Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Draghi (DRA-ghee) is spouting a form of “Italy First” these days, and getting accolades from Italians and Europeans alike. The bold Draghi recently seized a shipment of Covid vaccines stored in a Rome warehouse that were destined for Australia. Italians, who have suffered 116,000 deaths from the China Virus, need the vaccines desperately.
Sadly, the European Union of which Italy is a member, didn’t have an Operation Warp Speed, or logistics expert General Gustave Perna to confront the pandemic. The Union has only one vaccine (AstraZeneca) compared to our three (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, with AstraZenca and Novavax awaiting U.S. approval). The Union took the cheap way, betting only on the British-Swedish AstraZeneca. Warp Speed placed bets on eight companies – including AstraZeneca – investing $11 billion, expecting at least one or two winners. To date, some 30% of Americans have been vaccinated, while only 11% of the Union have. The mini-republic of San Marino, nestled in Italy’s interior, has gone so far as to order Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine which is not fully tested, instead of waiting for trouble-ridden AstraZeneca. Draghi has labeled the E.U. failed leadership efforts as “lightweight.” In seizing the Australian shipment, he is showing Union bureaucrats how to get some backbone.
Just a few words on Mario Draghi (photo below): he ran the European Central Bank for eight years, saving Greece, the euro, and the European banking system during the Great Recession – even the Germans laud his fiscal prowess. Draghi speaks impeccable English, having earned his doctorate at M.I.T. and taught at Harvard. Better still, he has unified, for now, Italy’s Left and Right – in that, he could give Joe Biden a much needed lesson. More importantly, his mother’s maiden name was Mancini!
Back to the pandemic, the E.U. has just hit 1 million deaths out of a population of 420 million. Such a proportion applied to the U.S. would equate to 786,000 American dead. Perhaps thanks to Warp Speed, our actual death total is much lower: 563,000. You may have noticed that our corporate media no longer informs its television audiences of the Covid death toll. It was daily fare while Trump was in office. Recall how many critics implicated Trump in the deaths of 404,000 – which was the total by January 20th. That would be 33,666 deaths per month, from when the pandemic started in January 2020. In the three months since Biden’s inauguration, 159,000 more have died, or 53,000 per month. Clearly, ‘mask-theatrics’ and open borders work as well as hydroxychloroquine.
Like many of you, I’m perplexed by the mixed messages on the pandemic. Now that I’ve gotten my two Pfizer shots, am I immune to the China Virus and its Brazilian, British (UK), and South African variants? Can I ditch my mask and go back to normal?
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, there is no measurement of deaths, infections, or hospitalizations (other than zero) that will allow us to declare Covid victory. He was asked that very question by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) the other day during a House committee hearing. When Jordan pressed the question, he was told “shut your mouth!” by ‘woke’ committee chair Maxine Waters (D-CA). In short, Fauci offers little comfort, even as we get vaccinated. This is a far cry from Fauci’s limited goal “to flatten the curve” when the pandemic began. His world is disease prevention, not running the economy or pursuing happiness. If encouraging Americans to go back to normal causes even one death from Covid, it would be on his conscience, right? The guy’s got a tough job, but as French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau famously said “War is too important to be left to the generals.” The same may be said of pandemics and doctors. Fauci, early on, doubted that a vaccine could be produced in less than 18 months. Trump’s Warp Speed did it in 10 months. Did Fauci imagine we’d have more than one vaccine in record time, or that they would average 90% effective? China’s Sinovac is only 50% effective. Sputnik V is still unvetted.
When Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) lately opined that Fauci was undermining America’s vaccination program by insisting vaccinated people need to continue wearing masks, he was labeled an “anti-vaxxer.” Really? Too many Americans are vaccine-averse, already. It might help if Dr. Fauci promoted incentives rather than dire warnings. -JLM
Bravo! Difficult for anyone to counter the logic of this essay, unless, of course, you are Dr. Fauci. Covid prevention is not, and cannot possibly be, a zero sum equation, and neither was any prior flu pandemic or other worldwide health afflictions.
Every aspect to a human life has a risk/benefit ratio. They are made the moment we get out of bed without tripping and next to the choice of breakfast. I concur with you, Vincent, and even Ben Shapiro that we cannot realistically base public policy based on a 0% risk as it is actually a scientific impossibility. The fact that Fauci will not even entertain the idea of a benchmark shows there is an agenda which always in this country never has anything to to with health. There were never any suggestions given anywhere about natural means to avoid getting sick. As always.
Fauci testified before Congress in late January, 2020, and specifically stated that a viable vaccine was at least “a year away.” Vaccines came out in November. Not bad.
The clip is still on YouTube. Ditto his appearance on CNN a few days ago, stating that getting vaccinated reduces sickness and death considerably, and that individuals need to now assess their own risk via wearing masks in certain settings (i.e. , with COVID variants still flowing around, mask-wearing is still a good idea so that fully vaccinated people can’t possibly become asymptomatic and spread them).
President Trump stated that COVID would disappear by last April, then by last summer, then by last Fall. No cries of inconsistency from Republicans back then!
I give Trump credit for Warp Speed, but how ironic that he, himself, couldn’t even protect himself from the virus–and all because he pooh-poohed mask wearing.
Fauci predicted “one year, to one and a half” to make a vaccine – don’t edit his prediction. He also said schools should open but clammed up later when Biden was his boss. Trump was trying to be positive, as we know, to save the economy and education, just like when Fauci told us not to wear masks so he could save them for the hospitals. Florida’s DeSantis proved the economy could be a priority, right? Anyway, Trump knew that diseases don’t last forever – even the Black Plague left on its own. He finally decided that Covid defied control and only focused on vaccines – that’s where we are now, right? Why doesn’t the media highlight Biden’s death toll and show us that double-masking and a straight-talking president have cut deaths? Because they can’t!
Trump was cocky, for sure, and a bad example. But his survival proved one of his points – that therapeutics had advanced.