They've destroyed all of their credibility!-----With Superstitious Villagers, COVID America Looks Like Feudal Europe

With Superstitious Villagers, COVID America Looks Like Feudal Europe

• Far from resembling traditional American federalism, the different responses to COVID are more reminiscent of the paranoid isolation of feudal Europe's villages and walled cities.
• "I knew the young men my parents were talking to were animated when I sat down with a round of beers at a table in Glasgow’s Merchant Square. ...“How can you deny the deadly reality of global warming,” one of the guys asked, wheeling on me unprovoked. “Florida is literally flooded and underwater.” I blinked a few times. “What?” “It’s all over the news!” he exclaimed.

...It’s hard to keep up these days: 

• To get to the birthday party, I’d had to travel from D.C. (mask mandates) to Virginia (no mask mandates) to fly to Boston (mandates) and then drive south (none), before taking a boat to the Vineyard (mandates). The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: Just eight miles to our south, the Obamas had thrown an unmasked 60th for all the people who said “we’re all in this together.” What exactly it is that we are all in, however, is less certain every day.

...Take “hospitalizations due to COVID,” a seemingly straightforward metric — except when it isn’t. 

“A new study,” a Monday story in The Atlantic begins, “suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.”
...Far from resembling traditional American federalism, the different responses are more reminiscent of the paranoid isolation of feudal Europe’s villages and walled cities. 

The same is true all over the world, where the disease — and response — has been assigned different qualities by different medical bureaucracies (a concept explained beautifully in this long but worthwhile read)...Read all.