Consistent From the Start
A review of this writer's reaction to the early official response to Covid-19
The 9th of March 2020 fell on a Monday, a day never forgotten. Having enjoyed a remarkable Mardi Gras celebration with friends and many tens of thousands of others - Tuesday 25 February - the news hit intensely on that day, Monday 9 March: Covid is real, Covid is here, Covid can kill you.
The markets reacted. Politicians flustered about groping for the right words, the proper response to an unpredictable public health threat. People fearfully looked to officials for guidance.
For a few days, the bec shared in this concern. I dropped by the local Walgreen Pharmacy and discovered, disappointedly, they did not sell medical masks. I drove home asking a silly question in my head: “How can a pharmacy not sell masks?”
Despite these fears, something itched at me. The responses to Covid seemed to me a bit off. The uncertainty about covid could run at least two ways. Perhaps it’ll kill me, but perhaps it won’t. My early thoughts were not so much about the virus, as everyone else seemed to be thinking, but about the human body, one at a time.
I wondered about my body’s response to the virus, not my city’s response to it.
Somehow, it was intuitively apparent to me that discussions about broad-stroke responses to Covid were misdirected. A city can’t catch Covid, individuals do, and shutting down a city made no sense to me when I pondered on any individual’s vulnerability to a virus.
A highly vulnerable individual has much to fear; an immune individual has nothing to fear. This is true regardless of any “public health policy” response.
My first public statement about Covid, cautionary already, happened as early as the Friday of the same week, 13 March 2020, when I turned to Facebook to challenge where things were headed: SHUT DOWN.
Swine Flu killed almost 10,000 Americans and infected about 50 million Americans. We didn’t shut down our economy over it, or close every school.
Indeed, the mayor moved quickly to shut things down, orders I questioned. My response on the 16th to the mayor’s order to close gyms and shopping centers and to “ban gatherings,” a term we’d all never heard before but would hear endlessly for years after:
“Economic collapse is also a threat to human life. Are we weighing all the risks?”
Only a day later, I reacted to The Advocate newspaper publishing the dangerous stupidity of a walking numbskull, the overgrown coward child called Will Sutton, demanding Martial Law.
“Perhaps Mr. Sutton is a nice man. I can’t know. But surely, the ideas he promotes are truly evil and oppressive.”
Will Sutton:
It’s beginning to feel a bit like martial law, and I’m down for it.
We’ve closed public schools. Most colleges and universities are going to online instruction this week. The Orleans Parish district attorney’s office has closed. Louisiana casinos are shutting down. There are no Pelicans games. Now Louisiana has closed bars, restaurants are limited to take-out, delivery or drive-through orders, and gatherings of more than 50 people are banned as of midnight Tuesday. I love going to theaters to see movies, but theaters are closed, too.
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ statewide emergency declarations started last week. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell strongly urged New Orleanians and those visiting the city not to congregate in large groups on Friday. But less than 24 hours later, Cantrell witnessed good times-focused partygoers on several city streets Saturday, making it clear the governor’s prohibition isn’t enough for some people in our area.
So, what do we do?
We clamp down more.
Go ahead. Crack down, Gov. Edwards and Mayor Cantrell. I’m willing to do without some civil liberties for a stretch of time as you take control and limit our exposure.
Send in the National Guard. Ask for federal military support. Call it a public health emergency. Call it a containment area. Call it martial law.
Intuitively, I knew all this was wrong. “Cities don’t catch Covid,” I continued, “so how can any city-wide ban on anything impact an individual’s vulnerability to a virus?”
None of what I was hearing and seeing from “experts” made sense.
In fact, I look back in awe of my own prescience. This on 17 March 2020:
Economic collapse threatens human lives, too. The mayor and governor seem to be mindless about that, as I've heard almost nothing from them regarding anything except their "power" to shut things down. Finally, The Advocate chose to take a peek at this aspect of the "solution" to the virus.
As people lose their income, as they lose their minds from the stress of it all, expect things to get far worse than whatever a flu virus might do to us. How do we pay the rent? The groceries? The light bill? Crime will go up; people will feel desperate. And no, government programs won't alleviate that fear.
Our choice about how we're dealing with this -- and it is a choice -- will have far deeper negative impacts than the virus itself.
My views remained consistent, here responding to the bombardment of worst case scenario “Fear Porn” from national and local media:
“Keep the fear pedal to the metal, Advocate! Have you any decency? Any at all?”
I urged voters to reject LaToya Cantrell. This on 11 May 2020:
“Let’s vote this incompetent mayor out of office.”
During the Covid Summer of Race Protests I called “Bunk!” to New Orleans Health Department head Dr. Jennifer Avegno’s assurances that thousands of clustered protestors did not - could not - be vectors of transmission for the virus. (Dr. Avegno deserves the same fate as the mayor; she should be forced from office.)
“The most woke virus in global history. And happening at the same time that the only good people live! Amazing coincidence!”
I offered strong reactions to what was happening to all of us:
“Shutting down businesses and arresting business owners is NOT okay. This totalitarian crap from the state of Louisiana MUST STOP NOW. And the Karens need to shove it”
So captures my tone to the official response to Covid-19. It was not until later that I’d learn about Ivor Cummins while listening to Tom Woods, or that I’d discover Geert Vanden Bossche and his predictions that the vaccines would make matters worse.
I received immense hate for my opinions. An art gallery on Julia Street in the Warehouse District, showing the clocks I build, reached out to tell me to come pick up my work, which I did, obligated, wearing a mask while making the exchange on the sidewalk outside.
I lost count of the times I was labeled “selfish.”
Needless to say, I carried the same suspicions about “Expertism” into the vaccine debate; draw your own conclusions about my vaccine status.
I will always be proud of my stance in defending personal liberty, even during times of threat. The BEC sees each of us as individuals; none of us is “the community” or “the city.”
I knew The Great Barrington Declaration’s targeted protection approach was entirely correct, and it was never clear why the doctors who wrote it were maligned. Not only they, but Dr. Simone Gold and the Frontline Doctors as well. It baffled me that we could “weaponize” and “politicize” doctors, second opinions, medicine on the whole and medications, outright.
Friends, your independence of thought is a vital element of who you are. This writer and The BEC community at large defend you as the individual you are, as we will do always, everywhere, and under all circumstances.
the bec