So let me start by saying what should be – but is not – self-evident. There is not only no room for panic over the coronavirus, but there also is never a need for panic about anything. And there is a much more serious virus out there than coronavirus.
To update? Like thousands of others, I spent the last week of February at CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference – at the Gaylord Convention facilities in National Harbor, Maryland. Last year there were 19,000 in attendance, and this year it was sold out for the first time in its history, which means there were probably 20,000 or more present and accounted for. The event ended on Saturday, February 29th with a rousing speech from the President. Then…home.
One week later to the day, around 5 pm Eastern time, in comes an e-mail from the American Conservative Union (which runs CPAC) to all CPAC attendees that was headed as follows:
Important Health Notification for CPAC 2020 attendees and participants
It read this way in its entirety:
“The American Conservative Union has learned that one of our CPAC attendees has unfortunately tested positive today for coronavirus. The exposure occurred previous to the conference. A New Jersey hospital tested the person, and CDC confirmed the positive result. The individual is under the care of medical professionals in New Jersey, and has been quarantined.
ACU has been in contact with the Health Department of the State of Maryland, and we will explicitly follow the guidance from government health experts.
This attendee had no interaction with the President or the Vice President, and never attended the events in the main hall.
The health and safety of our attendees and participants is our top priority. Any attendee who has questions can contact ACU or the Department of Health for the State of Maryland.
Our children, spouses, extended family, and friends attended CPAC. During this time, we need to remain calm, listen to our health care professionals, and support each other. We send this message in that spirit.
The Trump Administration is aware of the situation, and we will continue regular communication with all appropriate government officials.”
OK. Excellent. Well done. A very straight forward presentation of the facts to everybody who was present. In short? This happened, FYI. Be aware.
Since every Tuesday I do a long-ago arranged podcast for Penn Live, the online site for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, I felt obligated to let the paper know of this as the podcast has meant I show up in person at the paper to tape the podcast – and had done so the previous Tuesday post-CPAC. The decision was quickly made by the paper to have me “phone it in” this Tuesday. In addition, Cate Barron, the president of Penn Live and The Patriot-News, thought it necessary to inform the paper’s employees and, this being the major newspaper in the state capital area, to have a reporter interview me for a story. That story appears here.
The next night, Sunday, I received a personal phone call from CPAC. To tell me they believed I personally may have had brief contact with the unnamed individual. I shook a lot of hands that week and may have with this person. Fair enough.
With that, I thought the best thing to do since this was now going public was to simply do the obvious – self-quarantine for the final week of the two weeks from date of contact recommended by health officials. So, thankfully all shopped up, I have hunkered down for this last week. The news comes as well that Texas Senator Ted Cruz is in the same situation and is doing his self-quarantine time at his home in Texas.
What to learn here? Common sense and caution are always good. Panic and mass hysteria are not. In point of fact, this too shall pass. And oh yes…I feel perfectly fine.
The most egregious problem here is those quarters of the Leftist State Media covering this story and trying to turn this into one more weaponized method to strike at a president they detest. They could care less about how many Americans they freak out and scare – needlessly and with political intent. As seen here in, to give but one example, The New York Times and its disgraceful “Trumpvirus” column.
Which is another way of saying that the most serious virus spread across certain sections of America isn’t the coronavirus at all.
The most serious virus out there is called Trump Derangement Syndrome. From which, sadly, there is no way to quarantine oneself.
