Time’s running out?
Tag: face masks
It’s a big club and you ain’t in it…
The Masking of the Servant Class: Ugly COVID Images From the Met Gala Are Now Commonplace
From the start of the pandemic, political elites have been repeatedly caught exempting themselves from the restrictive rules they impose on the lives of those over whom they rule. Governors, mayors, ministers and Speakers of the House have been filmed violating their own COVID protocols in order to dine with their closest lobbyist-friends, enjoy a coddled hair styling in chic salons, or unwind after signing new lockdown and quarantine orders by sneaking away for a weekend getaway with the family. The trend became so widespread that ABC News gathered all the examples under the headline “Elected officials slammed for hypocrisy for not following own COVID-19 advice,” while Business Insider in May updated the reporting with this: “14 prominent Democrats stand accused of hypocrisy for ignoring COVID-19 restrictions they’re urging their constituents to obey.”
Most of those transgressions were too flagrant to ignore and thus produced some degree of scandal and resentment for the political officials granting themselves such license. Dominant liberal culture is, if nothing else, fiercely rule-abiding: they get very upset when they see anyone defying decrees from authorities, even if the rule-breaker is the official who promulgated the directives for everyone else. Photos released last November of California Governor Gavin Newsom giggling maskless as he sat with other maskless state health officials celebrating the birthday of a powerful lobbyist — just one month after he told the public to “to keep your mask on in between bites” and while severe state-imposed restrictions were in place regarding leaving one’s home — caused a drop in popularity and helped fueled a recall initiative against him. Newsom and these other officials broke their own rules, and even among liberals who venerate their leaders as celebrities, rule-breaking is frowned upon.
But as is so often the case, the most disturbing aspects of elite behavior are found not in what they have prohibited but rather in what they have decided is permissible. When it comes to mask mandates, it is now commonplace to see two distinct classes of people: those who remain maskless as they are served, and those they employ as their servants who must have their faces covered at all times. Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was difficult to imagine how the enormous chasm between the lives of cultural and political elites and everyone else could be made any larger, yet the pandemic generated a new form of crude cultural segregation: a series of protocols which ensure that maskless elites need not ever cast eyes upon the faces of their servant class.
Indeed…
New Study Finds Mask Mandate Failed to Reduce COVID Deaths, Hospitalizations, or Cases
A new study published in the The Southern Medical Journal (SMJ) found that a county-wide mask order in Bexar County, Texas, did not lead to a reduction in COVID-19 hospitalization rates or deaths.
The study, which was peer reviewed, analyzed data before and after mandates were imposed at both the state level (July 3, 2020) and in Bexar County (July 5, 2020), Texas’s fourth largest county.
“We defined the control period as June 2 to July 2 and the postmask order period as July 8, 2020–August 12, 2020, with a 5-day gap to account for the median incubation period for cases; longer periods of 7 and 10 days were used for hospitalization and ICU admission/death, respectively,” the study authors wrote. “Data were reported on a per-100,000 population basis using respective US Census Bureau–reported populations.”
Authors of the study, which was reviewed by the US Army Institute of Surgical Research, analyzed the daily average number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU visits, patients on ventilators, and deaths, and concluded the policy did not reduce any of these metrics.
“All of the measured outcomes were higher on average in the postmask period as were covariables included in the adjusted model,” the researchers said. “There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.”
Forbes deletes article alleging psychological trauma in mask-wearing for kids
Forbes removed an article that alleges psychological damage of mask-wearing in kids after it was shared on Twitter and started to get traction. The ideas shared in the article contradict the public health bodies and government advisories on the importance of mask-wearing.
The article discouraging mask-wearing in kids went viral after it was shared by Twitter user NYC Angry Mom. They encouraged people to read the article, adding: “I’m just speechless that someone finally understands that masks on children are not benign.”
The tweet had been shared at least 400 times.
The deleted article (archive) was written by Zak Ringelstein, a PhD holder in Education at Columbia university and founder of Zigadoo, an educational and developmental app for kids.
Ringelstein begins the article by describing how he has spent his career advocating for the removal of standardized testing because of “the havoc it has wreaked on the mental health and well-being of American schoolchildren, especially kids from low-income families.”
Hmm…
Biden Keeps Pushing Dubious Arguments for CDC Supremacy
The Supreme Court last week rejected the idea that Congress gave the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the power to stop landlords from evicting tenants who fail to pay their rent. Unfazed by that setback, the Biden administration this week suggested that the CDC has the power to demand that every public school in the country force students to wear face masks.
Both incidents show how readily President Joe Biden deploys dubious legal arguments to defend unprecedented power grabs in the name of fighting COVID-19. If successful, those arguments would undermine federalism, the rule of law, and the separation of powers.
The CDC argued that evictions could promote COVID-19 transmission by forcing people to move into “congregate or shared living setting[s].” It said its moratorium therefore was authorized by a 1944 law that allows regulations deemed “necessary” to prevent the interstate spread of “communicable diseases.”
Like most of the federal judges who have addressed the issue, the Supreme Court did not buy that argument. “It is hard to see what measures this interpretation would place outside the CDC’s reach,” it noted, “and the Government has identified no limit…beyond the requirement that the CDC deem a measure ‘necessary.'”
Dr. Scott Atlas: Science Killed Itself Over COVID-19
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American people have been told to “follow the science.” Yet for a year and a half, they’ve heard contradicting messages from self-appointed prophets of “the science” like Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
We learned that politicians who claimed their decisions were science-driven often ignored scientific findings that didn’t fit certain political narratives. We discovered that scientists are fallible human beings, and some would let personal interests and political views cloud their judgment.
Is science itself one of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic? I asked Dr. Scott Atlas at the 13th annual Freedom Conference hosted by the Steamboat Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit organization. Formerly a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center, Atlas is now a senior fellow in health policy at the Hoover Institution.
Atlas has been under constant attacks by the left and the corporate media since he served as a special adviser to former President Trump and a member of the White House coronavirus task force from August to November 2020. The New York Times and the Washington Post ran hit pieces on Atlas, questioning his qualifications despite his distinguished career and scholarship.
Google-owned YouTube also removed a 50-minute video of Atlas’s interview with the Hoover Institute. Twitter took down his tweet that questioned the effectiveness of masks.
Elizabeth Warren Parties Maskless With Deb Haaland And Real American Indians
Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared to join real American Indians Saturday when she partied maskless in defiance of New Mexico’s mask mandate at Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s wedding.
Photos obtained and published by the Washington Free Beacon show Warren with the first American Indian cabinet secretary at a tribal resort in a state where Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has reimposed indoor mask requirements regardless of vaccination status.
“The re-implemented mask requirement applies to all individuals aged 2 and older in all indoor public settings — except when eating or drinking,” Grisham’s office wrote in an Aug. 17 press release with the policy expiration date set for Sept. 15.
A spokesman for the Interior Department wrote in an emailed statement to The Federalist “guests were required to be vaccinated and wear masks,” to be “consistent with CDC guidance and New Mexico’s public health orders.”
But Saturday’s maskless celebrations, illustrated by photos from the Free Beacon, mark the latest episode of Democrats skirting restrictive COVID protocols imposed by their own statist politicians within liberal enclaves of the country.
Hellbound and Down 
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