September 20, 2024

"The official in charge of New York City’s pandemic response participated in sex parties and attended a dance party underneath a Wall Street bank during the height of the pandemic..."

"... even as he was instructing New Yorkers to stay home and away from others to stop the spread of Covid-19. He acknowledged his transgressions on Thursday after being caught on hidden camera boasting about his exploits."

Reports the NYT, in "Former N.Y.C. Covid Czar Partied While Preaching Social Distancing/In a hidden-camera video posted by a conservative podcaster, Dr. Jay K. Varma boasts about flouting the public health guidelines he insisted others follow."

"The video appears to have been compiled from several recordings, in which Dr. Varma is seen at a number of restaurants and cafes, chatting with a woman who remains off camera. At various points, he describes a sex party he and his wife held in a hotel and a dance party he attended in a space under a bank on Wall Street, joined by more than 200 people. In a statement, Dr. Varma did not dispute the recordings’ authenticity but said they had been 'spliced, diced and taken out of context.'"

Here's the video:

107 comments:

Real American said...

He should just admit the lockdown measures were based on junk science and fear, and constituted nothing but tyranny.

Big Mike said...

Once in a while one meets a liberal who adheres to whatever they demand of others, but in my experience it’s been getting rare for decades — and getting more so.

n.n said...

Animal farm. Back in the pen, demos-cracy... persons, whatever. Take a knee to the "science".

rehajm said...

It’s only fun for them when they break their own rules

wild chicken said...

Jfc does the narrator ever shut up? Not sure what I'm hearing here.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...


Bullshit. He went beyond the acceptable weasel word of "edited" and has now opened himself up to release of the entire recording. Crowder wouldn't have confronted him without knowing "the context."

That being said, who of us is now surprised to find that the biggest lockdown Nazis were themselves partying with abandon? Nobody? Of course, we've heard this song before. Is it clear now? They NEVER believed the BS they were imposing on us. Never. Just like all of us with any experience with epidemiology knew that what they were saying was bullshit.

There is a type that goes into public service just itching to do this to people. They are far more numerous and more dangerous that the "rogue" cop scenario Lefties like to scare people with. Was there even ONE lockdown Nazi who did not defy their own order? That would be a rare beast.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He did put the recording referred to by the guy out on X yesterday. You could go there and hear it.

Disparity of Cult said...

Rules for thee but not for me.

tim in vermont said...

Boris Johnson was guilty of the same thing. It's almost as if the most bizarre conspiracy theories, that our highest politicians are all part of some Satanist cult, are true.

Epstein did not kill himself, neither will P Diddy.

Wince said...

Never trust "Big Varma."

Lazarus said...

If you absolutely had to leave the house in 2020, what better reason would there be than a "drug-fueled sex party" -- a "sex-fueled drugs party"?

Lazarus said...

If you absolutely had to leave the house in 2020, what better reason would there be than a "drug-fueled sex party" -- or a "sex-fueled drugs party"?

PM said...
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stlcdr said...

Please, Mr. Varma, add the context for us.

rhhardin said...

Organizing a sex party is even harder on the planet with 26 sexes. There's always one sex that's hard to pick up. "Mu's are so standoffish." The crowd has to go to a mu-house.

The Vault Dweller said...

I think those are referred to as DIddy parties.

The Vault Dweller said...

Reminds me of Gavin Newsom at the French Laundry, Nancy Pelosi at the hair salon, and the British Tories at their parties.

TreeJoe said...

Can I just say.....

How many people did he kill with this behavior at the height of COVID while the most deadly strain was circulating in a city with some of the highest hospitalization and death rates?

Shouldn't he be arrested and punished for this breach?

Robert Cook said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shouting Thomas said...

The shutdowns, I’m convinced, were intended to empty out and devastate the churches, and it worked. A large percentage of congregations got out of the habit of being observant or became habituated to online services. I see Satan’s hand here.

Robert Cook said...

"He should just admit the lockdown measures were based on junk science and fear, and constituted nothing but tyranny."

If you think being asked to wear a mask over your face to enter public spaces during a pandemic and follow a few other not-very-onerous changes to your normal routine is a tyranny, you're far too fragile (and paranoid) to live...just about anywhere. I lived in New York City throughout the entire period and I lived my life with very little (if any) loss of normal daily living. I went to my office to work, (two days a week, three days remote, but I could have chosen to go in all five days), rode the subways, went to supermarkets to buy groceries, picked up takeout dinners from restaurants, etc., etc. You stupid self-pitying dicks are just so eager to cry and moan about "the tyranny" of being asked to follow some changes in your daily activities in the hope it might help retard the spread of of a virus (that did kill millions around the world, including millions in the USA). The staunch right wing opposition was/is just a big unhoused cohort of poorly reared kindergarten children, whining that they have to behave for the public benefit.

tolkein said...

Churches were closed. Couldn't visit the elderly in care homes. I was working from home, so didn't really affect me. But this did devastate a lot of small businesses and let the elderly die alone.

Shouting Thomas said...

What a sophisticate you are, Robert Cook! How far you are elevated over us common mortals! I hope you lived on the upper floors of a high rise so that you could adequately look down your nose on the rest of us.

Old and slow said...

Like you Robert, my life was not terribly inconvenienced by COVID. If anything, it was a pleasant break from normality. We did a big Costco shopping trip just before it really kicked off and ordered from Amazon where needed. I enjoyed it!

The 25 people who worked (some for many years) at our family owned restaurant who all lost their jobs didn't find it nearly so satisfying.

MadisonMan said...

You couldn't go to church, but you could go to sex parties. Priorities!

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Typical degenerate narcissistic hypocrite liar of the Democrat Party. In other words, they're The Good Guys!

Dixcus said...

It worked, didn't it? - Harry Reid

The actions of all Democrats provide a LOT of evidence that they knew the pandemic was all fake.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Once thriving businesses hereabouts are vacancies. Commercial real estate has gotta be down worse than reported. Acres and acres of empty parking lots.

Dixcus said...

They know it's all fake and knew they could sneak around without fear. Remember Newsom visiting the French Laundry?

Dixcus said...

Cuomo murdered 20,000 people and still walks around with two functional knees in the midst of some of the most notorious crime families in the country, some of whom surely lost grandparents.

Dixcus said...

It's good to be a made man in the Mafia.

Tina Trent said...

Well aren't you special, Robert Cook. My beloved aunt was forced to have no contact with her very beloved husband as he slipped into dementia in a nursing home, panicked and confused by her absence, all thanks to this unspeakable piece of human shit. She was allowed to view her husband sometimes through an outdoor window, but she could not speak to him, hold him, comfort him, or have his moments of clarity or happiness comfort her.

She would have worn any protective gear just to sit by his bed and hold his hand. Once.

I live in a far more sane state but was still restricted in the number of hours a day I could sit with my brother as he died. The vision of family members breaking down in the elevators and hospital parking lots as they left their dying loved ones for the night shook me to the core. Then I would fight traffic, sometimes for hours, and get up the next day and do it again. The nurses and staff who worked hard to accomodate us were the only reason I could endure that experience. I will never forget that or forgive people like you.

I hope you two share a berth in hell. With DeBlasio.

Shouting Thomas said...

Fauci paid for and directed the development of the virus in Wuhan. There’s some pretty convincing evidence that he and Hunter Biden built similar labs in Ukraine along the Russian border (like Victoria Nuland saying so in congressional hearings). The virus may not have been developed specifically as part of the psy-ops campaigns to take down Trump, but it became a very useful weapon for accomplishing that task.

Robert Cook said...

RE: Shouting Thomas: I've never claimed to be elevated over normal mortals...I AM a normal mortal. I even got sick with COVID in December 2019, the month before it was even announced to the public. I also know many suffered dire consequences from the pandemic...businesses were shuttered, people lost jobs...and millions of people died, and many others became seriously ill, (but were fortunate to survive). Do you think it would have been no worse--or even not as bad--if there had been nothing done, that fewer people would have become sick, fewer people died? Again, this is childishness. Epidemics and pandemics sweep though societies regularly over the course of history, always wreaking dramatic changes and grievous casualties in their wake. The steps we take to take to try to mitigate the devastation of pandemics are imperfect and may have counterproductive consequences, (anticipated and unanticipated). But it is certainly far more irresponsible to do nothing, to let such events have their way on society and "let Gawd sort 'em out." The American right seem to be, as I said before, an unhoused motley of spoiled kindergartners, resentful of any required measures taken, however imperfect, to to try mitigate the scope of social disaster and mass mortalities.

Shouting Thomas said...

Yes, I think a lot more nothing should have been done. The vaccine was a disaster and probably did as much harm as good. No way in hell my grandkids should have been subjected to that, because the virus had little effect on children. No way in hell my grandkids should have been barred from school for a year and a half, for the same reason. Who knew, huh? I did. I noted from early on how little effect the virus had on kids and I tried, without success, to stop the schools from closing. The psychological effects of the shutdowns are still with us, and will be for a long very long time. It’s a big factor in the politics of revenge and rage that now plague us.

Original Mike said...

You want to know what "doing something" looks like? Fauci, Daszak, and assorted colleagues brought up on charges. Can't stop the last pandemic, but may deter the next set of virologists with delusions of Godhood.

For the life of me, I don't understand how this got turned into a political issue, other than the banal observation that everything does, nowadays. I'm looking at you, media.

Big Mike said...
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Dave Begley said...

Is anyone surprised?

Dave Begley said...

All Dems need to be punished at the ballot box for what they did to America during covid. And I'm looking right at the so-called docs and the lazy teachers.

Original Mike said...

Why did the left choose to carry these people's water? Because it was a choice.

Yancey Ward said...

If the authorities had told Robert that wearing a full body suit with respirator and butt plug were what was necessary to stop COVID, he would have done it and criticized anyone for being resistant to it.

mccullough said...

Another degenerate

Tina Trent said...

"I also know many suffered dire consequences..." That's not what you just said, Robert Cook. You are lying, and you and this epidemiologist are not normal.
You are deeply abnormal. You first comment dripped with gleeful sadism directed at people like me regarding what were the very worst moments of our lives. My aunt was always such a sunny, optimistic, incredibly kind person. She sounds so flat and broken now.

Own it.

I happen to know a lot about epidemiology. And epidemiologists. And the politics of public health. I watched the CDC hive collapse before the political power of the gay lobby during the AIDS crisis. And I was working with them through a special government AIDS outreach grant at the time. I knew AIDS activists whose boards received millions to "prevent AIDS," and I watched them waste that money on parties and palatial offices and drugs. I know one who kept barebacking. I know there were more.

The decent people around them didn't dare speak up. The political culture of public health was destroyed by AIDS activists. It has never recovered. Setting aside the power-hungry cynicism and the pain and the misinformation this epidemiologist imposed on others during Covid, what the hell type of epidemiologist would even be stupid enough to participate in an orgy?

The type we have now.

Jamie said...

Being asked. Being asked.

"There was no mask mandate! There was no vaccine mandate!" Yet an awful lot of people lost their jobs, kids lost a year and a half of effective education (to say nothing of life experiences like prom and graduation), and"guidance" changed again and again and woe betide you if you either didn't keep up with it or dared to question it - but now we know the masks we were "asked" to wear didn't do squat.

I completed with everything. I didn't complain about it, because I believed that the people giving - and enforcing - the "guidance" were acting in the interest of public health.

We now know they were not, or at least that they didn't give a flying whatever about the public health if it was in the way of their fun. But you still think this is our fault and not theirs?

Keith said...

Re: Robert Cook: Hi Robert. I work as a surgeon. We have to make decisions based on science (I mean all humans, not only surgeons.). There actually is no quality evidence - as far as I've found - that masks prevent BACTERIAL infections in surgery, where there is an organism orders of magnitude larger than viruses and there is an open incision within 2-3 feet from the mouth, open for hours. I reviewed quite a lot of literature re Covid as it was being published and the papers' conclusions are largely unsupported by the very data they cite. That is to say, the strongest papers published by legitimate journals do NOT support the hypothesis that masks prevent viral spread. I think we all agree the "stand 6' away from everyone" was pulled out of thin air. Everyone who entered a hospital during Covid was tested for covid and if they died they were classified as a covid death. They were classified as covid EITHER if they had a positive test OR if they had flulike symptoms and a covid contact. Some number of them did have covid and some significant number of them did not but we don't know how much. Literally no one knows how many people died from covid. All those millions of people who died did die, and they were classified as having covid. However the millions you cite are "of everyone who died from 2020-2023 (eg) how many were considered to have covid?" The millions you cite absolutely and clearly do NOT represent "how many people did Covid kill?" NO ONE has ANY idea how many covid killed bec no one took care to distinguish between died with covid and died from covid.

I think it's important to be clear. Words have meaning.

Dogma and Pony Show said...
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Dogma and Pony Show said...

"If you think being asked to wear a mask over your face to enter public spaces during a pandemic. . . " ". . .in the hope it might help retard the spread...."

You make it all sound so innocuous. We weren't merely "asked," and there was neither any scientific nor legal basis to justify the totalitarian levels of control exerted by unelected officials over our daily lives. Oh, and it wrecked the economy in ways we still haven't recovered from. Oh, and the main perpetrators of these baseless, fruitless measures were actively suppressing free and open public debate concerning it. If that's not tyranny, it's close enough for me.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Yep and BoJo killed his career.

Jason said...

"Hayek. Keynes here. Party at the Fed."

Robert Cook said...

Well, Keith, thank you for your input as a surgeon. No doubt there were errors made, incorrect assumptions assumed, useless preventive practices practiced, etc. However, just as you state "NO ONE has ANY idea how many covid killed....," no one--including YOU--can say with certainty how many more (or fewer) deaths and other casualties from COVID would have occurred if nothing had been done--or different things. As for the fucking masks--this is the detail that is most ridiculous as a bugaboo of the COVID deniers: what is the big fucking deal about wearing a mask while in public? It's an inconvenience, and for those, like me, who wear eyeglasses, a bothersome inconvenience, but, even so, IT IS UTTERLY TRIVIAL. Jeezus...the hardy souls on the right who fantasize overturning the imaginary "Leftist Hegymon" will surely bear all burdens and meet every challenge in their great enterprise...as long as wearing a flimsy cloth mask is not required!" (This is not--necessarily--directed at you, Keith, but at the Righty Tighties who are all 5 year old brats in adult meat suits.)

Dogma and Pony Show said...

"The steps we take to take to try to mitigate the devastation of pandemics are imperfect and may have counterproductive consequences,"

Are you for real? You make it sound like what took place was simply implementing the same set of mitigation protocols that we have used in the past whenever there was a pandemic. This was a completely ad hoc thing, shutting down all businesses and schools, forcing people to wear masks, prohibiting people from attending family gatherings, funerals, etc., having the police fire projectiles at people who deigned to sit outside peacefully on their front porches. We have never before quarantined the entire civilian population of the country to prevent the spread of a virus. When quarantines have been used, the idea has always been to quarantine only the sick people, not the healthy ones to.

Also, nobody is going to buy into your asinine claim that the alternative to the totalitarian nonsense we lived through was to "do nothing" about covid.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Public Health authorities are not supposed to make decisions "in the hope it might help retard the spread of a virus" because we have 200 years of studying EXACTLY how viral transmission works and the protocol is to (1) protect the vulnerable, and (2) advise common sense procedures (hand washing, sunshine, water) for everyone else. They not only failed at both 1 and 2, they purposely put old people at risk in NYC and then inflicted a lousy vaccine on people at near-zero risk. More children were harmed by the "vaccine" than actually harmed by the virus.

Glad you got to go shopping and out to dinner. But tyranny is exactly the right word for the governors in CA and MN and MI who arbitrarily said some people could gather and others could not. Your lack of compassion for the people harmed by these policies makes it easy to place you far to the Left on the political spectrum. As if we need another clue.

Keith said...

Also RE: Robert Cook - we knew very early on that the virus affected kids and young healthy people very little. Like probably no more than the flu. By the fall 2020 school year this was clear. Kids in the USA are now two years (!) behind in learning bec Zoom learning was meaningless babysitting. Kids learning to read lost that ability. They lost the ability to socialize which is critically important to function as an adult. Kids today are not normal in the sense of having basic life skills we all learned as kids. All of this was known the first year of covid and schools should have been open. But covid was used as a bludgeon to get DJT out of office as nothing else worked. And now our nation is permanently weaker because of it. An entire generation is crippled intellectually and emotionally. Because of incompetence or evil (your choice) from the left.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He DID criticize those of us at the time who advocated a more Swedish-type response. The authorities acted like their hair was on fire over a virus slightly more deadly than a bad flu season. For that malfeasance we now have a country full of young parents so distrusting of "Public Health authorities" that the vaccination rate for children is dropping like a rock. Even RFK Jr. couldn't accomplish that. But lying "experts" did. Our CDC and AMA and the rest bear great responsibility and no one has paid a price. Look at the subject of this post. He's bragging about flouting the rules.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

The erroneous assumptions you're referring to, such as the efficacy of masks, were presented to us as scientifically established facts, the questioning of which was treated as basically a thought crime.

Thank you for revealing so vividly the mindset of those who crave totalitarianism, not just to exert control over others, but in order for themselves to be controlled and not have to govern their own lives.

Robert Cook said...

I blame the parents. Given the drastic changes in the norms of behavior (and education) during the COVID period, it was up to the parents to step in and spend time with their children daily to ensure they were doing their school assignments and homework, and to act in place of the (physically) absent teachers to the degree necessary. As, you know, THEY SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING ALL THE TIME.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Still an ignorant asshole after all this time. It was extremely harmful to mask young children, especially those with asthma and other afflictions, which are quite common now. The "big fucking deal" was they ordered people to do idiotic things (like your stupid face diaper) when they had neither the legal authority, or moral authority or any scientific basis. It was like children making up the rules to a game as they went along. Except people endured real punishment for not going along. Service members discharged. Doctors fired. Many voices censored, voices who were telling the TRUTH about the virus, about the cures.

And you still know so little about it.

Keith said...

There was a study where they published astronomical pediatric covid mortality from a children's hospital. Someone then went back and looked to see how many of those deaths seemed likely FROM the virus and how many coincidentally. In nearly all covid was coincidental which is consistent with common sense. We knew quite early that covid largely affected the elderly and the medically frail and otherwise was not generally deadly. But the aphrodesiac or narcotic of power is too strong to give up.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

You will blame everyone except the people who financed the virus and caused the social problems and tried to silence any opposition to their tyranny. Schools should never have closed, you dumbass.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Didn't affect him. He doesn't care. What a perfect Progressive response.

Original Mike said...

I blame the teacher's unions.

Tina Trent said...

Robert: do you think I was acting like a "brat in an adult meat suit" as I sat in my car and steeled myself every day to get into that hospital elevator and go to see if my brother could still see out of one eye, if the bone cancer had crawled deep enough into his brain to maybe, gratefully, render him unconscious and free of terror and pain?

I am a conservative. Because of my work in public health, I knew that masks really would do nothing to prevent the spread of a respiratory virus, but I wore them in the hospital anyway, out of empathy for others who were afraid and in their own personal hells and might have felt even a little bit more in control if everyone was masked. I srill do the same at the oncologist's because I am around people who are very frail, and I want to assuage their fear even a little, if I can. It's a gesture.

Consider your gestures. And now, imagine the one I'm directing at you.

Butkus51 said...

"Surprise, surprise", said Gomer.

narciso said...

Ferguson of imperial college who orchestrated the models behind tje lockdowns and matt hancock the health minister was also really touchy feely

Original Mike said...

Yeah, what is it with these people?

Original Mike said...

Robert's gesture is a "boot stamping on a human face – for ever."

And no, I do not think that is over the top.

Original Mike said...

My left ear developed a huge inflammation from the masks, which a dermatologist nor my hematologist could explain. I dealt with it, but Robert's glib assertions that everybody's experiences were like his is a bit much to take.

narciso said...

It was stupid science based on 100 year studies about tubercolosis in the 19th century

narciso said...

Commissar corbyn was actually more righg on this matter sad to say

The Vault Dweller said...

If you think being asked to wear a mask over your face to enter public spaces during a pandemic and follow a few other not-very-onerous changes to your normal routine is a tyranny, you're far too fragile (and paranoid) to live...just about anywhere.

They weren't being 'asked' they were being told. It was demanded. To reframe it, imagine a scenario where someone walking down a city street sees a can on the sidewalk, so picks it up and puts it in a nearby trash receptacle. That is not a big deal. Now imagine that same scenario but as the person walks near the can a police officer, holding his baton in one hand and rhythmically patting it in his other hand commands, "Throw out that can."

donald said...

That’s exactly what it was. Your dishonesty is, as always breathtaking.

Gusty Winds said...

We knew these totalitarian assholes weren't obeying the rules they forced on everyone else. We saw shiny Gavin Newsome in restaurants. I'm positive all those politicians taking the clot shot in public, were given saline injections.

Tina Trent said...

Original Mike: yes, "boot stamping on a human face -- for ever" certainly seems appropriate to the miasma of Robert's spoken dream life, but one wonders why his cartoon moniker also looks so self-pitying and weak-limbed. Maybe "squishing stinky foot on a human face -- until winded"?

One Fine Day said...

It might be noted that absolutely none of the draconian measures imposed by public health departments was approved by the peoples' representatives in a legislative assembly, and yet had the force of law. That's the very definition of tyranny.

It seems to me Cookie has read 1984 and Brave New World and wonders why everyone refers to them as dystopian. From his perspective those worlds seem perfectly fine. After all, Cookie is a gamma.

Joe Bar said...

The people that inflicted this terror on us must be made to pay.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

Zoom schooling was never going to provide the needed socialization. And if it's assumed that all parents (including many single parents) can readily cease to attend to their own job responsibilities and instead provide the consistent structure and supervision needed to make sure that their kids are doing their schoolwork, we wouldn't need schools. Stop pretending that something as massively and intentionally disruptive as the covid lockdowns wasn't obviously going to be disruptive to children's educations.

rehajm said...

Apparently we choose promote ours…or their team, anyways…

One Fine Day said...

During the early days of the pandemic, the kommisars in my local public health abteilung declared that all outdoor playground equipment was off limits. In my small town the police put yellow police tape over all the equipment. About two days later I went and removed it at a local, neighborhood park. Police put the tape back. I removed it. We did this little exchange until one fine day they posted a cop at the park and they finally they caught me red-handed. When threatened with a ticket I asked the cop if he really believed that shutting down playgrounds would have any effect on transmission. He sighed, agreed that this was bulls**t, and then wrote me a warning. But the tape never re-appeared at that park and kids played on the equipment from then on.

Vance said...

Robert here is telling us... what, exactly? That we need to let all of those partying politicians off and never hold them accountable for their obvious lies and fraud?

Original Mike said...

There are so many stories of absolutely insane actions taken by the authorities, it would take a fortnight to post them all. I bet there isn't a one Robert would condemn.

One Fine Day said...

Why is it always sex parties with these deviants?

[And yes, I am jealous because I never get invited...lololol]

Kai Akker said...

Grrrr. I have never been invited to a sex party (not counting a bit of teenage stuff). Grrrrrrrrrrrr. And it's getting late in the day.

Original Mike said...

I staid in and read a lot of books during covid.

Jamie said...

I was thinking the same thing, Kai A - I've been invited to tea parties, bridal and baby showers, frat parties, game parties, costume parties, cast parties... but never a drug-fueled sex party. Not even once.

I conclude that the decadence of the rich and powerful is a constant across time and space.

Big Mike said...

Well, this does go some way towards explaining why California allowed brothels to reopen before churches.

Maynard said...

Cook,

Are you arguing with SCIENCE?

I thought your folks disallowed that.

You know - misinformation according to the Ministry of Truth.

Aggie said...

Well..... At least it was for a good reason.

Jamie said...

IT IS UTTERLY TRIVIAL

Mask-wearing, that is.

Spoken like a man who has never been in an attic in the summer. Like an HVAC technician. Spoken like someone who doesn't have diminished respiratory capacity. Like my dad.Spoken like someone who thinks a cloth mask - as you said we should all have been wearing, rather than the N-95s worn so tightly that they left marks, as health care workers were doing, which were the only kind of masks that even had a prayer of making a difference, though that hasn't been demonstrated either - did SHIT to stop a VIRUS.

Robert Cook, you didn't have to make this your personal hill to die on. You could have just admitted that the people who said we all had to cower indoors, wear ineffective masks on our brief and infrequent forays into the fresh air or any other space, attempt to learn via a laptop screen at the kitchen table for over a year (thank goodness Texas gave its districts the choice of what to do in Fall 2020 and my son's district gave its students the choice of in-person or remote school - it was his junior year and he wants to be an engineer) - those people were not acting in good faith. Lots of people on your side believe this and say it. You, as a Green, would be less likely than most, I'd think, to trust the motives of a government working hand in glove with Big Pharma. Why, instead, do you defend them?

Jim at said...

The staunch right wing opposition was/is just a big unhoused cohort of poorly reared kindergarten children, whining that they have to behave for the public benefit.

They destroyed our lives for two, fucking years. Go to hell.

Jamie said...

it was up to the parents to step in and spend time with their children daily to ensure they were doing their school assignments and homework, and to act in place of the (physically) absent teachers to the degree necessary. As, you know, THEY SHOULD ALREADY BE DOING ALL THE TIME.

Robert, geez, you sound more and more as if you have a trust fund. Just stop talking, dude - this is not a good subject for you. You don't need to engage with it. Those who abused our society for two years, with repercussions from which we may never fully recover, don't deserve your defense.

Clyde said...

Instant karma for Varma.

The Godfather said...

Look, let's just cut to the chase. No one can say FOR SURE that worry about Covid in this or that or this other situation was/ or was not justified at the time. But we regular folks deal with this kind of uncertainty ALL THE TIME.
We NOW know that universal masking mandates and the stuff that went along with them were neither useful nor necessary.

We NOW know that closing schools ("remote learning" is a fiction) were not only useless with respect to the spread of the disease, but they were more destructive to childhood education than the disease. LET'S ADMIT THE ERROR AND STOP TRYING TO JUSTIFY IT, AND MOVE ON!

Another old lawyer said...

Another reminder that you don't distrust the government enough.

Jamie said...

No one can say FOR SURE that worry about Covid in this or that or this other situation was/ or was not justified at the time.

I agree with this up to a very limited point - round about May 2020. By then, we had data: statistically that strain was dangerous only to the elderly and the health-compromised, there was a sizable cohort that was asymptomatic (and therefore immune to that strain after infection), and masks were ineffective at stopping it from spreading. But in some states, universal quarantines continued, mask requirements - no matter how they were characterized - continued, remote school continued. Thanks to Trump, states were allowed to make their own determinations - his many enemies wanted federal mandates. So we continued to collect data because we had 50 experiments.

And then we had the vaccines, held up by the pharmaceutical companies until JUST after the election, and roundly rejected by Trump's enemies until they took office, at which point they became effectively mandatory (for instance, if you wanted to travel, have a federal job, attend public school...).

I agree 100% about admitting the error, but I disagree about when we had enough data to stop making the error.

I don't actually believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to use COVID to exert control. But I do think that the behavior of those who had the authority to exert control indicates that they caught on pretty quickly to the presence of a crisis they decided not to let go to waste.

holdfast said...

This is quite possibly the most narcissistic, self-centered, ignorant thing that I've read on the internet this week - and that's saying something.

I suppose that a lack of socialization doesn't impact an unsociable misanthropic loner like it does a normal person. But, like, maybe spare a thought for the kids who lost at least TWO YEARS of academic instruction in NYC.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

As a physician I think it's time to pull his medical license in New York using the Covid era standard of spreading medical misinformation that was used by the government against a number of my colleagues. His California license has lapsed as his membership in the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Yancey Ward said...

Here in Oak Ridge, TN they put tape on the playground equipment and signs warning that people weren't supposed to be in the park. Some older kids started playing basketball on the nearest park's court and the town removed the goals and backboards promptly. Idiocy.

Iman said...

Fine, upstanding people.

Iman said...

-5, lol!

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

Screw masks. We were forced by the Democrat Party Media industrial Complex to get the unproven JAB - or else.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

Once again- Leftist Bob skips right by the tyranny - imposed on the masses -but quite alright for the elites to do whatever they wanted.

Anthony said...

This is what the Second Amendment is for.

James K said...

They also knew early on that the "vaccines" did not prevent transmission, yet they continued with the mandates, requiring people to show proof of having gotten the shot in order to enter restaurants, entertainment venues, and in many cases keep their jobs or attend school in person.

But Cook says, "Ah, it didn't affect me that much, so stop complaining if you lost your livelihood, or your kids couldn't go to school. That didn't affect ME."

Temujin said...

Our 'leaders' are the worst among us.

Rusty said...

My neighbor and friend died alone in a hospital bed. His wife and children could only watch him through the ICU window.

Rusty said...

Dog and Pony. My eldest daughter teaches Algebra and honors precalc. in an Orange County California middle school. She went to great personal expense to recreate a classroom for the Zoom classes in her livingroom. On average 40% of her students didn't show up for class.

Rusty said...

I was lucky. I was considered essential. I don't know why designing machines to put threadlocker on fasteners was considered essential.