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| Xi Jinping |
Science is settled opinion. Medical science is settled opinion
on medical matters, political science – yes, there is such a thing – is settled
opinion on political matters. The one thing we do not want in any confluence of
the two is confusion and mass hysteria, which can best be avoided by observing this
rule: Politicians should decide political matters and medical scientists should
decide medical matters. Occasionally, politicians decide that mass fright can better able convince the general population than rational argument.
The answer to the above question is simple: In the case of
new viruses, science, as defined above, must be silent. There can be no “scientific”
view of Coronavirus because it is a new phenomenon, the recent arrival of a
stranger on the medical block. Concerning Coronavirus, there are, properly
speaking, multiple views of different scientists, many of whom will disagree
with each other on important points.
Does Coronavirus remain on surfaces for long periods of time?
A couple of months ago, we were told by politicians, relaying the news from “science”,
that hard surfaces were repositories of Coronavirus, and that contamination
from hard surfaces was as likely as person-to-person contamination. That notion has withered on the vine now that we know Coronavirus
is most often spread person to person.
Do adults spread Coronavirus to children, or are children the
Bloody Marys? This is an important datum because if children, who are much less
likely than adults to die or be seriously ill from Coronavirus, spread the
virus to adults, the wholesale closing of schools might be a protective
measure. But if adults pass the virus to children, the current view of many scientists, remediation efforts would be far different. We are told that love covers
a multitude of sins including, Agatha Christie advises us, murder. The word “science”
misapplied covers, we have seen, a multitude of political sins.
If we can learn from our past mistakes, we need not carry
our mistakes into the future. If the question is, “Have politicians in the Northeast
made a mistake in trusting to some scientists?” the question is wrongly put.
It’s not quite as
simple as that. It will always be better to take advice from the horse’s mouth rather
than from the horse’s posterior. But in the process, politicians must not allow
differing scientists to determine the political course of a state.
Politicians, in the face of a pandemic, should not stop
being politicians. That is what we have seen in northeast states, where
Coronavirus has dug in its heels. Here legislative activity has been shut down,
and Governor Lamont has been festooned with extraordinary – some would say
unconstitutional -- powers. Like his counterpart in New York, Governor Andrew
Cuomo, Lamont has resorted to state-wide business shutdowns and sequestration.
But inducing a long-lived recession in Connecticut, sequestration and data collection are
not curative, however “necessary” they seem to be to some politicians who are masters in the art of spreading fear.
A vaccine may cure Coronavirus. What is called herd-immunity
may reduce infestation. Certain people,
in many cases younger people, catch the virus and develop a natural immunity, foreshortening
the mass of people fatally exposed to the virus. We know that Coronavirus has
spread like a wildfire in nursing homes, because clients in nursing homes are
older and subject to other infirmities that in their cases have dramatically increased the fatality
rate in Connecticut and New York.
“Science” – real science – warned us of this at the very beginning
of the infestation. We knew of a certainty that older people with compromised
systems were especially vulnerable. So, knowing this, why did not the governors
of Connecticut and New York direct more of their resources to nursing homes?
That is a question that MUST be answered by our “savior politicians.”
Home
sequestration, we have been told, helps to flatten the Coronavirus curve. What
can this mean if not that sequestration prolongs the time during which the
sequestered may in the future be exposed to the virus? Flattening the curve is
not curative. Ask any scientist. The Coronavirus pandemic has been Hell, but it
is very important that we should not return from Hell with empty hands.
In Connecticut more than 60 percent of deaths “associated
with” Coronavirus occurred in nursing homes; the figure is similar in New York.
Cuomo recently acknowledged he was surprised to discover that a sizable majority of
people in New York infected with Coronavirus had been sequestered at home. His
surprise is surprising.
We are told that business re-opening will occur in
Connecticut in three stages, somewhat like a rocket on its way to the moon. But
surely business opening should be determined with reference to sections of Connecticut
that have been severely or mildly affected by Coronavirus, and the distribution
of Coronavirus throughout the state has been mapped by John Hopkins ever since
the virus penetrated the United States from its point of origin, Wuhan China.
These are POLITICAL decisions that should have been codified in law by a quiescent General
Assembly.
Political science – yes, there is such a thing – would tell
us that we no longer enjoy in Connecticut a republican, small “r”,
constitutional government. Instead, Governor Lamont has become our homegrown Xi Jinping, China’s communist tyrant who has
now provided Connecticut both with a deadly virus and PPEs, the means of
thwarting some of its effects.
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