"The Bonners vs. Covid-19"
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.” ~ Joe Biden
On New Year’s Eve, the assault began. “I don’t feel well,” said Elizabeth. First, one member of the family went down. Then another. By the end of the weekend, almost everyone was a casualty. Yes, the Covid-19 – or some variety as yet unidentified – went through the house like a cold breeze through the rattling windows.
What to do? We closed the gates and drew up the drawbridge; we cut off contact with the outside world to wait it out. It struck unevenly. Haphazardly. One was hors du combat. Another barely felt anything at all. Almost all were tested. Those who had already had the disease tested negative. The others, mostly, tested positive.
Most severely affected was Elizabeth. Her husband – your penpal – has so far felt nothing at all. “Honey,” said Elizabeth, coughing, “maybe you should sleep in another room.” “Whither thou goest, I will go,” we replied. “Yes…but you don’t want to get the Covid. You have bad lungs.” “For better or for worse… in sickness and in health.” “But better in health,” came the answer. We made our bed in a spare bedroom.
Finally, a Covid Insider… All over the world, according to the press, noses are running, people are sneezing… wheezing… and the hospitals fill up. Bloomberg: "Almost twice as many people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in the past seven days as the pandemic’s previous weekly record thanks to a tsunami of omicron that has swamped every aspect of daily life in many parts of the globe."
We were proud to be among the 10 million cases last week. No longer an outsider… a contrarian, a “marginal,” as the French put it – now we are one among millions… firmly in the middle of a mass movement. But moving towards what?
Looking back at the last two years, the virus caused confusion, intemperate reactions, and mass hysteria. Like Joe Biden, the authorities were determined to take charge and defeat the virus. But after nearly two years of lockdowns, social distancing, zooming, masking, and vaxxing… the Covid romps over the planet like the Sioux at the Little Big Horn.
On March 13, 2020, Donald Trump called a ‘State of Emergency’… and he then set in motion Operation Warp Speed to get an experimental vaccination approved in record time. It was war! Soon, the entire economy was put on a war footing – plans interrupted. Airplane travel halted. Restaurants closed. Trillions of dollars of spending approved. And practically everyone drafted into the fight. Fauci et al claim these shutdowns saved lives. But for however many years may (or may not) have been gained by the rich, the old, and the infirm… many times that were probably lost among the world’s poor.
The World Economic Forum estimates the cost of these Covid reactions at $11 trillion. But who pays? Nearly half the world’s people – 3.4 billion of them – live on less than $5.50 per day… with a life expectancy of 50-60 years. Life expectancy rises with income. In the US, for example, the upper 1% lives about 14 years longer than the average. But for the world’s poor, living hand to mouth – with barely enough food to keep themselves alive, let alone attend to matters of hygiene – a financial setback is a death sentence.
By the middle of 2020, the world turned its weary eyes to Pfizer. Universal vaccinations were supposed to save the day for everyone… allowing us to resume our normal lives and recover lost ground. At first, the vaccination was intended to keep people from dying. But it was clear from the evidence coming from Italy in March 2020, that few people were actually at risk. And they were mostly people who were in danger of dying anyway… from old age or related ‘comorbidities.’ For others, the danger was no greater than driving to work, hunting with Dick Cheney or making a movie with Alec Baldwin. And then, it turned out that the average age of death for those “with covid” was not much different from the average age of death without it.
What a boon to virology and vocabulary the Covid proved to be! We all now know about co-morbidities… infection rates… case fatality rates… and the difference between prepositions ‘with’ or ‘of.’ As the virus became an international sensation, more and more people were tested… and more and more of the dying were found to be “with” Covid. How many actually died ‘from’ Covid… we still don’t know. It might be impossible to tell.
Cometh the ‘Big O’: But then began the second public policy pitch: while most people got little benefit from the vaccine, we were told that we all needed to get vaccinated to avoid ‘overwhelming our exhausted front-line health care workers’… and to ‘protect others’ from the disease. Vaccines were no longer a prudent medical precaution, in other words, they were a social responsibility.
This argument, too, fell apart as the public’s knowledge of virology increased. It was revealed that the ‘vaccine’ was no real vaccine at all. It doesn’t keep people from getting sick… and doesn’t keep them from transmitting the disease to others – which is what a vaccine is supposed to do. We don’t worry about getting polio, for example, because a genuine vaccine prevents transmission of the disease.
In that regard the Covid vaccine was a flop. The Robert Koch Institute in Germany reports that the Omicron variant is “very easily transmitted and often leads to infections that can be passed on, even in those who have been completely vaccinated and recovered.” It goes on to tell us that 19 out of 20 of the new cases of Covid in Germany are among those who have been fully vaccinated. In other words, getting vaxxed doesn’t keep you from getting… or spreading… the ailment. It just makes you feel like a good citizen. Or a chump. But Thank God for the omicron. It makes people sick but it rarely kills them. And it crowds out the more deadly forms of the disease.
Peter McGinn was the first in America diagnosed with the disease. Here’s how he described it: “It honestly felt like a mild cold for about a day,” he said. “I had light fatigue, a runny nose and a sore throat. And after a day those symptoms went away.” And so, in the struggle between virus and man… the tiny bug and the big one… it is the tiny one that has prevailed.
Here in the Bonner household, the battle appears to be over. We raised the white flag and surrendered. The sick are rising from their beds… and we give thanks to the Great Omicron for sparing us over to fight another day."
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