The Morning Briefing: Fewer Lies and More Honesty Would Be Helpful in the COVID-19 Conversation

Some COVID Clarity, Please

Happy Monday, dear Morning Briefing readers. No, really.

I decided to get my COVID-19 randomness rant out of the way early this week. These are always fun because a select group of the same people chooses to be deliberately obtuse about whatever point or points I am making. Nuance is lost on the righteous COVID crowd. Were it not for the extreme pleasure I take in annoying people I would probably be frustrated by this.

But you’ve all met me. In that weird internet way.

Throughout the various phases of COVID and riot times, the one thing that I’ve been complaining about the most is that almost none of the people in charge are being completely forthcoming about, well, anything. There’s an overwhelming sense of straight-up winging-it that’s been there since the beginning. The early winging-it by Andrew Cuomo and Gretchen Whitmer sent thousands and thousands of elderly people to their COVID deaths, so it’s a valid thing to be upset about.

The second round of shutdowns is a perfect example. Here in Arizona, if 51% of a bar/restaurant’s receipts are from alcohol sales, the place is shut down now. If they’re from food sales, then COVID is magically not killing grandma anymore and the place can stay open.

It’s a bit nonsensical.

There’s been speculation for a while that there has been some fudging of the numbers when reporting COVID-19 cases and deaths. Matt wrote a post on Friday about a motorcycle death in Florida being attributed to COVID:

A young Florida resident who died in a motorcycle accident is included in the state’s official COVID-19 death count, a state official reveals.

FOX 35 News in Orlando discovered this after asking Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino about two young COVID-19 patients in their twenties who died, and whether they had any preexisting conditions that contributed to their deaths.

“The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident,” Pino said.

Matt links to a couple of other posts that detail further sketchiness in the reporting of deaths in Florida and New York.

I’m so old I remember when it was a good thing to have a healthy and inherent lack of trust in government officials. Now we are supposed to be worshiping at the Altar of Fauci and not asking any questions lest we be accused of wanting to create a wholesale COVID slaughter.

Clarifying once again: I am aware that this a highly contagious virus and that COVID-19 cases have been spiking this past month. I’m not minimizing or dismissing anything.

However, even that discussion has been a dishonest one. We’re supposed to believe that fifty people in a bar or a hundred people in a church are the cause for the uptick in cases, but that tens of thousands of people protesting and rioting is perfectly safe. The idiots pushing this line are actually going with a “but everyone was wearing masks” defense. Yeah, a lot of them were, but not all of them. And the ones who were wearing them often pulled them down to yell at cops.

I’d be a lot less cranky about COVID compliance if this kind of disingenuous crap weren’t rampant.

The reality is that the most self-righteous COVID scolds I know are the ones who are going out in public and being around other people a lot, and not for work reasons. They all believe that their cloth masks are some kind of COVID Captain America shields that make them invincible.

No, I’m not anti-mask, I play along on the rare occasions that I go anywhere. But that’s just it—I don’t go anywhere. I may complain about the actions of elected officials but I am also one of the most isolated people I know. Unless I can get COVID from my cat, I’m being a rather good plague-time soldier.

As long as my favorite craft beer place continues making deliveries I will remain so.

Nah, Wallace Will Softball Him

Trump wants Biden to sit for interview with Chris Wallace: He'll be "crying for mommy" https://t.co/lCWSldFeGL pic.twitter.com/enlIaoEj01

— The Hill (@thehill) July 20, 2020

This Appeals to My Burgeoning Minimalist Phase

This 1973 Airstream International for sale is a sleek tiny house | Autoblog https://t.co/1Vxa3y36m6 pic.twitter.com/TTwGWaICLU

— Evan Kirstel #RemoteWork (@EvanKirstel) July 20, 2020

Bee Me

Clever Churchgoers Avoid Arrest By Disguising Themselves As Rioters https://t.co/535ylfIAPa

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) July 19, 2020

The Kruiser Kabana

pic.twitter.com/0d1tNje3IW

— Archillect (@archillect) July 19, 2020

This is fun: Bob Newhart and Craig Ferguson in a couple of different interviews. Newhart is always great and I loved Ferguson’s hosting style. He was the last late-night host who just wanted to be funny and not political all the time.

Let’s begin the day with some light stretching, shall we?

___

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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.