Dr. Erickson COVID-19 Briefing [Essential Cut] – A Meritless Video YouTube removed for violating community standards. I post it here as an excellent example of right-wing efforts to use divisive rhetoric and emotional manipulation to sway gullible, ignorant people who lack effective critical thinking skills.
The video linked above was recently posted with the assertion that it was ‘a very well-reasoned presentation from medical experts’. It is unfortunate that the invalidity of the message these videos assert wasn’t much more readily apparent to the poster. The information presented was not medically sound, and the ‘statistics’ were laughable. The speaker was clearly not an expert, and the message was anything but well-reasoned, as I demonstrate below.
YouTube apparently agreed, as they have removed the video from the site for violating community standards. It represents so-called ‘junk science’. I have re-posted the video here as an excellent example of right-wing efforts designed to sway gullible, ignorant people who lack effective critical thinking skills. If after viewing the video you don’t see its complete lack of merit, perhaps you should reconsider your fitness to participate in the processes of Democracy.
American governors are not following the science? Only 50 seconds in to this ‘essential cut’ video is the first proof that these so-called experts are simply ignoring the facts and the science to justify their perspective. He says “you quarantine the sick, not the healthy’ as a criticism of stay-at-home mandates. That ignores the FACT that we lack the testing needed to know who is sick. That ignores the FACT that the Covid-19 disease is highly contagious and is spread even by people with NO SYMPTOMS.
In the discussion of face masks, this video ignores the FACT that those with the virus project it to other people via droplets expelled from the mouth and nose into the air and on to surfaces that others then inhale or touch. They make the same irrelevant comments heard all too often that a face mask won’t keep you from contracting the virus, when the only point of mandating that every person wear a face covering when in public spaces around other people is to reduce the droplets that are expelled by the wearer of the mask from reaching other people.
And the so-called statistics? They remind me of the quip, by Samuel Clemens I believe, ‘There are lies, there are damned lies, and worse, there are statistics.’ The calculations he used are simply meaningless. The meaningful numbers published regularly report the number of dead Americans. Add to that the count of survivors whose lungs have been permanently damaged, leading to shortened lives and additional future cost to the American health care system and you get a more accurate measure of the toll this disease is taking.
WITHOUT TESTING NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHETHER THEY ARE INFECTED, AND OTHER PEOPLE OUT IN PUBLIC HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING WHETHER YOU ARE IN FACT CONTAGIOUS. Wearing face coverings is a sign of respect for other people, and refusing to wear a face covering in public – especially out of some misguided sense that your personal freedom is being violated – is stupid and reckless.
Why don’t we know who is sick? Because TRUMP and his administration as of May 1st are STILL refusing to use the coordinating power of the federal government to the extent needed to safeguard the American people.
Supply logistics is not rocket science. A responsible administration would have – by the end of January when the likely severity of this pandemic was apparent to the experts advising Trump –
- mobilized federal resources to ramp up domestic production of PPE and other goods critical to safeguarding people in the line of fire;
- began federal coordination of procurement of all the varied supplies and chemicals needed to enable readily available widespread testing, many of which must be purchased from international sources, and allocation of these goods based on need – not politics;
- worked with governors to create the army of contact tracers necessary to reduce the spread of the infection – increasing employment along the way.
Forcing each domestic jurisdiction to search for and attempt to buy what they need, competing with every other jurisdiction, benefits no one except the companies who profit from the bidding wars between competing buyers. But then, that is really what Trump and republicans want – to maximize the profits of their supporters, without regard to the cost to the American people in either lives or tax money.
I always thought that the essence of patriotism was a willingness to give of oneself personally for the benefit others in the community and the nation.
In this video and in right-wing organized protests around the country, these ignorant people are trying to assert that the stay-at-home, mask wearing, non-essential business closing mandates are somehow infringing on their personal liberties, and vilifying the governors who have reduced the spread of the virus by imposing these restrictions.
They should instead be blaming Trump for his abject failure to take the steps up front that would have reduced the need for and duration of these harsh public health measures. And they should turn away from those rabble-rousing information sources who are promoting this divisive message.
Is America really weaker and less well informed than South Korea? If Trump had done what was necessary to implement the widespread testing and contact tracing necessary to know who is sick and who is healthy, as was done in South Korea and other nations, we would be in a position to encourage much more normal economic activity than we can today. While the virus is the cause of the current economic troubles, Trump is personally responsible for the severity of the pandemic in America both in economic terms, and in terms of the number of unnecessary deaths his inaction – and lying words – have caused.
But then, republicans care little for anything other than money and power. To republicans, hourly workers are little more than fuel for their economic engines. It doesn’t matter whether workers live or die or starve, they can be easily replaced. Just ask the workers at the meat processing plants that Trump has mandated stay open. Trump has mandated NO safety procedures to protect them, while workers are being threatened with the withholding of monetary support if they refuse to report to work out of concern for their and their family’s safety.
First, Do No Harm – the overarching mandate of the medical profession. These protesters of masks and stay-at-home orders don’t seem to understand what while they have the right to their personal opinions, and to live their personal lives consistent with those beliefs, they don’t have the right to impose their personal beliefs – or the harmful impact of them – on the personal lives of other people. Much of our personal lives play out in public spaces, and we each have a personal responsibility to those around us. These days, not knowing who is contagious and who is not, it is reckless to be in public near other people wearing no face covering and with little intent to social distance.
All in all, I see these people as having a very much self-centered (i.e. selfish), un-Christian perspective.