by Kerry Dougherty
Shhhh. Listen carefully.
Hear that? That’s the sound of 8.5 million Virginia sphincters tightening as we anticipate how Gov. Ralph Northam will punish us today for a surge in COVID-19 infections.
We deserve it. The virus is spreading and it has to be our fault. It couldn’t possibly be that a respiratory virus is damned near impossible to stop.
As Virginia waits to learn what fresh hell is waiting for us at Northam’s presser we get to experience an American dictatorship, where all power rests in a single individual.
What liberties will His Excellency stomp on today?
“A source familiar with the governor’s announcement (today) claimed that Virginia will not lockdown or shut down,” reports The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
No lockdowns? What then?
Curfews are a possibility. Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina has ordered his citizens to stay in their houses between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. and Northam does like to keep up with his neighbors.
His Democratic neighbors, that is. He loathes Tennessee and blames them for our surge. Perhaps he’ll announce the construction of a border wall through Bristol.
Northam might close indoor dining and kill off the locally owned restaurants that are struggling to stay afloat with reduced capacity, shortened hours and social distancing.
Hey, Andrew Cuomo did that in New York and HE won an Emmy.
Then again, Northam might order us to wear masks outdoors, not that there’s any science supporting that. That’s popular with Democrats. A couple of governors have forced folks to forego fresh air and we’ve seen Joe Biden wearing a mask while biking.
Such an order would be widely ignored. Except in Northern Virginia, where they’re already driving alone in cars with masks on. Meanwhile, the virus rages there as it does everywhere else.
(Fairfax has a testing positivity rate of 10.9 percent. By contrast, Virginia Beach, where almost no one wears a mask outside, is at 10.3 percent.)
The governor could order us to wear masks in our own homes and then send the police to peer in windows and see who’s obeying. That would be fun.
Northam may ban Christmas caroling. Not that anyone’s in the mood this year, anyway.
Or he could order folks not to socialize with anyone outside of their households. Good luck with that one.
Fact is, governors – including Northam – have no idea how to stop this virus.
Still, they believe they have to do something so that when the virus begins to recede on its own or through herd immunity brought on by nature and the vaccine, they can claim credit.
Despite a lot of yapping about “following the science” and the “data” almost none of the rules that have been slapped on formerly free people are anything more than arbitrary actions by dizzy knob turners.
For instance, where was the science behind Northam’s ban on sitting on the beach earlier this year? You know, when he graciously “permitted” Virginians to walk, run or fish from the sand. But there was to be no sitting.
And where is the data and science that put 5-year-olds in masks a couple of weeks ago? Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Look, we are closing in on 300 days since “15 days to slow the spread.” In March we were told to put our lives on hold for two weeks while hospitals prepared for the onslaught of patients.
Despite a spike in cases and hospitalizations, as of yesterday Virginia had 3,271 empty hospital beds and another 3,695 available as surge beds. ICUs are at 78 percent capacity and only 30 percent of ventilators are in use (only 22 percent of them are being used by Covid patients).
Best of all, not a single hospital in Virginia reports having difficulty obtaining PPE.
Still, as Democratic governors across the country play keep-up-with-the-despots Northam clearly wants to be a player.
