by Kerry Dougherty
Politicians lie. We all know that.
But Terry McAuliffe is a special kind of liar. Not only does he prevaricate about Glenn Youngkin’s policy positions, but he deliberately spreads falsehoods about the severity of Covid-19 in Virginia.
Don’t take my word for it. The Washington Post just gave him FOUR Pinocchios for his continuing gross exaggerations about Covid.
In a piece headlined, “Terry McAuliffe Keeps Inflating Coronavirus Numbers,” the Post’s Glenn Kessler expressed astonishment that the Democrat keeps repeating wildly exaggerated numbers even after he’s been called out for it and his staff admits his numbers are way off.
We first became interested in this issue when McAuliffe in the second and final debate on Sept. 28 said that there were 8,000 coronavirus cases “yesterday in Virginia.” He then repeated the statement the next day and a week later, on Oct. 7.
But when we checked the records, you had to go back to January to find a single day when a combination of confirmed and probable cases in Virginia got close to 8,000. On Sept. 27, there were fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases…
And what about McAuliffe’s Oct. 7 comment that 1,142 children were in ICU beds? That number seemed totally off-kilter. (For the week ended Oct. 2, the number of children in hospitals, not necessarily in intensive care, was just 35.)
These are spectacular lies.
McAuliffe actually told the public that 1,142 children were in ICU beds, when the total number of Virginia children hospitalized with Covid — not even in intensive care — was 35.
That low number is a blessing, by the way. So why would McAuliffe lie about such things?
He’s just doing what Team Apocalypse has been doing since the start of the pandemic: exaggerating and inflating numbers. The more fearful the public, the more willing folks became to accept Draconian measures, such as lockdowns, curfews, school closures and mask mandates.
A Gallup survey of Americans earlier this year found Democrats far more likely to believe inflated numbers, which may account for their eagerness to surrender civil liberties during the pandemic.
Democrats… are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is between 1 percent and 5 percent.
Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.
Some of us warned that once free people voluntarily surrendered their civil rights it would be hard to get them back. Some of you didn’t believe us.
How about now?
Throughout the pandemic, public health officials and politicians spread fear by hyping the dangers of Covid. In many places there was the liberal counting of Covid deaths. Folks who died WITH Covid instead of FROM Covid were lumped into the death count.
This is why trust in public health authorities has eroded.
Back to McAuliffe. Why would the Democrat candidate for governor exaggerate the severity of the pandemic?
Easy.
If elected, he clearly plans to bring back some of Northam’s most idiotic and onerous mandates.
Plus, mandatory vaccines for school children are almost certainly on his agenda. Admitting that there have been only 10 pediatric deaths from Covid in Virginia since the start of the pandemic will not persuade parents to allow their children to be injected with an emergency use authorization vaccine. The specter of more than 1,000 kids languishing in hospital beds might, however.
Hence, his lies.
Just as McAuliffe doesn’t want parents involved in their kids’ education, McAuliffe doesn’t want parents deciding if their minor children should be vaccinated against a disease that poses very little risk to them.
More vaccine mandates are coming if the Democrat wins.
But you have the chance to stop McAuliffe and his authoritarian, big-government agenda.
To do that you need to vote.
For Glenn Youngkin.
This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
