Social distancing

As if the credibility of the pandemic health experts hadn’t suffered enough with so many contradictory and confusing statements.

The granddaddy of all hypocrisies in the covid-19 mess reared its head recently when 1,200 self-identified infectious-disease professionals and related university types signed a public letter approving of widespread public demonstrations under certain circumstances, thus disregarding previous medical admonitions to stay at least six feet from each other to prevent the spread.

Their approval of shoulder-toshoulder mingling in protests against police brutality and racism had zero to do with helping stem the viral spread, but everything to do with social engineering.

“White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to covid-19,” their letter said, adding that infectious-disease specialists have to be consistent and clear in prioritizing an anti-racist message.

Silly me. I believed covid-19, like the flu, was a nonpolitical viral infection and could spread throughout crowds. And in a mass of strangers jammed together, how does one go about tracking everyone who came in contact with each other over hours and days? Guess that doesn’t matter either.

These signatories from the University of Washington (where the letter originated), Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago were now saying the supposed benefits of demonstrating against police brutality and “white supremacy” has become an overriding public health concern.

And these are officials versed in medical science?

As colleague columnist and professor Bradley Gitz rightly observed in a recent well-reasoned column on this subject, did that mean it’s medically acceptable in their view to wade deep among thousands as long as mass demonstrations are being held for what these medical authorities believe are the right social and cultural reasons?

Would all the admonitions about social distancing be equally ignored if a protesting crowd of the same size held an opposing view, or are the risks involved only acceptable for Americans with a specific viewpoint?

I have to wonder if those who signed this letter realize how preposterous their position sounds to many everyday Americans like me who have endured months of seclusion and covid-19 admonitions that in the process have all but destroyed our economy What about the graduates who missed once-in-a-lifetime ceremonies because they might risk spreading the infection? Could they have walked the stage if their politics had been deemed acceptable?

I wonder how so many hundreds of self-described authorities in matters of health could sign this document in light of the agonies we still are being put through as the virus spreads. Were all those warnings about social distancing merely blather when competing with an exemption for one’s social beliefs?

If not, then how can any medical authority bestow blessings on mass protests where so many I watched on television were jammed together without masks (also advised in their letter). The efficacy of masks is yet another medically contradictory topic, isn’t it?

The covid-19 pandemic has been riddled with contradiction and hypocrisies from the earliest weeks of its spread. First we were advised to disinfect all surfaces people might touch. Then we were told the virus has a difficult time surviving or spreading in that way.

Then we were told the virus spreads insidiously from the infected who are asymptomatic. But a World Health Organization official said last week that’s not necessarily the case because it rarely spreads that way. But then she reversed her statement in the face of political peer pressure.

We are now told the virus doesn’t survive or spread well in the fresh air and outdoor sunshine. Is that true? By the way, how many deaths are actually caused by covid-19, itself, as opposed to a person’s pre-existing conditions, especially among the elderly and ailing?

Does hydroxychloroquine work on covid patients or not? Some doctors say it is indeed an effective treatment while other physicians discount that view. Is such discouragement because the president advocated the long-established drug as a likely effective covid treatment? In other words, even more politics.

This feels to me as if the “experts” don’t really know what they are saying as they lecture the rest of us about the infection. The contradictions might not be as bad if we hadn’t shut down our nation and sheltered for weeks inside our homes, all in order to supposedly stem the spread of covid-19.

This public letter appears to have been written purely to advance a social agenda, while basically giving people the green light to ignore months of warnings. In effect it says the risk of contracting the virus by mingling by the thousands is acceptable, but only as long as your biases coincide with the mindset of a particular group and you wear a mask.

That’s a long way from medical science in my world.

Now go out and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.