Politicizing COVID-19 From the Start

[SVPete]

Politicizing COVID-19 From the Start

https://pjmedia.com/columns/victor-davis-hanson/2022/01/13/politicizing-covid-19-from-the-start-n1549080

From the moment COVID-19 appeared, the pandemic became inseparable from politics.

Political frenzy was inevitable since the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have escaped from a level-4 security virology lab in Wuhan, China.

The rapid-fire spread soon threatened to indict the Chinese communist government for nearly destroying the world economy and killing millions.

...
From the outset, the World Health Organization simply spread false talking points about the outbreak from the Chinese government, delaying a robust global response.

Former President Donald Trump’s political opponents initially told Americans to shop and travel as usual — only to pivot as cases mounted and they blamed the president.

The U.S. 2020 ban on travel from China was met with charges of racism and xenophobia from presidential candidates. Ironically, many were simply channeling racist and xenophobic China’s propaganda.
...
Trump’s Operation Warp Speed project to develop vaccinations was also pilloried. Candidates Kamala Harris and Joe Biden did their best to talk down the safety of the impending inoculations. But once in power, they projected their own prior harmful rhetoric onto so-called “anti-vaxxers.”
...
The Pfizer corporation had promised a major pre-election announcement about its likely rollout of a vaccine in October, just days before the 2020 election.

Then, mysteriously, Pfizer claimed the vaccine, in fact, would not be ready before November 3. A few days after the election of Joe Biden, the company reversed course and announced the vaccinations would soon be available.

Then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo obstructed most all federal help with Trump’s fingerprints on it. That way Cuomo became a media, Emmy-winning darling – before resigning in disgrace.

VDH is in error on one point in the article. The term "Breakthrough Case" was not coined in reference to Covid vaccines. I've seen it used in a paper published in 2010 that had been submitted for publication in 2009. I would be entirely unsurprised if the term has been used for decades.

That quibble aside, that what came to be called Covid-19 would be politicized was obvious to me in late January 2020. At that point it was obvious that Shampeachment 1.0 would soon go down in flames. It was similarly obvious to me that the Dems were (or soon would be) seeking a new faux-issue to be grist in their Hate-Trump mill. It wasn't much of a leap to guess that this new epidemic spreading from China might be the Dems' new faux issue. So in late January I started following news about what came to be called Covid-19 - governments' actions, treatments progress, vaccine progress, etc..

My personal bleep aside - was any conservative seriously surprised that the Dems politicized Covid? VDH mentions their earliest politicization and their reversal from minimizing to hyping. Had the MSM pointed out this reversal rather than shilling for the Dems, things might have gone very differently in November 2020.

[Eupher]

I look at it starting with the Dems, for the reasons you cite -- gotta keep DJT on the defensive (which never really works, but they keep trying...).

But as the entire pile of Covid crap wasn't understood, the so-called experts kept bleating conflicting information, Fauci and Birx clearly wanted the spotlight (and got it), the Repubs just basically followed the Dems' lead.

Another case of too little leadership too late. When the "15 days to flatten the curve" became a month, and then two months, the narrative started shifting and then it got political.

I knew it was game over when the BS masks became a fashion statement.