(Article by Alex Berenson republished from AlexBerenson.Substack.com)

If a 79-year-old who can barely finish a sentence can beat the ro in a few days, even Molly Jong-Fast will have a tough time staying scared. Yes, another variant could change the calculus. But right now I am on an Acela from New York to Washington, about the most Covid-fearful environment left anywhere in the United States, and almost no one is masked.

(Poor, poor New York Times. No one listens anymore:)

The end of mandatory masking marked the first stage in Covid’s waning as a cultural force; masks were always about instilling fear. The Supreme Court’s ruling striking down vaccine workplace mandates took Covid off the front burner politically.

Now Joe Biden, merely by surviving, has ended any debate over whether Covid is a medical crisis. Give him credit. It’s probably his biggest accomplishment aside from making inflation great again.

And yet Covid - and the Covid vaccines - are still doing inestimable damage to our society. The failure of the mRNA shots, after the hype that surrounded them when they were introduced in 2020, is deeply disappointing.

The development of new medicines cannot be rushed, as much as we might hope they might. Regulators and ethical scientists must insist on properly designed and run clinical trials before approving any new drug or vaccine.

But the failure of the vaccines is actually less corrosive at this point than the grim refusal by public health authorities, politicians, and the media to admit that failure.

Practically everyone knows the truth. How can I be so sure? In the most basic way. No one gets mRNA shots anymore - not for themselves, and not for their kids. More than a month after regulators broke every guideline they have to approve the shots for children under 5, more than 97 percent of kids that age remain unjabbed.

Overall uptake has also cratered. Even with 19 million small children now eligible, the media and health authorities endlessly pushing boosters and reboosters (maintain, granny, maintain!), and some colleges insanely demanding boosters of their students, Americans are getting fewer than a quarter-million Covid jabs a day.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is this: the relentless denial of an obvious truth from the highest levels of media and government is gasoline for the fire of conspiracy theorists. If they’ll lie about the vaccines when everyone can see the vaccines don’t work, what else will they lie about? And why did they lie in the first place? Deeeeepopulation, it’s a thing.

Well, they lied because they wanted Covid to end so badly that they ignored all the obvious problems in the clinical trials. As for what else they’ll lie about? I don’t know. But - and I can’t believe I have to say this - I don’t think Bill Gates wants to depopulate the world. He can just buy Montana if he wants privacy. My conspiracy theory: Really rich people don’t care enough about you to want you dead!

Anyway, it would be really nice if the people in charge would admit the truth, the vaccines didn’t work as promised and now we have to hope no more virulent Sars-Cov-2 variant comes around to do massive damage.

Okay, I guess I can see the problem with the truth. Still, they aren’t doing themselves - or the rest of us - any favors. But we do get unintentional comedy from the likes of Jacinda Arcern, the prime minister of New Zealand and hero of the left, who has truly lost the plot and now appears to be auditioning for a role as Cersei Lannister’s less personable cousin:

You will listen to me, my pretties! And only me!

No, Cruella, we’ll pass. And get some sun, huh? Or is that not allowed either because tans are a sign one doesn’t take global warming seriously enough?

These people.

Read more at: AlexBerenson.Substack.com