertent societal experiments now come in four installments.

 

Each episode exhibiting no ability at all to learn from what went before.

 

 

I am impressed . . .

 

What could be a better survival technique than being both brain-dead and stalwartly unaware?

 

I certainly can't think of anything, can you?

 

 

Let's recall . . .

 

. . . how this four-part national experiment developed.

 

 

Experiment 1

 

Beginning in March 2020, caught without medical protective gear, necessary supplies and protocols, as well as without relevant epidemiological research of any kind — all of this despite at least three months of prior warning — we locked a good deal of the country down.

 

The lockdown crashed the economy and squashed Liberty. The latter, maybe for forever.

 

And even after depriving ourselves for weeks — and maybe gaining a pause in the pandemic's advance — we still did little or nothing to see how one might modify these lockdowns and still achieve their life-saving purpose.

 

 

Experiment 2

 

After a few weeks of lockdowns, a combination of boredom, economic fear and mental inertia generated a second uncontrolled (and still completely inadvertent) experiment:

 

 

We "reopened" from being locked up.

 

 

Under pretty much precisely the same novel zoonotic conditions that we had originally closed down.

 

Essentially nothing had changed.

 

But why be consistent? Change is good.

 

 

Experiment 3

 

Then, the George Floyd death-murder came along, and we eagerly started a third (also uncontrolled) epidemiological experiment:

 

 

This one consisted (and continues to consist) of protests and significant instances of rioting in streets — where social distancing and often mask-wearing have vanished.

 

We yell, scream and spit — nose to nose and chest to chest — into each other's faces.

 

 

How's that for experimentally boosting SARS-CoV-2 drool, spewed droplets and floaty aerosols?

 

Oh, happy day!

 

"Science" advances!

 

 

Experiment 4

 

Then in June 2020, a Georgia YMCA decided to begin "just for fun" experiment 4 with 'camping' — a verb — young people closely together.

 

By golly, what could be better than doing an inquiry specifically by age group?

 

The scientific minds behind this experimental twist exhibited obvious genius:

 

 

Some 260 cases of the coronavirus have been tied to attendees and staff at a North Georgia YMCA children’s camp in June, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the largest known superspreading events in the state.

 

The report details how COVID-19 spread rapidly among children and teens within the camp and raises questions about the effectiveness of safety protocols as school districts and colleges contemplate reopening for in-person instruction this fall.

 

The CDC said the overall attack rate of the virus was 44%, though the agency acknowledged that’s an undercount because it includes more than 250 for whom they had no results.

 

© 2020 J. Scott Trubey, Georgia camp outbreak shows rapid virus spread among children, Atlanta Journal Constitution (31 July 2020)

 

 

Yes!

 

In the absence of genuine scientific epidemiological investigation by the United States — or any of its lesser jurisdictions — the US has been blundering around indulging in a mix of Government incompetence, corporate tyranny and mindless libertarianism.

 

The results of the above-listed four experiments are what you see today:

 

 

Heaps of unsorted

 

randomly acquired

 

and

 

still stubbornly uninvestigated

 

data.

 

 

The moral? — For scientifically non-existent, culturally lazy epidemiological passivity . . .

 

. . . the United States stands virtually alone in the world.

 

Exceptional.

 

Makes ya proud, don't it?