If there was ever a COVID phrase that should be banned, forgotten and erased from the minds of everyone and anyone everywhere, it is the cursed, “flatten the curve.” Such is the phrase used in March and April by governors and unelected government bureaucrats across the country as they rationalized the creation and enforcement of politically driven and authority-soaked arbitrary edicts of economic destruction and the relatedly questionable mask mandates.
Nearly 300,000 Americans have died of the virus, with a large percentage of folks in long-term care centers and nursing homes. Meanwhile, jobs, homes, hopes, economic opportunities and more have been destroyed in the months since the coronavirus landed in the United States possibly as early as December 2019. Maybe even earlier.
The governor and public health departments advocated and implemented preventative measures, including lockdowns, that were designed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed with new patients. It is December and we’re still in the throes of a pandemic, clearly suggesting early and current measures to control the virus may not have been effective.
PCR Testing May Be Flawed
There is also something that may be overlooked: A controversy is developing about the validity and accuracy of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, utilized by labs across the country to detect the presence of the coronavirus in humans.
According to the inventor of the PCR test, it was not designed to detect a live virus, such as COVID. Many, if not most, PCR health and medical lab test results are not reported to states’ health departments. At least one study from Rhode Island suggests there may be a large number of false positives related to these tests.
A judge in Portugal ruled PCR tests are not “reliable.” Standard operating protocols are not uniform by medical labs, states, let alone countries. This combination may very well provide the governor and unelected government bureaucrats with faulty and flawed information that is utilized to implement equally faulty and flawed mandates.
Florida recently required medical labs to disclose the Ct values of the PCR tests to that state’s public health department. Ct values are the number of amplification cycles used to detect the virus in a test sample. In simple words, a Ct value is the number of times a sample has been amplified to find virus RNA. Higher Ct values suggest little to no viral components in a sample. Lower Ct values indicate more viral presence; the lower the Ct value of a test, the more infectious the sample. This is important information that can help both government bureaucrats and doctors. Colorado should do the same.
It’s December and almost everybody in El Paso County wears masks while out in public. Yet cases are rising, prompting more grim warnings from politicians across the state. If we allow that the PCR tests could be flawed, then why are we assuming case increases are from actual infections? If masks truly worked, why are more people being tested? For Colorado, mask compliance is upwards of 88% and higher.
From Bars to Households
Here’s something else that’s interesting: According to this link, the majority of transmissions of the virus takes place within households. This means people are most likely being infected at home by COVID. Should we really be keeping people locked inside their homes? And where is the virus coming from into people’s homes and causing outbreaks in households? According to a recent Gazette editorial, Jill Hunsaker Ryan, Colorado’s Public Health Director stated, “Our outbreak data doesn’t do a great job defining where people were infected by the virus.”
Bars and restaurants have been shut down by the governor and people may be going to house parties and speakeasies. People are moving those social events into households, the very place where the majority of transmissions occur. Not at bars and restaurants. Conversely, in the same Gazette editorial, it was noted the state’s public health department had tracked 51 positive cases to restaurants and bars with 6,659 cases of folks acquiring the virus from healthcare facilities.
What are we doing? Are the governor and Dr. Ryan really doing the right things to prevent the spread of a virus and to “flatten the curve”? Locking down people inside their homes may get more people infected because they’re home so much, and also, likely the occasional visiting a neighbor or going to a party at someone else’s house. Likewise, as more people visit healthcare facilities, they may increase their chances of becoming infected and sick.
These are the oft-ignored unintended consequences of the arbitrary initiatives imposed by the governor and the state public health department. Certainly, we can say that since bars and restaurants constitute such a small percentage of new cases, they ain’t the problem. The real problem is the governor and public health department are making things worse.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, written and published in early October of this year, is a document signed by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, including medical experts and doctors. The Great Barrington Declaration promotes a “Focused Protection” plan and approach of managing the pandemic. Rather than limit travel and activities for those least at risk of the virus, focus on protecting those most at-risk. You can read the Declaration here.
The most important feature of the Great Barrington Declaration is the fact it acknowledges the trade-offs made by current mandates. They recognize shutting down society creates more problems. While trying to save lives from COVID-19, death by despair remains a challenge. The Great Barrington Declaration offers a sort of balance, a way to prevent “the cure being worse than the disease.”
Governor Jared Polis should embrace the Great Barrington Declaration. He should turn his administration away from its patented paternalistic pandering and return to a more rational approach of managing the state during the pandemic. The Great Barrington Declaration is based on historical precedence and science. At least it contains more science than found in the governor’s arbitrary edicts of economic destruction.
Recently the governor announced he had tested positive for the virus. A few days later, his partner was taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. We should be grateful the governor’s partner recovered fairly quickly and is well.
It serves to remind the governor the original plan was to “flatten the curve” and despite all the things he claims to have done to protect himself from the virus, it still found its way into his home. As such, he should realize his arbitrary initiatives may not be working after all and consider a better way: The Great Barrington Declaration.
Publisher’s Note: The original feature image was removed at the request of The Associated Press. We originally found the image in The Coloradoan publication.
