Just got off a Zoom call with pals. I have a couple groups that try to do it, in keeping with new social protocols of the Emergency era. I would call it the COVID Emergency, but there has been such enormous success with Emergency rule from the State and Federal governments over the pandemic that it will doubtless be a common way by which we are ruled. With the 9-month lockdowns in some states, it was essentially putting people under house arrest, denying us some of the Bill of Rights, and telling us to mask up.

Flu season, which we used to deal with as individuals, became something else. Now it is “mask up, dammit!” It is quite remarkable. In the SARs epidemic, no less a figure of medical science named Dr. Anthony Fauci leaned across a desk and explained that my enthusiasm for such practices did not account for how the unintended consequences of such action could be worse than the disease. I don’t think he has changed his mind. I believe he thinks that what he is doing about COVID is worth it. Sometimes the numbers change meanings.

I don’t know what the next emergency might be, but some people are thinking about it, even sending trial balloons about social justice causes, guns, speech and more maladies. This is a big change to how we live, and it has come upon us without much debate.

So naturally, the Zoom discussion touched on how things are going in California, Oregon, Michigan and Northern Virginia. It was interesting to hear people react to the situation.

Here at The Farm, the consensus opinion is that the truth was the first aspect of our social life to pass away. My contribution to that was an experience with numbers. Back in the SARs days, there were internal discussions of official numbers and how they would be counted in order to support the most efficient course of action. That means there is a link between policy and how to count things. I was interested in seeing how it went. I have counted things like the number of mines dropped across international waterways, and how the means reporting would gather support for policy. I saw it and helped, because sometimes numbers have their own truth. In the SARs epidemic, the formulation of total deaths, total cases, rates of spread and associated issues went into the count. Each category had specific criteria, but you could see that factor change with policy needs.

We have seen it change with the latest emergency. The total number of deaths is one of the numbers. We hear a quarter-to-a-third million deaths, though that seems to be mixed up with millions of cases, and attribution of other things to the pandemic. By discussion with Dr. Fauci, the attribution was important. Since numbers support policy, the definition of a COVID death includes any other factor within 60 days of a positive test result. To only mild surprise, I realized that is why the deaths from motorcycle and car crashes, heart failure and gunshot wounds made it on the list.

The numbers had to support policy. It was because the COVID numbers needed to support some amazing social restrictions. (This is where the footnote goes that Socotra House Management supports CDC guidelines, appreciates the impact of the illness and the importance of washing our hands.) It is also why the COVID tests are relied upon, even though a “positive test” may reflect something minor, but so amplified by the test itself as to be worthless for the purpose it was devised.

And the effect of the lock-down itself on anxiety, sleep loss, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. (Maybe that is another footnote).

Anyway, that was just one of the topics. I liked the comment that intubation was one of the causes of death. Early responses to the pandemic were early intubation, based on recommendations of the Chinese through their puppets on the WHO staff. I almost got intubated myself when in the hospital around the time this first became an emergency. They mentioned that it might be a good idea, and only the words of one of my potential heirs brought up the medical paperwork I filed a while back on the matter of extraordinary efforts to preserve my life.

My paperwork said “DNR,” which means “do not resuscitate.” I escaped that. But many people didn’t and paid a price. I have seen reports that simple use of artificial breathing device can cause death. But Science seemed to recommend the practice, and so that is what was done.

And then, partly because of the shortage of intubation devices, some vulnerable people were sent back to their nursing homes to infect others in the high-risk categories.

There were more numbers associated with the practice. But being a liability to policy you don’t hear much about them.

So that is the sort of thing I heard on the Zoom. People don’t know what the truth is, don’t know who to trust, and don’t know what they should do. It sounds pretty crazy, but someone else suggested it was the way some people wanted it to be. Because that is the situation they wanted. The first big relief package for the pandemic addressed all sorts of things that had nothing to do with disease control. The one President-Elect Biden (I have been told not to have a footnote about that) talked about last night and plans to drop in his first day in the office sounds like the same thing.

Of the proposed two trillion dollar package, $360 Billion is allocated to bail out cities from problems with their pension systems, among other things. That is the way this works, see. The Cities and States they rule have piled up enormous liabilities that their citizens can no longer pay. Instead of fixing it, they are now just upping the number of other people to pay for their extravagance. Like the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, which will further increase pressure on the small businesses it will effect. Another big chunk of money will go to spreading more taxpayer cash around by direct dissemination to all sorts of people, many of them who have never paid taxes to the United States.

This is all without discussion on the specifics, mind you. I saw that between the stimulus after the 2008 economic meltdown, and the first and second ones for COVID, we have increased the debt incurred by the United State by a third in those two Presidencies.

But that is just numbers, and numbers support policy. The Zoom call serves to keep us up to speed on it all. But of course we all agree that the Government knows best. We would hate for Zoom to go the way of Parler, you know? That could be another footnote I have to develop.

Just to keep us all straight, you know?

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com