☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Sunday, February 20, 2022 ☙ STATES OF EMERGENCY 🦠

In today’s roundup, we look at three states of emergency. We still have a lot of work to do.

Happy Sunday, C&C supporters! I’m traveling this weekend, so we just have a cup of espresso for you today to tide you over till tomorrow. In today’s roundup, we look at three states of emergency and note that we still have a lot of work to do.

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 🗞

🕑 I laughed out loud yesterday when Michelle read me the Associated Press’ twitter headline: “Gov. Gavin Newsom Says California Will Be the First State to Shift to an ‘Endemic’ Approach to the Coronavirus Pandemic.” Hoo boy. That’s pretty rich. I wonder how Californians feel about being the “first state” to drop Covid restrictions?

The AP’s linked story unironically repeats the claim in its own headline, “California adopts nation’s 1st ‘endemic’ virus policy.” Are they punking us? I don’t have to tell you this, but Florida has been following an ‘endemic approach’ since October 2020.

Anyway. Governor Newsom announced Thursday that the Golden State is going to focus on “prevention and quick reaction to outbreaks” instead of mask mandates and business shutdowns. He said “we’re going to keep them [citizens] safe.” By putting them in a box. Haha, just kidding. Kind of.

Don’t worry, there will be lots of chances for lefty activist groups to graft, and the flood of Covid money will keep on flowing. The AP describes “billions in new spending to more quickly spot surges or variants, add health care workers, stockpile tests and push back against false claims and other misinformation.”

The “First State to Shift to An Endemic Approach” still forces masks on its school kids. Newsom said there will be an announcement about school masking on February 28 — the day before you-know-what. Also, he’s not lifting the state of emergency, or 100 different emergency pandemic orders of various kinds. He might not ever lift them. “This pandemic won’t have a defined end. There’s no finish line,” Newsom said.

See? We still have lots of things to keep working on and mocking.

🔥 The New York Times published an article yesterday headlined, “Biden Extends the National Pandemic Emergency First Declared In March 2020.” The state of emergency would have automatically expired without Biden’s extension, which has no end date this time, so he won’t have to remember to extend it again next time, which after all is just one more damned thing to keep track of.

🚛 Yesterday, Ontario’s interim chief of police announced that Canada will pursue a January 6-style investigation of everyone who participated in the trucker rally. He only answered one question, which was whether if the truckers go home peacefully, the government will continue law enforcement action:

“That’s a great question. Yes. If you were involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges. Absolutely. This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many, many different streams. Both from a federal financial level, from a provincial licensing level, from a criminal code level, from a municipal breach of court order, breach of court injunction level. It will be a complicated and time-consuming investigation that will go on for a period of time. You have my commitment that the investigation will continue and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over.”

See how it works? You don’t even NEED people to go into federal buildings. You can find all kinds of other reasons to investigate and prosecute even the most peaceful of protests. Which should make the January 6 ralliers feel a little bit better. We’d be right here where we are anyway! Welcome to the party, Canadians.

I’ll think about what to suggest to the truckers and protestors in light of our January 6 experience here. This new plan has probably been in the works since before Trudeau invoked the Emergency Powers Act, without which there would be no crimes to prosecute. Protestors should presume that all their vehicle license tags have been collected. More to come.

🕑 The AP ran an article this week with a headline posing this question: “Estimated 73% of US now immune to omicron: Is that enough?” According to the article — this will shock and surprise you (not really) — the answer is, “yes.” The emergency is over! Talk about mixed messaging.

Apparently the University of Washington in Seattle, which you might recall authored the totally fake IHME “doomsday model” used to justify the 2020 lockdowns, has now baked up ANOTHER new Covid model, this time showing how the pandemic is totally over, and which coincidentally gives the government cover to do exactly what it wants, just like the 2020 model did. You’d think UWS would have been totally discredited by the last go around, but no. It’s too useful. Just rinse and repeat.

Regarding an IHME model showing a 73% level of U.S. herd immunity, Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, said “We have changed. We have been exposed to this virus and we know how to deal with it.” Well alrighty then. There you have it. Now we know.

One of the most amusing admissions in the article is that US authorities lack reliable information about natural immunity levels and vaccine performance, for which we are forced to rely on “health data from other countries such as Britain, Denmark, South Africa and Qatar to project what could be in store.” In other words, the CDC is useless. Like I told you.

🔥 Politico ran an article this week headlined, “‘Bad blood’: Florida Republicans defy DeSantis.” The article describes a “feud” between Governor DeSantis and Senate President Wilton Simpson, and claims that Simpson and the senate have been shooting down DeSantis’ political efforts in many cases.

2022 is Simpson’s final year in the Senate — he terms out this year — and so he plans to run for Ag Commissioner after Nikki Fried exits to run for governor. Regular C&C readers will recall that Mr. Simpson was the one holding up the special session for months last summer. Our 5DAY army called his office and left messages thousands and thousands of times. So.

Have a blessed Sunday, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning for more.

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MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Twitter: @jchilders98