“Pro-life” Laura Ingraham checked off another box on her pro-death agenda last night by suggesting that viewers stop listening to experts and stop social distancing. She said nothing about taking any such measures for herself or her family.
Ingraham began last night’s pro-death screed by suggesting viewers should stop listening to experts: “We have been told throughout this pandemic that we need to listen to the experts on everything from the lethality of the coronavirus to what the proper response to it should be. But time and again, the experts have been wrong,” she intoned.
Of course, she only meant certain, politically-convenient-to-hate experts like the World Health Organization (for praising China’s handling of the virus, never mind that the country handled the outbreak more successfully than the U.S.) and New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo for saying “you could have an apex needing 140,00 beds and about 40,000 ventilators.” Ignoring the “you could have an apex” part, Ingraham sneered that New York only used “about 25% of that total.” As if Cuomo was wrong to plan for the worst case scenario. She also attacked him for predicting that what was happening in New York would spread to the rest of the country (never mind the outbreaks in meat plants, nursing homes, prisons and Native American tribes).
Coincidentally, those are all places where social distancing is difficult if not impossible. Yet, Ingraham didn’t let that stop her from holding herself up as a more credible truthteller. She's also the non-expert who promoted the now-discredited hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. But, yeah, let’s listen to her.
Ingraham continued, “Well then we were told that social distancing was the only way to fight the virus.” Wrong. Experts say it's social distancing with testing that's needed. No surprise she didn’t mention the testing part, given how her beloved Donald Trump has botched that.
Having established her bona fides, at least in her own mind, Ingraham next went on a tear against social distancing: "Although intuitively I think it probably seemed like social distancing would be necessary, there was no real scientific basis for believing that, since it’s never been studied. And as one infectious disease doc told me last week, trying to stop this virus with social distancing is like trying to drive a nail through Jell-O."
Then Ingraham explicitly promoted her pro-death thinking: “Viruses spread, that's what they do, they often weaken as they go and if it's like SARS, we hope it is, it'll eventually burn out as SARS did.”
That’s right, viruses spread and kill people so why try to fight it? More than 70,000 Americans have died from the virus? That’s just how it goes. They weren't fetuses so - yawn. Which is not a huge surprise from Ingraham, given her immense concern for the ability of people to “freely” catch and spread the disease without the ability to sue any business that may have passed it on. But if you catch it and recover, you’re fair game for mockery.
Ingraham cited a study that found “lockdown policies” “might not have saved any life in Western Europe.” What “Dr.” Ingraham didn’t reveal is that the countries studied without “home containment,” Netherlands and Germany, had pretty strict social distancing measures and lots of closures. Instead, she played a clip of “Nobel laureate Michael Levitt of Stanford University” criticizing lockdowns as “a huge mistake.” She didn’t tell viewers that Levitt has also said, “social-distancing mandates are critical in cutting the number of coronavirus cases.”
I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. Since Donald Trump has utterly failed in fighting the coronavirus, his Fox News lickspittles want us all to think there's no need for him to fight it at all. From the safety of their remote studios.
Watch the latest episode of Fox News’ Culture of Death below, from the May 4 2020 The Ingraham Angle, via Media Matters.
I see Dr. Death is collecting China transparency quotes. Here’s one she can add (emphasis added):
“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!” – Dear Leader, 1/24/2020
On model projections being wrong, Dr. Death’s endless whine. Easy enough a target it seemed when the UK had the earliest model projecting deaths in the low millions. But that model was before any mitigation was in place and epidemiological data was scant (still largely is). As the model projections kept coming down she kept mocking them until they bottomed at 60,000 which she still found outrageous at the time. As I type this America sits at 71,148 deaths. They went up 2,020 overnight. Even an elementary school kid using simple math could project deaths probably will nearly double in a month if we relax safety, ignoring they’re projecting the daily deaths will increase to 3,000 per day by June 1.
The irony of ironies is whose ass she’s kissing during this segment,: Dear Leader’. He just sat in a chair before the Lincoln Memorial where Der Furor dared return to the UK’s projections. Not to mock them this time. To quote them as realistic and accurate. That’s how he could thump his chest in boast he saved millions of American lives by merely shutting down flights from China.
I’ll agree with Dr. Death on one topic. Social distancing is not working as well as I thought. Not because it doesn’t work; it’s because we’re no longer the Greatest Generation willing to make big sacrifices for the common good. Too many Americans are antigovernment MAGAt diehards driven into a tizzy by disinformation. Proudly willing to risk a liberal conspiracy hoax virus to prove their faith. Most the rest are willing only to make the sacrifice halfheartedly. Especially the young we’ve made feel invulnerable by overemphasizing they’re statistically less likely to die. We see violations continuously on the news and in our lives.
Personally, I had some nutjob woman literally following me all round the grocery store during my weekly trip to Food Lion today. She was walking very quickly and kept threatening to enter my safe zone. I literally was dodging her best I could. She’d have to be a moron to realize I wasn’t trying to keep a safe social distance. I couldn’t get anything off a shelf. I think she was just trying to intimidate me so she could own whatever aisles she was on. After 3 aisles I reversed course dodging down an aisles we’d already been on and she left me alone from there until I got in line at the cashier when she pulled her stunt one more time passing me.
There’s no doubt scientifically social distancing is keeping transmission down. At a minimum it slows the infection rate curve so hospitals can deal with the problem and projections like for ventilator needs she mocks don’t become a reality.
The alternative being carefree, do nothing let’s accelerate transmission as quickly as possible to herd immunization levels. I’ve heard 66%. Most often quoted is 70%. The range goes to 80%. Speaking of no science, where’s Laura’s on that? Where’s her proof it’ll even work? There’s evidence of a 15% reinfection rate. We don’t know how long immunization lasts (if it does), another reason to slow down infections until we have at least a treatment option.
Another critical point is in a Twitter rant Dr. Death finally picked on the fact that even if her propaganda works and states reopen, the public probably won’t cooperate and, say restaurants (her example), won’t attract enough customers to keep the doors open at 50% or even 75% normal traffic levels. I’m curious if Dr. Laura is going to start social shaming those like me who stay home? If she’s wrong and death rates increase won’t that hurt business more long-term as customer panic spreads? As they’re forced to close because employees get sick like meat plants today?
I’ll admit. I’m torn on this working. But it’s mainly born out of the fact the Trump administration has been so grossly incompetent we’ve wasted too much time. We have no good epidemiological studies for a proper response. We have no coherent testing strategy. Insufficient testing materials and infrastructure. No real Federal movement to fix that. We have a piecemeal 50 state + DC mitigation strategy which, with rare exception, is too weak. Here in Virginia where we’re constantly bashed by MAGAts as going overboard I see nothing but violations and laxness. Our curve reflects it. As the weather has warmed our infection curve has turned nearly vertical. Look it up. Finally, the federal relief response is inadequate as MAGAts and Dems compromise bills to wasteful, non-comprehensive mush. How much debt capacity is left? I know GOP will for more is exhausted.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. We piddle around for months. Then MAGAts go wild it’s unsustainable and not working. They’re right. So they cry it’s Social Darwinism time which they’ve forced America into through incompetence. Every man, woman and child for themselves.
Meanwhile Dr. Death hides safely in her multi-million dollar McClean, Virginia mansion. A drawer full of hydroxychloroquine just in case.