Why are the Covid hysterics at it again?

And what exactly do they want this time?

They’re baaaaack.

After a long quiet stretch, media and Twitter Covid scaremongering is on the rise.

The noise raises two questions. Is anything actually happening? And, if not, why all the shrieking?

The first question is easier to answer: No. Nothing is happening.

Cases and hospitalizations have risen slightly this summer, but Omicron remains very mild. Many if not most Covid-reported hospitalizations are incidental, and most Covid deaths are incidental or end-of-life. Without Covid or mRNA boosters to juice them, all-cause deaths are at normal levels in the United States and Europe.

Of course, Sars-Cov-2 continues to mutate, like all viruses. Theoretically, it could change in a way that increases its dangers.

But despite the caterwauling about new strains, viruses generally become more transmissible and less virulent. Sars-Cov-2 has been no exception. Since Omicron displaced Delta globally in December 2021, none of its subvariants have shown signs of reversing that trend.

(Another potential risk is that the mRNA jabs have caused immune system changes that will mean vaccinated people will have a hard time clearing Covid infections in years to come. But that danger is also largely theoretical, at least for now.)

So, yes, your Spidey sense is right: it’s all nonsense.

Which leads to the second question: why this new round of shrieking?

(To find the answer, wait 72 hours. Or just subscribe! It’s 20 cents a day! What else can you get for 20 cents these days? Not even a stale gumball at the pizza place, that’s what!)

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(Poltergeist 2: unlike Sars-Cov-2, made right here in America!)

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What is particularly interesting about this round of hysterics is that the Democratic politicians who demanded school closures and mRNA mandates for two years are sitting it out. In fact, the hard-core Covidians on Twitter regularly and rightly complain that the White House no longer cares about their plight.

Blue-state governors and the White House have realized that highlighting any uptick in cases will simply draw attention to the failure of the control measures they championed. After all, they can no longer blame Donald Trump (who was last in office about 12 variants ago) for Covid.

Nor do they want to push more mRNA shots, which the public decisively rejected last fall and which clearly do nothing, at best, to stop Omicron infections.

No, the cynical and politically wise move for our fearless Democratic leaders is to move on. Most Americans would rather forget their lockdown cowardice in 2020 and their obscene support of mandatory vaccinations in 2021 anyway.

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Thus the recent shrieking is a true grass-roots (or maybe more accurately Twitter-roots) phenomenon.

At its heart is a small but loud group of very online folks who cannot stand the fact that the world has moved on from Covid. They feel increasingly ostracized over their mask-wearing, whining about ventilation, and demands for never-ending free tests and vaccines.

In reality, almost no one cares enough to judge them, a fact that bothers them even more.

Even worse, many of them are “disabled” as a result of “long Covid” and do not work, giving them even more time to wind each other up. Since 2021, they have desperately hoped for validation for long Covid.

But the $1 billion long Covid research slush fund they convinced the National Institutes of Health to set up is almost gone, with no signs of progress. (It’s hard to solve a disease that exists mostly entirely in the minds of its sufferers when the first rule of research is pretending the disease isn’t somatic.)

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(Did anyone try diet and exercise? Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you!)

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For the long Covidians, illness is ideology - as well as a pocketbook issue. The murkier long Covid is as an illness, the more resistance their disability applications will face.

No accident, then, that the recent warnings often prominently feature the \dangers of long Covid. (Highlighting long Covid also helps gloss over the mildness of Covid itself, a crucial step given that almost everyone has now had the virus and can no longer be terrified with tales of blood clots and sudden death.)

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Meanwhile, though Democratic politicians want nothing to do with Covid 2.0 (3.0?) , their usual allies in the elite media have proven only too willing to amplify the recent Twitter freakouts.

After all, the Times and similar woke outlets don’t have elections to win. They cater to an increasingly narrow slice of the population that includes essentially everyone who is predisposed to believe the worst about long Covid. Not a few of their writers are long Covidians too.

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(If only toupees could fix long Covid as easily! Or maybe they can?)

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And so the Times, CNN, and the rest have all dutifully reported on the new wave. They haven’t forgotten to mention long Covid, either.

“Every time you get infected, no matter the severity, there is always a chance that you can develop longer-term symptoms,” the Times wrote today in a story about reinfections.

As for what they want?

They want what they’ve wanted from the start of Covid. They want what they always want. They want everyone to be scared. They want free stuff.

Most of all, they want you to listen.

And obey.