Monthly Archives: November 2021

Op-Eds

OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down the Path From Pandemic to Endemic?

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Scientifically accurate atomic model of the external structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Alexey Solodovnikov (Idea, Producer, CG, Editor), Valeria Arkhipova (Scientific Сonsultant). Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Scientifically accurate atomic model of the external structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Alexey Solodovnikov (Idea, Producer, CG, Editor), Valeria Arkhipova (Scientific Сonsultant). Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

On November 24, South Africa reported detection of a new variant of the COVID-19 virus to the World Health Organization. On November 26, WHO designated it a “variant of concern” and tagged it with the name “Omicron.”

At the same time, WHO advised against travel restrictions and other knee-jerk responses to Omicron, and in favor of a “risk-based and scientific” approach, noting that it is “not yet clear” whether Omicron is more transmissible than other variants or even causes severe disease.

The US government ignored WHO’s advice, immediately banning travel from eight African countries and cranking up the latest version of COVID hysteria and hygiene theater.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and the mainstream media’s favorite administration flack/hack/quack — gleefully announced an intention to do “anything and everything” in the name of combating Omicron, but seemed crestfallen that it’s still “too early to say” whether new lockdowns or mandates are in the offing.

While most governors issued cautious “watch and wait” statements, New York’s Kathy Hochul immediately declared a state of emergency, limiting “non-urgent” hospital procedures and ordering nursing homes to make vaccine boosters available for all residents — despite seemingly having no information that the current vaccines are effective against Omicron, nor any evidence of Omicron cases in her state.

What’s missing from the above is any mention of Omicron being more deadly than prior variants of COVID-19.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first spotted the variant, tells BBC that patients so far display “extremely mild symptoms.”

While confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa rose from a seven-day average of 326 to 2,447 between October 31 and November 28, deaths have dropped from a seven-day average of 35 to two — yes, two — over the same period.

As all viruses do in the process of becoming endemic, COVID-19 is evolving in two directions: It’s getting more transmissible and less deadly. That’s how natural selection works. Viruses that kill their hosts don’t reproduce as successfully as viruses that give their hosts the sniffles.

So far, Omicron looks like it may well be the virus’s next step down the path toward becoming yet another version of “the common cold.” If so, we should be praying for its arrival on our shores. And even if not, we shouldn’t let authoritarian politicians use it as an excuse for yet another round of mass hysteria cultivated to accrue more power over our lives.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?

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Photo by സ്വാമി. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Photo by സ്വാമി. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

You’ve seen the headlines. So Have I. For example, a November 23 story in my local paper (the Gainesville, Florida Sun) : “Gainesville man charged with murder for Sunday shooting in dispute over marijuana deal.”

It wasn’t a huge marijuana deal. It was a $180 sale. The seller apparently shot a buyer who tried to drive off without paying.

Other common headlines of the “police blotter” variety include people put in handcuffs and hauled off to jail for buying, selling, or possessing a common plant. Then over in the medical section, we’ll see that some kid ended up in the hospital or even dead after — the claim seems dubious, but I guess it’s possible — smoking marijuana laced with fentanyl.

What we don’t see are headlines about people shooting each other over, getting arrested for, or dying from buying a blister pack of pain reliever or a bottle of night-time cold medicine at Walgreens. Or, for that matter, paying $180 for those things.

Over the course of nearly a century, the war on marijuana — based from the start on myth, hype, and intentionally cultivated moral panic — has put millions of Americans in jail or in their graves over a medically valuable and recreationally pleasant plant that’s been used throughout human history and that’s safer than tobacco, alcohol, and most over the counter medications.

Some US states have taken steps toward a ceasefire, legalizing marijuana for medical and/or recreational use, but it still remains illegal at the federal level despite the occasional introduction of bills to change that.

The latest such offering comes from US Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who introduced the States Reform Act on November 15. It would federally decriminalize marijuana, clear the federal prisons of “criminals” whose only “crimes” involved the plant, and make interstate commerce in it legal.

The bill isn’t perfect — it includes a federal excise tax, and subjects the plant to the same regulatory regime as alcohol — but it’s a giant step in the right direction. There just aren’t any good arguments for keeping marijuana less legal than aspirin, tomatoes, and fidget spinners.

Congress tends to move in slow motion when it moves at all, but this bill could and should be the exception.

For Christmas, there’s little I’d like more than an end to the headlines about deaths, arrests, and hospitalizations over marijuana. Congress should pass the SRA and put it on President Biden’s desk before Santa comes to town.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Rittenhouse Verdict: Justice, But Not Joy

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Blogtrepreneur, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Blogtrepreneur. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

On November 19, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on various charges related to the shootings of three people (two fatally) during an August night of “unrest” (that is, a protest turned riot) in Kenosha.

I expected to see, and did see, a diverse set of reactions to the verdict on my (also diverse) social media feeds. The reactions broke down into three overall groupings.

Group 1: Rittenhouse was a hero who stood forth to protect private property and was entirely justified in shooting three evil-doers who assaulted him with intent to kill, or at least do grievous bodily harm, to him. His acquittal is an affirmation of truth, justice, and the American way.

Group 2:  Rittenhouse was a white supremacist slime-ball who showed up wanting to shoot people and ended up manufacturing reasons to do so. His acquittal is proof that truth and justice don’t matter, and that “the American way” is really just a tradition of legal privilege and protection for white right-wingers.

Group 3: Rittenhouse was a 17-year-old who made an unwise decision (as 17-year-olds will do) to show up to a riot, but who nonetheless had the right to act in self-defense when others made the even more unwise decision to violently assault him.

I’m in Group 3.

I didn’t and don’t know Kyle Rittenhouse’s full state of mind at any point in the incident. Presumably no one but Rittenhouse himself does.  But the available evidence indicates that he defended himself in the face of plausible threats of death or grievous bodily harm.

That’s not what a jury of 12 concluded in acquitting him. What the jury (and anyone who paid attention to the trial) concluded was that the prosecution didn’t prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. There’s a difference.

Group 4 (which includes all sensible members of the other three) says “I don’t like ANY of this.”

I hate that police shot Jacob Blake. That’s not a judgment of whether or not the police HAD to shoot him. Whether they had to or not, it wasn’t a good thing.

I hate that the protests over the shooting turned into a riot. The violence and destruction didn’t cause Jacob Blake to magically become un-shot nor did it make his shooting any more, or any less, justifiable.

I hate that a 17-year-old made the unwise decision to show up to a riot.  I’m glad he survived the experience, and hope he learned something from it, but all in all I’d rather have never heard his name.

I hate that grandstanding prosecutor Thomas Binger decided to interrupt the lives of Kyle Rittenhouse and 12 jurors, forcing them to sit through his incompetent delivery of an incredibly weak case.

The “not guilty” verdict seems just, but it really just makes the best of a terrible, and at multiple points avoidable, situation.

If there’s any good  takeaway from this incident at all, it’s the possibility that lives will be saved as future protesters pause for careful thought and consideration before attacking armed opponents who haven’t attacked them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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