Hi BJ, thanks for a helpful article. As you rightly say, the mass media relies on creating endless sensation-based hysteria in order to sustain revenues. Furthermore we humans have zero capacity for grasping data; we rely entirely on anecdote. So we’re easy to stampede into mindless panic. It should be noted that between 250,000 and 650,000 people die worldwide of flu each year (despite the availability of vaccines) and in the USA alone more than 2.8 million die each year from obesity-related diseases and more than twice that number die of smoking-related diseases. So our present mass hysteria over a virus that we know from existing data leaves at least 99% of the population unharmed is, at best, a sad indication of our inability to think, and at worst a hugely stupid exercise in global self-harm. While your article focuses entirely on the USA, it’s important for us all to remember that our rush to global shutdown has thrown 500,000,000 of the world’s most vulnerable and poorest people into abject poverty. Today, though the Western media is studiously avoiding all mention of the fact because it would be “off message” thousands are dying daily because we shut down global commerce and hence we took away their ability to earn just enough to eat. So we’re not only stupid but also astonishingly immoral. But hey, let’s all just make pointless facemasks so we can virtue-signal to our neighbors…

(Facemasks are actually not pointless: they’re harmful. Medical personnel change theirs every 20 minutes because when we exhale we breath out warm moist air. But civilians are keeping them in place for hours. Soon that virtuous facemask becomes damp and warm, which is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, which we then suck into our lungs with each new breath. More people will suffer from bronchial infections because of facemasks than will ever be “saved” by them.)