We put doctors on a pedestal in this country. Watch any panel with a medical doctor on a cable news show. You’ll see everyone else addressed by first name, but the doctor is always Dr. Whoever. We’re trained to defer and show respect. What happens when we slowly lose faith in the medical profession, as many have? We see the medical spokespersons self-contradicting from one moment to the next, or spouting “facts” we know are untrue, or half true. Where does that leave us?

With COVID again dominating the news cycle, we’re being fed yet another bunch of bunk. It’s not hard to catch the MSM, tech, government spokespersons, one and all, in lies and omissions, to see them foregoing scruples in order to feed a narrative benefitting only themselves. The narrative makes so little sense, newsreaders stumble over themselves, justifying it. 

It starts with trust — those who have it and those who have lost it.

The newest talking point is calling the unvaccinated murderers, even mass murderers, in an attempt to put more pressure on those hesitant to conform.  Get the jab, or else be ostracized, persecuted, and maligned.  Then there's masking us into submission yet again, plus threatening more closures as "cases" rise.

They are telling us cases are rising alarmingly.  The government is causing the increase, by shipping hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants all over, without notifying the states or localities, and without making sure they're healthy.  This, after keeping them in mass detainment centers that can't help spreading not only COVID, but such delights as lice, scabies, and probably a bunch of diseases we've never heard of before, brought in from the multitude of countries shipping their impoverished to our border.

We must dig out real information or betray ourselves in this increasingly fraught political culture.  Luckily, one can still find actual facts online, despite the tech giants' heavy foot on the neck of anyone not toeing their increasingly restrictive line.

Take a look at the US COVID-19 Tracker.  It's a handy site, using data from the New York Times, so hard for the left to argue with it.  It's interactive and easy to use.  It has only certain information, but it's useful.  You can see cases and deaths, for the country as a whole and for each state.  It's set up as a 7-day moving average, starting when the pandemic began, and is kept updated automatically.

Here are some crucial dates to look at, just to start:

In mid-February 2020, American had its first identified case of COVID.

By March 15, 2020, there were a total of 702 cases and 8 deaths that day from COVID.  As I vividly remember, the next day, California shut down.

By April 3, despite the shutdown, cases had risen.  That's the day we had mask mandates started.

Shutdowns and mask mandates were sold to us as mitigation factors, but, obviously, the virus didn't pay close attention.  I'm betting warm summer weather, being outdoors more, and open windows for air circulation helped far more than the ubiquitous "stay home" and mask mandates.

On September 13, 2020, we had only 399 deaths from COVID, which was the lowest since the pandemic started heating up.  I remember hoping we'd finally get some relief from being in COVID jail, but no such luck.  Of course, here in smoke-ridden California, we had more to worry about than just COVID.

Shortly thereafter, the weather started to cool, and despite all the mandates, cases and deaths rose — just as cases and deaths from flu season, cold season, and virus season routinely arise everywhere.

On December 18, 2020, vaccinations began.  Keep in mind that the big vaccination push started much later.

January 7, 2021 was the apex of viral deaths.  After that, they dropped precipitously.  Was it because of the vaccine?

Here's a handy link to find out how many shots were given by a certain date.  Notice that slightly over a million shots were given by January 7.  Also, note that 21–28 days were required before the second shot.  For most, being "fully vaccinated" didn't take place until between the end of January and sometime in April.  Look again at the case/death chart, to see what correlations you can find.

June 6, 2021, was a good day for it's the date with the fewest cases so far — 6,153.

On June 15, 2021, California's Governor Newsom finally let us out of COVID jail, let us take off our masks, and get back to "normal life."

July 4, 2021 was a true independence day, for only 37 died from COVID on that date.

Predictably, cases have risen since then, but deaths, not so much.  After all, people traveled, saw friends and family, watched fireworks (well, not here, of course, but we were fogged in).

Just yesterday, we had a big rise in cases, up to nearly 30,000 for the country.  But only 144 deaths — out of 331-plus million people.

My conclusions are pretty clear.  I'm not about to put a mask on again, nor will I restrict my activities.  Two people died of COVID in California today.  By the way, if you want a good visual argument against the masks' efficacy, check this out.

Image: Freedom rally in Boise in March 2021.  YouTube screen grab.

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CORRECTION: In the originally published version of this article, the first two paragraphs apparently wandered in from somewhere other than Terry Pauldings' keyboard. How it happened is a mystery but this version has the first two paragraphs as Ms. Paulding originally wrote them.