WARREN, VT – I’m on vacation in Vermont. I saw a bear banging at the dumpster right by our condo. 
She was large. And I just read that 77 NFL players Tested Positive for the Coronavirus. Crap, the season is in trouble! Er, hold on. It seems that a Jersey lab screwed up. They were re-tested them all and all were negative. This also happened with Mike Dewine, the Governor of Ohio. Interesting. Um, does this happen a lot, with regular people who don’t get re-tested?
Opting Out
If your Bullsh*t Detector has not been going crazy these last few months, you had better take it to the shop. That thing is broke, son. To date, 66 players have opted out for the season already. I know there are guys with good reasons, but that seems like a lot. People under 65 have a 99.96% survival rate. They’re athletes. Play ball. Except you Nate Solder. Stay safe, bud.
But I’m an optimist. I believe we will have fans in NFL stadiums this season. And may I remind you, I was the guy who told you baseball, hockey and basketball would all complete their seasons this year. Baseball could still crumble but I doubt it.
It’s all so weird to me because we know the tests are unreliable. It can pick up other coronaviruses and the remnants of this one after it was destroyed. So you can fight it off and never have symptoms, but you’re still considered a risk because some dumb test found something. Or if you had a cold a month ago you might test positive. What is the point of racking up the case count with people who aren’t sick and don’t really spread it? The CDC is not recommending mass testing of asymptomatic people anymore. Deaths and hospitalizations are going down almost across the board here, that’s what matters.
Mask-erade Party
They seems to be a general feeling that when things get better somewhere, it’s because people finally started doing the right thing. But no. Mask mandates didn’t slow the virus in several states like California and Hawaii, or dozens of countries. And they were implemented after the peak in places like New York, but politicians were quick to take credit. It’s a good way to shift the blame to the people.
Salmonella is not caused by under-cooked chicken. It’s a bacteria that lives in animal crap. If we got rid of, or regulated factor farming, we’d solve the problem. But it’s better to put it on us by saying “you didn’t cook it enough.” Politicians can say “we did everything right, but people went to bars and beaches.” I went to my local beach in Connecticut and it was mobbed. But since the virus is gone here you didn’t see it on the news like Florida.
Sweden
You might have heard that Sweden never locked down and only about 15% of people wear masks. The media was quick to paint them as a failure because a lot of people would look really bad if they succeeded. They did have a higher death rate than their closest neighbors, and it’s true they did have trouble in nursing homes and in Stockholm, a fairly densely populated city. But they had a better result than many other European countries and life is basically back to normal there with very few cases. Only in a World Gone Mad would Sweden be considered a failure and New York a success.
I Herd There Might be Immunity?
There is building evidence that some people have immunity to Covid, possibly via T-cells, from prior coronaviruses. In one study, 81% of people had some immunity. This *might* explain why we’re seeing the virus peter out when about 15-20% of a population are exposed. 20% exposed plus 40-60% already immune = herd immunity. Party time. There is mounting research in this area from several places but it’s only now starting to penetrate the mainstream.
Why the Fear Porn?
Politics and Money, of course.
Politics
It seems pretty obvious now that the lockdowns did more harm than good. Remember “two weeks to flatten the curve?” The virus couldn’t be stopped. We just had to flatten the curve so hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed. For some reason it changed to “stay inside until it’s gone.” But it can’t be done. There was a ship at sea where everyone tested negative before they set sail but they all started get the virus at sea somehow, even though they had seen anyone else for weeks.
With poverty, violence, death, suicide, depression, domestic violence, and a plethora of other side effects from lockdowns likely to be tallied for the next 50 years, not to mention crushing our economy, politicians are feeling the heat. They need us to believe it would have been worse without them.
And Trump. Even my Dad, who hates politics, expressed some remorse that numbers were improving because it might help Trump get re-elected. And I get it. My dog Chief sometimes eats a sock and then poops it out. If a poop covered sock was the Democratic candidate, I would probably vote for it. Luckily, Biden is slightly better than a poop sock.
Money
Something like 140 companies are trying to come up with a vaccine. Most will fail. But the payoff is so damn big they have to try. Imagine a product that every human being on earth will be pushed to take multiple times and the companies will have no liability if it gives you a third ball. It’s the perfect product.
Bill Gates has been pouring money into vaccine development and pandemic planning for years. And when your only tool is a needle, everything looks like a pandemic. The guy was screaming from the rooftops about not returning to normal for years like three days in. “See, you fools. I told you it was coming!”
One thing that has never changed is the people who are metabolically healthy have better outcomes. If the CDC actually gave an F about us, the first thing they would tell us would be to stay out of the processed food aisle. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but you have to appreciate the stupidity of Karen, a diabetic smoker with a cart full of Doritos and Wonder Bread, yelling at the guy in the supermarket for putting her at risk by not wearing a mask.
Is He Done Yet?
Amazingly, something with the potential to be an existential threat has divided us more. Trump’s response has been abysmal and he’s completely unsuited for the job in every way. I’m a progressive person and it’s not comfortable finding myself agreeing with the likes of Tucker Carlson, but that’s the way it went down. The left is so eager to be the non-Trump science party, they’ll swallow almost anything from science persons of authority. Anthony Fauci went on 60 Minutes and lied to us all. No one on the left seemed to care. The left seems to have no trouble swallowing a long list of illogical narratives like: “backyard BBQs have to be keep under 10 people but protests with thousands of people are fine.” Or “you have to wear your mask while you walk to your table in a restaurant but can take it off while you devour some chicken wings.” The list is endless.
On the lighter side of 2020 news, a meteor may not come close to hitting the earth around election day. If I didn’t have kids, I think I’d feel like this would be a decent way for us all to go out – dramatic, violent, and ironic. Not to fear though, it only has a 0.41% chance of hitting the earth. By the way, the CDC’s most likely scenario infection fatality rate for COVID is 0.26%. And that’s from July so it’s probably gone down. And that’s if you even get it, which most of us wont.
You have a much better chance of dying from a meteor than from Covid.
That’s it for me. Check out a guy who surely likes me less now, Angry Ward, for some [entertaining] doom and gloom from Angry Ward. Follow us on Twitter at @BenWhit8, @MeetTheMatts, @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram @MeetTheMatts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.
