Michael Fumento

We’re living in Orwellian times, certainly. Consider just this: “Drone” cameras to spy on and punish us expressly while we’re in our own backyards or the middle of nowhere – and hence in places least likely to spread the coronavirus. And then there are the “Freedom Is Slavery” type slogans that seek to convince us of what is exactly opposite the truth. None of which is more obnoxious and dangerous than “We’re all in this together.”
Viruses may not discriminate, but we do. COVID-19 cases and deaths are determined by geography and climate, quality of health care, lifestyle, and overwhelmingly by age and comorbid conditions. The old and infirm are at highest risk, while the young even with other conditions are at both at extremely low risk of suffering and transmitting the disease.

That means, on the one hand, we fail those at greatest peril, as we did by falsely democratizing AIDS with such slogans as “Now Everyone Is at Risk” AIDS. Indeed, a New York Times database shows a third of those classified as dying with COVID-19 are residents or workers in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

The CDC specifically says the virus targets people 65 years and older, those who live in a nursing home or long-term care facilities, and those with underlying medical conditions — that as it happens are associated with aging. Add those with a body mass index of 40 or above, which means incredibly obese.

Even British Professor Neil Ferguson testified “as many as half or two-thirds” of deaths labeled as COVID-19 may have occurred by the end of the year anyway “because this is affecting people either at the end of their lives or with poor health conditions.”

Yes, that’s the same Neil Ferguson whose model of from around 1.1 – 2.2 million U.S. deaths probably had the single greatest effect on putting countries throughout the world into lockdowns. (And who was later caught violating the British lockdown with someone else’s wife.)

Conversely, almost everywhere children’s schools are closed even as growing evidence shows that children are the least likely to become infected, to be symptomatic if infected, and to become spreaders.

The only true risk to children is the hysteria and the very lockdowns the Orwellian trappings encourage. Indeed, according to a U.N. report, millions of children may die from the devastation we inflict on the world economy each day we refuse to acknowledge that we are not all equals and refuse to open up economies.

The chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, published an assessment of what she called “the Great Lockdown,” saying it will be “the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far worse than the global financial crisis” of 2007-2008.

One result, according to the U.N. report: “Economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year.”

Further, it said, “… this alarming figure does not even take into account services disrupted due to the crisis – it only reflects the current relationship between economies and mortality, so is likely an under-estimate of the impact.”

Laurence Chandy, lead author of the report and the director of UNICEF’s Office of Global Insight Policy, told Voice of America’s VOA publication, “The unprecedented simultaneous closure of schools across the world is affecting alone 1½ billion children,” or “almost all children in the world.” He added, “The report also mentions the more than 360 million children across 143 countries who rely on school meals.” Therefore, children are no longer getting what for many are their only meals of the day.

But it’s not just food. Chandy said child protection services also are largely closed, leaving children exposed to domestic violence and other forms of abuse and exploitation. Further, “immunization campaigns around the world have been put on hold.” Chandy said “That will set back the global campaigns on polio by years, I suspect” and moreover “there are 23 countries we count around the world that have put on hold their measles inoculation campaigns.”

Every day we maintain the façade of being the first in history to micromanage viral spread will cost the lives of more mothers’ sons and daughters.