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.”
Unfortunately, I was right.
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Their disdain for their profession has been superseded only by that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 theCalifornia
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.â€
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.
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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.
I conclude with the words of a Swedish medical doctor, Sebastian
Rushworth:
“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.â€
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.
The post Prager:
The Lockdown Has Gone From a Mistake to a Crime appeared first
on Harbingers Daily.
