“Call it a covid conundrum. In states with the strictest measures in the country, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and much of New England, cases are on the rise, while in the South, states like Arkansas and Texas that have reopened businesses and ripped away mask mandates are seeing their numbers drop.” — nbc’s “Today Show,” acknowledging that “the numbers have experts scratching their heads,” quoted at The Daily Wire, 4/9/21

“I’m not really quite sure. It could be they’re doing things outdoors.” — Anthony Fauci, asked to explain why Texas saw no surge of covid cases after it relaxed the mandates; Fauci admitted “it can be confusing,” but still warned that bad pandemic news was just around the corner because “often you have to wait a few weeks before you see the effect of what you’re doing right now,” quoted at The Daily Caller, 4/6/21

People have had it with lockdowns. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 38 percent of Americans are partially or completely self-isolating, down from 75 percent a year ago. Common sense is prevailing — because it’s now beyond obvious that the “covid strong” crowd has been covid wrong.

According to the latest figures, the states with the highest daily cases of covid illness and death are, in order: Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Massachusetts. Yep, those are all the blue states that, unlike the red states, have had strict restrictions in place since the beginning of the covid outbreak.

One of the most severe, according to The New York Times, is Michigan, which shut down businesses, schools, churches, etc. as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D, MI) “saw fit,” and didn’t allow restaurants and stores to operate even at 50 percent capacity until March, with outdoor arenas limited to 20 percent capacity. Yet Michigan is a hot mess when it comes to covid, adding cases at a higher rate than any other state. The six metro areas with the country’s worst outbreaks are all in Michigan. While red states have been moving ever closer to pre-pandemic normalcy, the blue states that imposed massive, endless lockdowns are looking very abnormal. (Unsurprisingly, red states are leading the nation’s economic growth, according to the latest government data, with blue states leading the unemployment numbers.)

But don’t look to the Biden Regime for any lightbulb moment here. The Scarf Queen, Dr. Deborah Birx, has been replaced by Drama Queen Rochelle Walensky, given to teary outbursts about “doom” during press briefings. Meanwhile, the media keeps stoking coronavirus panic. As ceo of cnn’s parent company WarnerMedia, Jason Kilar admitted, according to The Washington Free Beacon, “[T]he pandemic is a pretty big part of the news cycle and that’s not going away anytime soon. It turns out it’s really good for ratings.”

Likewise, per the latest Project Veritas undercover video, cnn Technical Director Charlie Chester calls covid “gangbusters with ratings.” Because after all, “fear really drives numbers.” Hence, cnn’s onscreen covid death tracker, which cnn president Jeff Zucker pushes. “This special red phone rings,” says Chester, “and it’s, like, the head of the network [telling producers] … ‘Put the [death toll] numbers back up. Because that’s the most enticing thing that we have.’”

After the vaccine breakthrough was announced on 11/9/20, it was assumed by many that our year-long “Groundhog Day” of covid misery could be put in the rearview mirror. Not if the Democrats can help it:

Lockdown Hype

• “When you have an acute situation, extraordinary number of cases, like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine, in fact, we know that the vaccine will have a delayed response. The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer and to shut things down, to flatten the curve … really what we need to do in those situations is shut things down.” — Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s cdc Director, turning down Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D, MI) request for more vaccines in response to Michigan’s surge of covid cases, wxyz Detroit, 4/12/21
• “We worry about if there is a perfect storm brewing. If we remember, this virus always takes 10 to 14 to 21 days to develop and we might just be seeing the early effects of that right now.” — Dr. Neil Gandhi, Houston Methodist Hospital director, one of many lockdown proponents baffled as covid-19 cases spike in Democrat-run states that have instituted lockdown policies while Republican-led states that are removing restrictions are experiencing a drop in cases, quoted at Big League Politics, 4/8/21
• “[YouTube] has taken down a video of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding a policy discussion with … physicians and scientists critical of strict lockdowns to fight the coronavirus.” — The Wall Street Journal, 4/8/21
• “covid ‘super mutation’ may cause ‘devastating’ new outbreak [and] beat vaccines if we leave lockdown too soon, experts warn.” — The [UK] Sun, 4/2/21
• “This is a critical moment in our fight against the pandemic. As we see increases in cases, we can’t afford to let our guard down. We are so close — so very close to getting back to the everyday activities we all miss so much, but we’re not quite there yet.” — Rochelle Walensky, whitehouse.gov, 3/31/21
• “I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared. I know what it’s like as a physician to stand in that patient room — gowned, gloved, masked, shielded — and to be the last person to touch someone else’s loved one because their loved one couldn’t be there.”— Rochelle Walensky, in tears, whitehouse.gov, 3/29/21
• “I’m speaking today not necessarily as your cdc Director … but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer. I so badly want to be done. I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just almost there but not quite yet.” — Rochelle Walensky, whitehouse.gov, 3/29/21
• “The media is complicit… [I]n the covid era, if it coughs, we are off, on another eight stories about how you could die tomorrow, from a virus that kills virtually nobody healthy under the age of 70… [S]caring people is awesome for ratings and for clicks. This is now an essential part of the media’s business strategy.” — John Feehery, The Hill, 3/9/21
• “What we don’t need right now is another surge, so just pulling back on all of the public health guidelines that we know work, and if you take a look at the curve we know it works, it just is inexplicable why you would want to pull back now.” — Anthony Fauci, complaining about red state governors lifting coronavirus restrictions, msn, 3/2/21
• “In Florida, leading scientists offered their expertise to the governor’s office but were marginalized, while Gov. Ron DeSantis turned to Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a Trump advisor, and others whose views were embraced in conservative circles but rejected by scores of scientists.” — The New York Times, decrying the decision to open Florida, 1/17/21
• “The severity of the current outbreak can be traced to the rush to reopen last spring. Many governors moved quickly, sometimes acting over the objections of their advisors. The reopenings nationally led to a surge of new infections that grew over time: never again would the country’s average drop below 20,000 new cases a day.” — The New York Times, “news” article that did not age well, as the opposite actually happened, 1/17/21
• “[B]ars and restaurants are potential ground zero for super-spreader events, in which one person infects many. As difficult as it may be, closing bars and restaurants for two weeks or a month seems a small sacrifice to save lives.” — The Washington Post, “Lockdowns Are Coming Again,” 12/12/20
• “For some people, lockdown sounds draconian. But we … should keep trying to save lives, save the health care system, and save ourselves.” — The Washington Post, 12/12/20

Lockdown Flop

• “Michigan still has some of the strongest protocols in place … and yet, we have high positivity… It’s not a policy problem. It is a variant and compliance problem.” — Gov. Whitmer, blaming residents’ disobedience for the worst-in-the-nation covid-19 transmission rate, ClickOnDetroit, 4/14/21. As of April 14, Michigan’s case rate was at 574 cases per million people, five times what it was in mid-February.
• “Hands-off states such as South Dakota, Utah, Nebraska, and New Hampshire top the list with unemployment rates hovering around a stellar 3 percent. States that received enormous flak for eschewing drastic lockdowns like Georgia and Florida both rank in the top 20… Meanwhile, the worst 10 states, with unemployment rates from 7 to 9 percent, include lockdown-happy localities like New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, D.C., and Rhode Island. There is a clear trend here. Free states have largely avoided the labor market carnage associated with the covid pandemic, while lockdown states have wrought higher unemployment levels — without guaranteeing better pandemic health outcomes.” — Foundation for Economic Freedom, 3/29/21
• “[T]he ‘hard lockdown’ group experienced 372 additional deaths per million, while the other group [non-lockdown] only experienced excess mortality of 123 deaths. This simple pattern may indicate that lockdowns have been directly counterproductive… Comparing weekly mortality in 24 European countries … more severe lockdown policies have not been associated with lower mortality.” — Christian Bjørnskov, Aarhus University [Denmark] economist, CESifo Economic Studies, 3/29/21
• “Lockdown does not work as a continuous containment policy in the event of a protracted pandemic.” — Patricio Goldstein, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, Luca Sartorio, international economists, voxeu.org, 3/21/21
• “I think that these guys are invested in lockdowns — I get that, the facts don’t support it. Look, if the lockdowns worked, then Florida would be way worse than New York and these other states.” — Gov. DeSantis, after Biden called red-state governors who lifted the lockdowns “Neanderthals,” Fox News, 3/8/21. According to The New York Times coronavirus tracker, New York’s covid morbidity level is around 60 percent higher than that of the Sunshine State.
• “[M]ost countries in the world implemented lockdowns … in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of covid-19 cases… [Then] important information emerged … including the lower infection fatality rate … [and the] significant collateral damage due to the response to the pandemic, adversely affecting many millions of people with poverty, food insecurity, loneliness, unemployment, school closures, and interrupted healthcare… [A] cost-benefit analysis of the response to covid-19 finds that lockdowns are far more harmful to public health (at least 5-10 times so in terms of wellbeing years) than covid-19 can be.” — Ari Joffe, M.D., University of Alberta, former lockdown advocate, Frontiers in Public Health, 2/26/21
• “California, despite taking a much more restrictive approach than Texas, has seen much bigger increases in cases and deaths… [T]he two governors [Newsom and Abbott] are acting on different predispositions that have little to do with covid-19 trends: Abbott has always assigned more weight to the costs of lockdowns than Newsom does. How does The [New York] Timesexplain California’s lackluster performance in curtailing the epidemic? It [blames] ‘pandemic fatigue’ and … ‘people who had let their guard down at Thanksgiving…’” — Reason, 1/18/21
• “A Stanford study comparing covid responses in different countries found ‘no clear significant beneficial effect’ from stay-at-home orders and business closures. The peer-reviewed study, published [1/5/21] in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, found that lockdown orders early in the covid pandemic didn’t provide more benefits…” — The [Palo Alto, CA] Daily Post, 1/18/21
• “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus… Lockdowns just have one consequence … making poor people an awful lot poorer…” — Dr. David Nabarro, who envoy, The New York Post, 10/11/20
• “Schools aren’t super-spreaders… [A] growing body of evidence [shows that] by not opening, we are putting people at risk, too.” — Emily Oster, Brown University economist, after examining covid stats when schools started to reopen, The Atlantic, 10/9/20
• “As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing covid-19 policies… The most compassionate approach … is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus … while better protecting those who are at highest risk… Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal… Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport, and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish.” — The Great Barrington Declaration, 10/4/20. Sponsored by Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Oxford epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the declaration was signed by over 30,000 public health experts worldwide.
• “The death rates in the strict lockdown states were about four times higher than in states that didn’t lock down at all or had minimal restrictions… New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Michigan had catastrophically high death rates because their governors were almost criminally negligent in protecting seniors in nursing homes. If Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy, and J. B. Pritzker had kept seniors and those with pre-existing conditions safe, they could have saved far more lives than shutting down barbershops, stores, schools, and office buildings… [T]he blue states succeeded in blowing up their economies and still suffered the highest death rates. Congratulations.” — Stephen Moore, Freedom Works, 7/10/20
• “Do Lockdowns Save Many Lives? In Most Places, the Data Say No.” — The Wall Street Journal, 4/26/20

Despite the left’s incessant self-righteous chants of “follow the science,” they simply don’t. Not even a little bit. When will they give up pushing their BS narrative that lockdowns advance the common good? Considering that they’ve spent 30 years blaming suvs and cow farts for global warming, don’t hold your breath.

And here’s the thing. According to Gallup, 77 percent of Democrat men and 80 percent of Democrat women are afraid of covid — while only 20 percent of Republican men and 29 percent of Republican women say they fear it. Get this: while 64 percent of Republican men and 54 percent of Republican women are ready to return to normal, only an unbelievably pathetic 5 percent of Democrat men and 3 percent of Democrat women say they’re “ready to get back to normal.”

There you have it. Liberals are sheep. Explains everything.

Cartoons ©2021 by permission of Sean Delonas/CagleCartoons.com; State outlines ©2021 Shutterstock; Whitmer ©2021 Paul Sancya/AP/Shutterstock; Murphy ©2021 Mel Evans/Shutterstock; Cuomo ©2021 Timothy A. Clary/AP/Shutterstock; McKee ©2021 Steven Senne/AP/Shutterstock; Newsom ©2021 John G. Mabanglo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock