By Roger L. Simon
I woke up the other day with the feeling that it was more than a little possible that the pandemic is finally over, nearly so anyway.
The stock market was certainly indicating as much, the Dow was up big for the second time in a row. The reasoning wasn’t complicated even for this layman. The traditional course of viruses is to keep mutating to survive, but as they mutate, the new variants tend to be weaker.
This appears to be the case with the CCP (COVID-19) virus. New variant Omicron, though highly transmissible, is apparently relatively harmless—no deaths and hardly any hospitalizations in the 30 or so countries that have reported cases thus far. It even shares genetic material with that other somewhat benign coronavirus, the common cold.
Of course, things could change; a more dangerous variant could come along, or Omicron could morph in some unforeseen manner, but if I’m correct, we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of an era when politics overwhelmed science to a degree that it practically destroyed our country and the world.
What a relief. What a “Happy New Year” this could be. Let’s sing that great song from World War I, “When This Bloody War Is Over.” We all feel as if we’ve been through it.
More Realistic Scenario
Not so fast, grasshopper. It’s not over yet, just starting a new phase. I have two predictions to make that are to some degree related and not entirely optimistic. In fact, the second is about as pessimistic as it gets if we don’t watch our steps.
Joe Biden, to get a very needed political boost, and with him, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the great control freaks of American history, willing to change his opinion at any time, as long as we follow his opinion, will claim victory and try to take credit for this to the nth degree—an attempt that is as nauseating as it is ludicrous. This will be echoed by much of our media, but at least as many, hopefully, more, of our citizens will be skeptical. A battle will ensue between the two sides not all that different from what we have now.
Much more ominous, until there is a regime change at the presidential level, they will never tell us the pandemic is really over.
Instead, they will say the situation is slightly better (for now), but we must always maintain our guard with extreme vigilance. Otherwise, it can come back at a moment’s notice. That means continued masking (where authorities deem necessary) and booster shots every few months like teeth cleanings, probably intermittent lockdowns as well. (Schools could practice those like fire drills.) We should still maintain social distancing when we can. You never know what your neighbor might be carrying. It’s a good habit. Like flossing. We must do all this into perpetuity.
Backtracking, Already
Am I exaggerating? Not if you ask the prime minister of New Zealand, who has already asserted there will never be an endpoint to the vaccination program in her country.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has just informed us that he believes the “acute phase” of the pandemic will end in 2022 but evinces “surprise” that so many resist vaccination and masks. The rules and regulations of the pandemic always have been first and foremost about control, not health. To declare them over is to lose control.
Specifically, it’s to lose a grip on the acquiescent masses, to lose the possibility of advancing an American socialism-communism, however you want to describe it, as long as the state is more important than the individual (except, of course, those individuals who are in charge).
This won’t be relinquished easily. COVID-19 has provided excuses for state control beyond anything in most of our lifetimes. The last two years have brought the dreams of the left closer to reality—to transforming the United States—then they have been for decades.
Stopping them will be more difficult than stopping COVID-19 itself, even if it goes away. The residue will still be there. Cleaning that up and, yes, disinfecting it, will be all our responsibilities.
Roger L. Simon (GETTR and Parler@rogerlsimon.) is the co-founder of PJ Media, novelist, and screenwriter. A version of this article was originally published in The Epoch Times on December 8, 2021. Reprinted with permission.