When The Great Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 hit the United States, many Americans were more than willing to wear masks and maintain social distancing to “flatten the curve.”
Then came George Floyd’s death in police custody. Then came protests featuring thousands of activists across the nation — social distancing be damned.
Not even Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, the pandemic’s two most visible experts, initially expressed concern — let alone alarm — about the blatant disregard of health protocols when the protests began. Indeed, Fauci waited 12 days after Floyd’s death to comment publicly.
Many Americans now realize that they have been — and continue to be — deceived. Meanwhile, their emotional and psychological health rapidly deteriorate because of draconian mandates ostensibly designed to protect them.
Scientific studies provide specifics. Research conducted by Johns Hopkins and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a dramatic increase in the percentage of American adults displaying symptoms of psychological stress.
The study revealed that 13.6 percent of adults showed such symptoms in April, compared to 3.9 percent in 2018. The most striking increases appeared among adults with incomes less than $35,000 (19.3 percent from 7.9 percent), Latinos (18.3 from 4.4) and adults between 18 and 29 (24 from 3.7).
The researchers listed social distancing as one of the factors contributing to the accelerating stress, which “may transfer to longer-term psychiatric disorders requiring clinical care,” wrote Beth McGinty.
In April, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper by Drs. Carol North and Betty Pfefferbaum. They concluded that the social isolation imposed through self-quarantining and stay-at-home orders leads to “stress, irritability, insomnia, fear, confusion, anger, frustration, boredom, and stigma associated with quarantine,” they wrote.
Those factors increase not only the risk of drug and alcohol abuse, they added, but also suicide.
“Extensive research in disaster mental health has established that emotional distress is ubiquitous in affected populations,” they wrote, “a finding certainly to be echoed in populations affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Social distancing even sabotages the body’s ability to fight viruses.
In 2015, the National Academy of Sciences published a study showing how social isolation inhibits cells at the genetic level from producing antiviral agents. Instead, they produce anti-inflammatory substances that weaken the immune system.
“That social connection really boosts the immune system,” said Shiva Ayyadurai, who holds a doctorate in biological engineering from MIT. “It boosts antiviral compounds when you feel safe and friendly and secure and in good social relationships.
“When you’re socially isolated, you don’t trust people and you have all that psychological stress, your body will actually create inflammation and lower antiviral compounds.”
Supposedly, Democrats and their left-wing comrades would take such information seriously, since they claim to value science and compassion. But they not only ignore the evidence. They intensify their own despotism.
In Kentucky, authorities placed a couple under house arrest — complete with ankle monitors — because the wife would not sign forms demanding self-quarantine.
Elizabeth Linscott took a Covid-19 test July 11 because she planned to visit family in Michigan. Though she displayed no symptoms, Linscott tested positive. Afterward, the commonwealth’s health department sent her the requisite forms.
But Linscott refused to sign because of the following demand: “I will not travel in any public, commercial or health-care conveyance, such as an ambulance, bus, taxi, airplane, train or boat without the prior approval of the Department for Public Health.”
“My part was if I have to go to the ER, if I have to go to the hospital, I’m not going to wait to get the approval to go,” Linscott told Louisville’s WAVE-TV.
The department told Linscott by text that law enforcement would get involved. On July 16, the Hardin County sheriff visited the Linscotts’ home with a posse.
“I open up the door, and there’s like eight different people, five different cars, and I’m like ‘What the heck’s going on?’ ” said Linscott’s husband, Isaiah. “This guy’s in a suit with a mask. It’s the health department guy, and they have three papers for us — for me, her and my daughter.”
The sheriff attached the ankle monitors, which notify police if either husband or wife travels more than 200 feet.
“We didn’t rob a store,” Elizabeth Linscott said. “We didn’t steal something. We didn’t hit and run. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
So what do “progressives” and their Democratic minions want? At least three things, as FrontPage magazine showed in the article, “Liberal Masquerade.”
First, they want to encourage mail-in voting, which enables them to manipulate elections for their benefit. Second, they want to impede legitimate investigations into criminal behavior allegedly committed by members of the FBI and the Justice Department under President Barack Obama’s administration. Third, they want to condition Americans to accept more powerful restrictions on their freedom.
As scientific studies show, social distancing instills fear, anxiety, suspicion, loneliness and hopelessness. Add the violent civil disorder that Democrats encourage, and you have the optimal recipe for mass societal depression, where energetic initiative against the “progressive” tide becomes impossible.
Social distancing is not about containing the Covid-19 virus. It is about destroying the American people.
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