Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   5/04/2021

Got shots, won’t get it or spread it

Message: “So, leave me the (blank) alone—it’s my life; I’m not living in fear.”

“It’s just the science,” he told me while sharing a ski lift chair in Oregon. We prefer skiing together and sharing lift chairs; the Wu-flu rules and practices prevent sharing a four-person lift chair, or visiting with new chair mates. Single skiers/boarders can go alone or pair up. Some reflections on this season of questionable rules:

As with most ski areas, corporate or state mandates translated into reduced attendance, limited parking, announced limits on ticket sales, and “social distancing” in the ques. Skis and snowboards take space, anyway. Signage from first entering parking lots to walkways to entering the lift lines and buildings were a constant reminder—nagging, really—that masks/face coverings (over the nose, please) were required.

Face coverings in winter have always been for comfort; with wind chills in the teens or lower while going 30 to 40+ mph downhill, cheeks, noses and lungs can suffer. Indoor work and shopping have had mask mandates (seems like) forever; much of America has found no downside to going maskless (Florida, Texas and elsewhere).

A year ago, scientific studies found the risk of transmission outdoors, with normal air flow, was nearly nonexistent. Former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb, MD, writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, chided officials for reacting too slowly to new information and updated science, sacrificing their credibility and undermining public compliance.

He cited a study that found only one out of 318 outbreaks could be tracked to an outside contact—all others came from inside homes or mass transit. Studies have found no more than 1 or 2 percent of infections came from bars or restaurants. And yet, against all logic and science, outdoor masking and “stay home” orders have been socially “correct,” and enforced to bizarre lengths on beaches and snowy ski areas.

I take great exception to such rules not based on science, just the “risk averse” federal, state and local controllers trusting their own preferences, favored “advisors” and the “infallibility” of power. “Masking up” for indoor shopping, etc. is benign; a year ago a study showed that masks reduced the spread of Wu-flu about 2 percent. The flu virus is smaller than the openings of nearly all masks. Medical masks mostly stop contamination from the wearer to patients, as in surgery.

Wearing a mask while exerting uphill at high elevations—for a COPD-afflicted person with reduced lung capacity—is a borderline health threat. I complied, pulled it up over my nose and, the second I sat on the lift chair and started moving forward, dropped it under my chin to breathe. “Thank God for fresh air,” I said, knowing that I was breathing healthy, clean mountain air, not bugs.

So, my lift chair mate talked through his mask about “science” supporting masks, suggesting superior knowledge on the issue. I could have asked some simple questions: Has he taken a deep nasal breath hovering over a fresh “deposit” from a pet? The slightest odor would prove the inadequacy of his mask against the flu. Have his beliefs in “science” followed the not infrequent changes? First, against masks (from authorities who knew standard masks were ineffective but medical masks were in short supply); then, disregard that in favor of “face diapers for all”?

Why are “Saint Fauci” and the CDC reluctant to abandon the mask mandates, distancing and business restrictions for the vaccinated? The motto—Got shots, got tested, won’t get it, can’t spread it—is now a personal guide.

I don’t favor mandates, or “passports,” for getting vaccinated but anyone who respects my opinion should know I strongly urge getting vaccine shots. It’s true that those under 30 to 40—that have little risk of getting COVID or hospitalization (based on data and personal contacts)—have little need for the vaccinations. However, it’s the case for “herd immunity”: The more immune or naturally resistant people between a vulnerable (mostly elderly) person and an infected person, the less likely they get infected.

Some inconvenient Covid facts, after a year: 1) High “cycle threshold” (CT) PCR tests overreport “false positives” when there are no symptoms—55% to 62% false positives in British children (biostatistician Jon Deeks, Public Health England). 90% false positives says Alex Berenson. 2) The portion of deaths strictly “from” the Wu-flu is far less than those dying “with” it—meaning the literal Covid death count is lower by perhaps a third or a fourth. 3) Again, states removing mandates and lockdowns, like TX and FL, have no more deaths than locked and masked CA and NY (50 to 60 per day, worldometers.info).

From the New York Times, “How Covid Upended a Century of Patterns in U.S Deaths” (Denise Lu, 4/23), come several charts, “proving” Covid was “worse than the 1918 flu.” See: “Meanwhile, Back in Covid-Land” (Powerlineblog.com and Donpolson.blogspot.com).

Their charts show: Yes, a higher spike as a percent of “normal deaths” happened this last year. However, “The death rate in the U.S. over time” shows something else: 1) well over 2,000 deaths (per 100,000 population) through 1930; 2) a massive decline to 1,000 by about 1980; 3) recently down to about 700; 4) the “Covid-19 pandemic” death spike raised our rate of deaths to that of year 2000. Every year before 2000, more Americans died per capita than died last year, pandemic included.

Moreover, after 1918, dramatic drops in deaths occurred; the 1918 flu killed many who would have died in the following years. The same will likely occur now as deaths decline following Covid. Objectively, America has suffered far less than the media/Democrat spin machine suggests.