Unmasking the COVID Fear Factor
As the media warn of a possible second wave of COVID-19, we should firmly reject another nationwide economic shutdown enforced by stay-home orders and mandatory masks. Republicans need an approach that gets Americans back to attending church, holding Trump rallies, and preparing to vote in person at our local polling places.
President Trump should turn to the approach which liberals fear most: making hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) widely available for prophylactic (preventive) use. It is outrageous that the medication that Trump took in May, in order to protect himself from getting sick, is still not readily available to most Americans.
Mask Police Not the Answer
A stark difference between the approach of President Trump and the newly radicalized Democrat Party is revealed by the issue of mandatory face masks. Forcing everyone to wear a mask, even while exercising outdoors, will do nothing to conquer the virus or restore public confidence. A “mask police” mentality leads to an Orwellian society of snitches and bullies.
Democrats are insisting that everyone from President Trump on down be required to wear masks at all times, and that anyone seen not wearing a mask be reported to the authorities. This is despite how a leading liberal TV host, Chris Cuomo of CNN, was spotted outside without a mask while he was being quarantined for COVID-19.
The wearing of hoods and masks in public is socially destructive, which is why face coverings have long been against the law in many U.S. states and in other countries. A witness cannot give proper evidence in court while masked, for example. Reading a witness’ face is essential to determine his credibility.
The idea of a faceless society has long symbolized descent into totalitarian control, but that is where we are headed. There is no substitute for seeing the faces of the strangers we pass on the street and in stores and other public buildings. Yet the mask police are determined to exploit the COVID crisis to turn us into a faceless society.
A woman with a medical condition preventing her from wearing a mask recently entered a Walmart in Summit County, Utah, where masks are mandatory. In that Utah county, residents are not only required to wear masks, but also urged to report anyone seen without a mask so the police can issue a summons.
Is this what our society should become? With all the violence in our cities, one would think that local authorities have better ways to spend their scarce resources.
A fellow Walmart shopper apparently saw the woman’s bare face and took the law into his own hands. He accosted the woman, sarcastically yelling “thanks for wearing a mask!!!” Then the male shopper rammed his shopping cart repeatedly into the cart of the maskless woman, as captured on surveillance video in the store, injuring the bare-faced shopper.
Some countries, such as Sweden, have rejected the suggestion that masks be required, and never shut down its society. Sweden indicated that masks can do more harm than good, partly by creating a false sense of security.
The mortality rate from COVID-19 in Sweden is not significantly worse than in the United States, or in Western European countries which have required masks for many weeks. All have a mortality rate of less than one in a thousand in the overall population.
Sweden is not the only country to reject mandatory masks. Iceland also rejected going the route of the mask police and never locked its country down either, but still successfully defeated COVID-19. The data show that Iceland has had a mortality of only 29 per million residents, which is much lower than in the United States. When Iceland had an outbreak of COVID-19, it did what Democrats should have supported here: quarantine travelers from other countries.
These steps were what Peter Navarro, the trade advisor to Trump in the White House, wanted to do by closing travel from China when the COVID pandemic first began. But it was Trump’s opponents, including Hillary Clinton-supporter Anthony Fauci, who opposed adopting sensible measures early to protect the American people from the Wuhan virus.
There are many valid reasons why a particular individual may be better off not wearing a mask, like the Walmart shopper who had a medical justification. In a vast open store with high ceilings, it is not obvious how a mask would really make a difference as people still touch shopping carts and check-out counters.
When people take off their masks after returning to their cars, their hands typically touch their faces, which the CDC has long said is a particularly dangerous habit. Dr. Fauci even wants us to stop shaking hands permanently to reduce germ transmission by touching.
One might wonder if people will ever be allowed to see others smile again, as the mask police enforce their unreasonable demands. We cannot allow the government to deprive us of the ability to see emotions of other people through their facial expressions, as depicted in the science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
President Trump is right to reject wearing a mask in most places. Bandits and anarchists wear masks, not the leader of the free world.
OTC for HCQ to End COVID
It is time for drastic action to conquer the Wuhan virus. President Trump should order immediate public access to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) by making the medication available over-the-counter (OTC).
Liberals have interfered with public access to this medication for COVID-19 through the old-fashioned route of requiring a doctor’s prescription that must be filled by a pharmacist. But millions of Americans do not visit a physician until they are very sick, when it may be too late.
A recent compilation of 50 studies shows that HCQ is effective both as prophylaxis and as early treatment, but less effective when used late in the course of the disease. This is similar to other anti-virals, such as Tamiflu, which are best given within 24 or 48 hours of first exposure to influenza. Yet Americans are prevented from obtaining HCQ within a few days of exposure to the virus, before they develop symptoms or soon after.
Generally, you cannot obtain a prescription for HCQ if you were merely exposed to the virus but have not developed symptoms. Pharmacy regulators in most states prohibit dispensing the drug without a positive COVID test result, which often cannot be obtained until late in the progression of the disease.
No one credibly doubts that HCQ is safe, and safer than many medications currently available OTC. No one credibly doubts the dozens of studies showing that early use of HCQ, pre-exposure and immediately after exposure to COVID, has helped many overcome this dreaded disease.
Americans do not need a prescription to obtain hundreds of medications which once required a prescription. Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec, Claritin, Flonase, and Primatene Mist are medications that have been shifted from Rx to OTC in recent years, not because the medical establishment pushed for the change, but because of public demand for it.
There is no greater health need than for a medication which helps prevent against COVID-19 disease. Yet Americans are not being allowed to access the medication which they want and need, and instead are being told by FDA and state officials that they cannot have it.
In June the Oregon pharmacy board, for example, blocked HCQ access as follows: “Prescription orders for chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 infection may only be dispensed if written for a patient enrolled in a clinical trial by an authorized investigator.”
Every state board of pharmacy or medicine is controlled by left-leaning government workers who, by and large, despise President Trump and hope he loses in November. They are accomplishing their dream by choking off public access to HCQ.
Most world leaders have taken HCQ as a prophylaxis to protect against COVID-19, according to the president of El Salvador as quoted by CNN. And millions of ordinary folks in many foreign countries now have early access to this medication, which is helping conquer the virus outside of the United States.
In other countries, such as Costa Rica and Honduras, HCQ is being given freely to the public to successfully defeat coronavirus there. In some countries officials are even going door-to-door distributing HCQ to build up protection against the virus, with great success.
An executive order by President Trump, through use of his full emergency authority, could give Americans the same rights to HCQ for COVID which some of the poorest people in the world enjoy. Trump could even dispense HCQ at his rallies, which would both restore their massive numbers and help safeguard against spread of the virus.
There is no valid reason to deny public access to low-dose HCQ, which studies show can protect against COVID, just as there is no legitimate reason to require a prescription for low-dose steroid cream (Cortisone) and many other over-the-counter medications. The political motivation to block access to HCQ justifies making it publicly available.
This is not a decision for Anthony Fauci or the medical establishment or FDA to make during a national crisis, when millions are paralyzed by fear. This is for President Trump to decide, and make HCQ available quickly to the public.
If an intruder is discovered in one’s home in the middle of the night, no responsible father tries first to call an expert to get an opinion about what to do. Instead, quick and decisive action is taken, and that means OTC status for HCQ to conquer COVID.
HCQ Succeeds While Government Hoards
There are many new examples of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as an early treatment of COVID-19, yet stockpiles of it waste away in government warehouses. Most of the 100 million donated doses will expire without being distributed to help Americans at risk.
Ever since President Trump suggested that HCQ could be an effective treatment for COVID-19, Democrats have worked overtime to prove the president wrong. They trumpeted the death of an Arizona man who ingested fish tank cleaner, falsely claiming that the man was following President Trump’s advice.
HCQ is a 55-year-old, inexpensive medication that is widely used to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Like any drug it causes side effects in a small fraction of the population, but 55 years of successful use proves that it can be taken safely by most people.
Democrats were humiliated when an African- American state representative, Karen Whitsett, publicly thanked President Trump after she was cured of coronavirus by taking the drug that Trump recommended. At a caucus in her legislative district in Detroit, held over Zoom on May 2, 15 Democrats unanimously passed a resolution to censure Rep. Whitmer for stepping off the plantation to give credit where credit was due.
At nearby Wayne State University, a 92-year-old researcher, Dr. Ananda Prasad, was fortunate. He could prescribe an HCQ zinc therapy for himself when he contracted the virus, and he attributes his recovery to this treatment.
Other elderly patients have been lucky to have a child who prescribed them HCQ. Dr. Daniel Amen reportedly stepped in to save the lives of his elderly parents, age 88 and 90, by prescribing HCQ and azithromycin to enable them to recover from COVID-19.
Anna Fortunato is a 90-year-old Long Islander who was hospitalized with COVID-19. She was so ill that her daughter asked for a priest to give her the last rites of the church, but the hospital refused to allow a priest to visit her bedside because it was too risky.
After taking HCQ, Mrs. Fortunato was discharged after two harrowing weeks in the hospital. “I had a good husband, and my children are beautiful,” she recounted to the AP. “I’ve lived to see grandchildren, and great- grandchildren … so I AM fortunate.”
At the other end of New York State, in the town of Albion near Buffalo, 94-year-old Norma Longrod was hospitalized with a fever and tested positive for the coronavirus. The hospitalist explained that their approach “did treat her with hydroxychloroquine, which is a medicine out there we’ve talked about in the press.” “I’m much better – much, much better than when I came here. They thought that I was not going to make it,” Mrs. Longrod said after her recovery.
Grandmother Jean Boccard, 97 years old in Broward County, Florida, was admitted to the hospital with a case of COVID-19. Like many people her age, she also had multiple underlying health conditions including heart disease.
“I want to get out of here, the food is terrible,” Mrs. Boccard complained, like many hospital patients. “And I get no sleep because they’re always coming in and looking at me.” With the help of a devoted son, Mrs. Boccard found Dr. Mike Perl who prescribed HCQ along with an antibiotic called Z-Pak. Two weeks later, she was out of the hospital and ready to resume her normal life.
At a veterans home in Lebanon, Oregon, William Lapschies is one of at least 15 residents who tested positive for COVID-19. The 104-year-old World War II veteran made a full recovery after his family found a doctor who treated Mr. Lapschies with hydroxychloroquine.
Interference with early access by patients to HCQ by Anthony Fauci, FDA bureaucrats, and Democrat state officials, despite HCQ’s proven 55-year track record to be safer than other medications easily accessible by Americans, has exacerbated this crisis beyond all justification. Liberals object to access to HCQ by Americans for early treatment of the Wuhan virus, but at the same time arrange for government to hoard the medication.
Trump supporters did not vote for Anthony Fauci, whose emails gushing praise for Hillary Clinton were published by Wikileaks in 2016. But Dr. Fauci has dictated the most important policy decisions by the Trump Administration in 2020. During a presidential election in which voter turnout depends on access to medication that protects against an infectious disease, Trump should not be beholden to biased advice by opponents of his reelection.
If this invasion by a foreign enemy were using conventional warfare of guns and tanks, then the conservative response would be to arm the American people quickly with as many guns and ammo as possible. Instead, this invasion is by a foreign virus, and government should not be impeding access by Americans to medication for immediate self-defense.
Contact Tracing? No, Thanks.
First a Dallas hair salon owner was imprisoned for opening her store to earn a living. Next Texas has signed a $295 million contract for “contact tracing,” by which law-abiding citizens will have to submit to monitoring about when, where, and with whom they have been.
While this sounds like a dark episode in the history of the communist Soviet Union or China, it is being promoted by Democratic governors today on a massive scale never accepted in the United States. It even extends into liberty-conscious conservative Texas.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the Chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, pointed out on the floor of the House that contact tracing would “allow big tech companies to surveil” citizens and “then turn that accumulated information over to the government.” Republican state legislators and Rudy Giuliani have likewise criticized the proposals for vast contact tracing.
Yet Republican Governor Greg Abbott, ambitious to run for president in 2024, is imposing government tracking and monitoring of Texans under the pretense of combating coronavirus. He could conquer the virus by lifting unjustified restrictions on access to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), but instead wants to find out who and where lawful Texans privately visited.
Far from helping society return to normal activities, contact tracing would terrify everyone into staying at home even more than they have already been. Everyone would have to think twice about whether a visit to someone might end up in a government database, or result in a mandatory unwanted 14-day quarantine.
This would also encourage more people to snitch on their neighbors, reporting on their daily movements. The society of narcs sought by liberals would grow worse under widespread contact tracing, even if promoted as merely being voluntary.
Lying to government agents is a crime in many jurisdictions, so those who are accosted by a contact tracer but do not disclose every person they visited in the last week could be prosecuted. Then citizens would face conviction for protecting people whom they do not want to be harassed by a visit from a contact tracer, who might himself be spreading the virus.
Contact tracing is an approach supported by George Soros, the billionaire Leftist who has been funding numerous liberal causes. He has donated heavily for open borders, which exacerbates the spread of unwanted viruses in the United States.
The real goal of the contact tracing is to use COVID-19 as a pretext to monitor the whereabouts of every American, perhaps through our smartphones, and take away our liberties. Republican political candidates will be tracked and leaks of their private information to the media would be inevitable under this scheme, while Democrats such as Joe Biden are given a pass on their far greater misconduct.
Child Protective Services bullies will be authorized to take children away from parents who have COVID-19, or who have been in contact with anyone who might have the virus. Contact tracing means that a visit to your home by a neighbor who later tests positive for the virus could result in the forced quarantining of you for merely having opened your front door to him.
Texas Gov. Abbott’s contract is with a federally funded contact tracing firm, MTX Group, about which he failed to consult the conservative Texas legislature before obligating the state. MTX Group will soon have a staff of 4,000 employees in Texas, including case investigators, epidemiologists, and contact tracers.
The FDA, as misled by the pro-vaccine bureaucrat Rick Bright, Ph.D., continues to prohibit any use of the federal stockpile of 100 million doses of HCQ unless the patient is first hospitalized and a clinical trial is unavailable. President Trump’s successful use of this medication would not be permitted from the stockpile maintained under these senseless FDA regulations imposed by anti-Trump bureaucrats.
The conservative, can-do approach is to conquer a virus by treating it early and in a preventive manner, while the defeatist liberal approach is to ration resources while asserting government control over law-abiding residents. Gov. Abbott could have followed the more successful example of Republican Gov. DeSantis in Florida, who made HCQ more available and kept businesses and beaches largely open.
Gov. Abbott has instead restricted access to HCQ and closed businesses for prolonged periods, resulting in the imprisonment of a salon owner. The $295 million that Abbott is spending on contact tracing could have purchased HCQ treatments for half of the entire State of Texas, in order to reopen the state without the need for oppressive monitoring.
