‘Does the virus fund the federalist?’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) As Americans still reel from the unprecedented response to the coronavirus pandemic—with alarming implications for the U.S. economy and government overreach to suppress civil liberties—The Federalist offered up a novel solution: controlled, voluntary infection.
It is time to think outside the box and seriously consider a somewhat unconventional approach to COVID-19: controlled voluntary infection.https://t.co/n4N5MNeaxW
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) March 25, 2020
Author Douglas A. Perednia said that the attempts to implement nationwide quarantines and closures to slow the virus would do nothing toward actually containing it.
“[S]hutting down the economy is like asking society to hold its breath to keep from inhaling a toxin,” Perednia said. “It can’t keep up forever, and when it does breathe, all that gasping for air is going to undo much of the benefit we’d hoped to derive.”
Rather, he wrote, the only way to overcome it would be allowing people to build immunity, much as occurs with chickenpox and other highly contagious childhood diseases.
Exposure to small, controlled doses of the virus is also the fundamental science behind vaccinations such as annual flu shots.
But the necessity of clinical trials, the severe impacts of the pandemic and the fast spread of the coronavirus all make the eventual development of a vaccine impractical in the short term.
In the meantime, the current response of bringing commerce and social interactions to a screeching halt threatens an enduring fallout that would exacerbate—if not eclipse—the havoc wrought by the disease itself.
“Neither mitigation nor waiting for a vaccine is acceptable given the magnitude of the problem we are facing,” Perednia said. “Economies are like a living organism—as soon as their normal functions are shut down, they begin to die.”
He warned that even the salvo of a $2 trillion economic stimulus would only go so far after months of social isolation.
“Savings, capital, income, and taxes all evaporate,” he said. “Companies begin to close, and many will not have the resources to begin again. Massive deficits will become a huge burden for future generations. Meanwhile, the regular health care system is all but shut down.”
Many unhinged radicals, however, have leaned into the idea of curtailing freedoms indefinitely, whether in the hopes of dooming President Donald Trump’s re-election or exploiting the crisis to advance their far-left agenda.
The reaction to the Perednia’s proposal from the Left was quick and predictably vicious as Twitter trolls rejected the scientific reasoning in favor of ad-hominem name-calling and conspiracy theories.
The Federalist, a conservative magazine, just put out an article saying we should consider “controlled voluntary infection.”
I completely agree. Let’s start with everyone who works at the Federalist.
— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) March 25, 2020
Does the virus fund the federalist? https://t.co/neVAK3TjZ7
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 25, 2020
block and report the federalist, please https://t.co/o56rzxWrFC
— Greg Pak (@gregpak) March 25, 2020
Efforts to shame and suppress anyone who dares to question the dogma surrounding virus containment have mirrored those of other leftist causes such as political correctness and the #MeToo movement.
Even Twitter, which has received frequent criticism for its censorship of conservative speech, put up a firewall by declaring the Federalist piece an “unsafe” link lest anyone accidentally click on it and be subjected involuntarily to a dangerous opinion.
Similarly, left-wing media have attacked Trump for suggesting a possible pharmaceutical treatment using anti-malarial drugs such as hydrochloroquine—under medical supervision.
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 21, 2020
Preliminary trials have produced positive results—albeit anecdotal, since no clinical trials have yet proven the drugs’ effectiveness.
Still, Trump noted during a press briefing on Friday that the drugs have been on the market for decades and posed little downside.
“It’s not a drug that you have a huge amount of danger with,” Trump said. “It’s not a drug that may have an unbelievable effect, like kill you … I’m not being overly optimistic or pessimistic. I sure as hell think we oughta give it a try.”
But after a report that an Arizona couple had poisoned themselves by ingesting a similarly-named substance used for fish-tank cleaning, some media reports misleadingly sought to link the two in order to bludgeon the president’s message of hope.
“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” said the Arizona woman—who had not tested positive for the virus when she ingested the poison—in an interview with NBC News.
“Don’t take anything,” she continued. “Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”