About two weeks ago, after transferring the brood from our house to college dormitories via the family truckster, we decided to chase the empty nesters’ dream by recapturing the gaiety of youth.
We jammed out to a band at Looney’s Pub, bribing the host with a sawbuck to get a nice seat inside. The next day we partied it up under blue skies and puffy white clouds at historic Ellicott City. There were beer gardens, bratwurst, and eight stages going at the same time.
There’s nothing like a late summer day enjoying a craft IPA and listening to mediocre cover bands belting out the rock-and-roll standards. Fun was had by all.
However, in a similar way that the couple having gratuitous sex in a horror flick is the one that gets murdered, we got COVID for our party transgressions. Despite being fully vaxxed, we were knocked down by what felt like an endless flu with the bonus of a high fever and a loss of taste.
On a telehealth call with the doctor, he said judging by our symptoms, we most likely had it, and being vaccinated won’t keep you from getting it; it will just keep you out of the hospital.
It should be noted that my county in Maryland has an 84% vaccination rate, and the lines to get tested still took two hours. Tissues, NyQuil, and at-home COVID-19 tests are sold out.
The spike that happened over the summer in air-conditioned Florida is heading north, soon to show up in places where colder weather forces people indoors. Condescending Yankees will get their comeuppance.
We were tested a combined eight times, both short and long form, and they all came back negative. The fly-by-night testing places are quick to take your insurance and move you along. Our doctor mentioned they were using recalled tests. At $120 a test every three minutes, someone is getting paid, and I don’t imagine there is much oversight. Furthermore, texting back a negative is easier and cheaper than calling back a positive with the subsequent lists and records that must be kept.
The guy shoving Q-tips up my nose was hostile and angry. The nurse we talked to contradicted the doctor and said it was unlikely that we were positive after a combined eight negative tests.
Just add it to the long list of conflicting information.
After all is said and done, the virus did what the virus was going to do. All the Sturm und Drang of governments and busybodies with their “something must be done” philosophies were completely wrong.
The big winner of the COVID wars was Sweden, which as a country did relatively little. It shut almost nothing down, didn’t enforce mask-wearing, and accepted that herd immunity would happen in due time.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
Last week, Sweden carried out over 140,000 tests, with 1.2% coming back positive. The country currently has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe. It’s a stark contrast to Israel, which has just become the first country to enter lockdown for a second time.
Israel has the highest vaccination rate of any country, with 84.7% of the population vaccinated. This disparity between high vaccination rate and increasing lockdowns has yet to be explained. But as is often the case, the cure wasn’t worth it.
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The economy has been wrecked, inflation is running rampant, supply chains are broken, and suicides have spiked, helped along by heavy drug use. Children are suffering through school with masks and social distancing. There is no cool table in the lunch room because you can’t even talk.
My daughter in high school said, “Screw it.” She dropped out and now does everything online at a private charter school. It’s not worth it, she says. Who am I to disagree?
Add the CDC and WHO to the host of three-letter institutions that have failed and continue failing.
These foundations of civilization that have built trust over hundreds of years have lost it. Due to a constant stream of lies, the concepts that used to be trusted are now second-guessed at every opportunity — the rule of law, the courts, Congress, the presidency, universities, voting, Wall Street, unions, housing, trade, international treaties, the military, books, TV news, newspapers, political parties, law enforcement, the FBI, CIA, ICE, EPA, BLM, NFL… Name it and it is embroiled in some controversy, corruption, or scam.
In their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson provide over 100 case studies of why societies fail. Their conclusion is that nations end when trust in institutions dissolves.
Protect yourself. Get rich. Hide gold.
All the best,
Christian DeHaemer Christian is the founder of Bull and Bust Report and an editor at Energy and Capital. For more on Christian, see his editor’s page.
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