Vaccines

This week, my home country of Canada implemented a slew of new travel restrictions in response to Omicron, the newest ideation of what will surely be endless Covid variants. Based on the reports, this variant is mild and nothing to panic about. But hey, why not panic, just to be safe? And by “safe,” I mean “sufficiently naive and fearful so as to ensure we continue to comply with ever-irrational regulations and restrictions, dutifully marching along dressed in useless and humiliating masks that restrict both breathing and communication, and maintaining religious devotion to vaccines that only work in that they reduce symptoms.” Some countries and states have responded to Covid humanely and rationally.

The new Omicron variant of Covid-19 is “mild” and no reason to panic, according to one of the South African doctors who discovered the new strain. Nonetheless, American politicians and public health officials are extending mask mandates, expanding vaccine mandates, and warning of the potential for another lockdown. Pfizer is taking their cues and stepping in to play hero. Despite only having a week or two of research available to them, the pharmaceutical giant insists that preliminary lab results show that three doses of their vaccine work well at neutralizing the Omicron variant. How convenient that the so-called “booster” shot Pfizer and President Joe Biden have been pushing for months is now found to be super effective against this new variant.

As we near the final days of his term, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is taking his final shot at children by implementing an indoor vaccine mandate. This means that kids will not be able to dine indoors at restaurants, visit museums or do any number of other cultural activities around the city. Additionally, children ages five to eleven will no longer be able “to participate in high-risk extracurriculars including sports, band, and dance.” The new rules are as cruel as they are pointless. Twenty percent of New York City children ages five to eleven are vaccinated against COVID-19. That number is actually pretty high as kids face an extremely low risk of any kind of poor COVID outcome.

Did you think we were having supply chain issues? Just wait until the vaccine mandates — cross-border and federal — kick in. We haven’t seen anything yet. “The supply chain that stole Christmas” has been dominating headlines all over the place for over a month now, even in The Spectator. Senator Mike Lee’s office is having fun with it too. The senator has just introduced the Surpassing Temporary Obstructions at Ports and Guaranteeing Resources to Increase the Nation’s Commercial Health Act — or STOP the GRINCH Act. More on that in a moment — but first, why are we hearing so much about the supply chain lately? Because of shortages, obviously! But wait. There’s nothing terribly new here.

There were plenty of lessons for Democrats to learn from the shock victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in Tuesday night's gubernatorial election in Virginia. Perhaps the most important is that Terry McAuliffe should have focused more on local issues instead of nationalizing the race. Youngkin was able to tap into the ire of local parents protesting their school boards on a litany issues, including critical race theory and transgender bathroom policies. An often overlooked point in debates about critical race theory (and whether or not it is being taught in Virginia schools) is that the parent movement started in response to pandemic-related school closures and the shifting standards of teacher's unions and school boards for reopening.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. It’s one of those places where you see lawn signs proclaiming “In this house, we believe in science.” Naturally, our Democratic leaders have consistently ignored science over the last year, at least when it comes to COVID mitigation. Here in Montgomery County, our return to normalcy is currently being held hostage in exchange for near-universal vaccination of our least at-risk residents. If you believe that local governments are in a hurry to surrender “emergency” powers, I have a bridge over the Potomac to sell you. Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, has dropped our indoor mask mandate. But we still have a locally mandated one in place. Our county leaders reckon that they know better.

If we have learned anything over the last few months it is that emergencies, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. The ruling elites have been as shifty and duplicitous about what justifies enacting emergency powers as the FBI has been about what warrants investigating angry parents at school board meetings (and before them, Trump campaign operatives for their Russian 'collusion’.) One feature of all these police-state excursions into unbridled power never changes — vagueness. It is so much easier to move the goal posts when there are no lines drawn on the field. The COVID-19 pandemic served as the all-encompassing key to unlocking 'emergency powers’ for politicians and unelected government bureaucrats.

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, first responders were the toast of the town. Most of us appreciated that while we binge-watched Tiger King in our sweatpants and attempted to make sourdough bread from scratch, not everyone was lazily locking down. Nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals were on the frontlines of the fight, taking on a virus the world knew little about. This sacrifice did not go unnoticed. Americans proudly stuck signs on their front lawns that read 'thank you first responders!’ McDonald’s gave out free 'thank you meals’ to those who were helping fight COVID-19. Dr Anthony Fauci wasn’t the only one who made the TIME 100 List last year. The magazine also dubbed healthcare workers 2020’s 'Guardians of the Year’.

If the mainstream media were hoping to learn from the mistakes of 2016, there were plenty of lessons for them to revisit. Unfortunately, the elites that pontificated on network news channels and in Washington Post thinkpieces had zero interest in understanding why they got Trump’s election so wrong. To do that, they would have needed both self-awareness and humility. Because they lack both, nothing improved. In fact, things have only gotten worse. Four years of hair-on-fire reporting about Trump’s tweets, a Russian hoax, two impeachments and dozens of 'anonymous’ sources later, the activists in journalists’ clothing finally got their way. Joe Biden, the basement candidate, was elected president.

Last week, President Joe Biden announced a blizzard of new executive orders. He effectively mandated COVID vaccines for the entire federal workforce as well as all federal contractors and anyone who works at a company that has more than 100 employees. He didn't consult Congress on any of this even though — and this is what truly separates the boys from the caudillos — both Houses are controlled by his own party. So while we still technically live in a free country, it looks a bit different than it did before. The executive branch is Joe Biden, the legislative branch is the multiple Joe Bidens Joe Biden sees in the mirror just after taking his prescription Zestril, and the judicial branch is when Joe Biden lurches awake at 3 a.m. barking 'I am the law!

Joe Biden is telling the unvaccinated that the time for waiting is over. In his signature ‘get-off-my-lawn!’ old-man yelling voice, the exhausted 78-year-old Commander-in-Chief dutifully tried to read a teleprompter full of COVID-19 talking points on Thursday. In addition to signing an executive order requiring all federal employees to be vaccinated (with the possible exception of 650,000 postal employees who handle those wonderful mail-in ballots), Joe’s six-pronged plan went even further: ‘The Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their work forces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.