By Shane Smith

The past nine months has seen Western nations suffer under possibly the most destructive man-made disaster in history. Entire economies have been decimated by government shutdowns, tens of millions thrown out of work, millions of children thrown out of school, human rights violations on a mass scale, the almost instantaneous emergence of authoritarianism throughout nations that paid at least a modicum of respect to individual rights, and the integration of a “pandemic mindset” into our culture. Illness, depression, suicide, drug addiction, child abuse, bankruptcies, evictions, all have erupted over the past year due to our government’s response to the virus COVID-19. And all this transpired because, nine months ago, the corporate media intentionally catastrophized a new virus, painting it’s arrival as a Doomsday event, and that we had better get behind the effort to stop it at all costs.

“Two weeks to flatten the curve” became nine months of catastrophic policy mistakes. “Lockdown” became a part of our vocabulary. Masks became a normal aspect of our daily routine. State and local governments assumed the right to destroy the lives of their citizens based on little data and much fear.

Now, though, we have an abundance of data that contradicts every hysterical prediction made last Spring. We now know that the COVID-19 survival rate for children and young adults is 99.997%, for ages 20-50 it’s 99.98%, and for ages 50-70 it’s 99.5%. Hardly the boogeyman virus it was (and still is) sold as, and yet the destructive pandemic performance continues.

Even now, the public is daily told that COVID-19 is a “deadly disease”. For whom? The media never gets around to the details. Instead, we’re told to accept the masks, the lockdowns, the destroyed businesses, the shuttered schools, and the ruined lives, because that’s what “Science” demands. The U.S. death toll is used to give weight to these demands, and most people accept it, not realizing that there is much more to the story.

Rather than accept the media’s assertions at face value, let’s see what we find when we look deeper at deaths “with COVID-19."

In the United States, the CDC has recorded 313,171 deaths “involving COVID-19." The media reports that number endlessly. And it does sound scary without any context. Let’s give it some. Out of that number, 100,016 occurred in patients over the age of 85. Another 85,925 deaths are attributed to those between 75 and 84. By contrast, only 599 deaths occurred in people under the age of 25. And out of that death count, only 6% had no serious illness that contributed to, or caused, their death. From the CDC website: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.9 additional conditions or causes per death.”

The CDC goes on to list some of these co-morbid conditions: 20,437 deaths involving dementia, 7,728 involving Alzheimer’s, 6,790 involving renal failure, 5,267 involving sepsis, 3,722 involving malignant neoplasms, and 3,718 deaths involving “intentional/unintentional injury, poisoning, and other adverse events.” There are many others, but these in particular stretch credulity to the breaking point. How stupid do they think we are? Did the virus play any actual role in their deaths? We don’t know. All we know is that they’ve been lumped into the COVID death toll regardless.

And in New York City, the alleged heart of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., only 123 confirmed deaths have occurred without any underlying illness, according to NYC Health.

These are all “official” numbers. But how much overcounting is involved in the tabulation of COVID deaths? In NYC, a confirmed COVID-19 death is defined as any death within 60 days of a positive COVID test. How far would New York’s death toll fall if they shortened that definition to 30 days?

In Nevada, and many other states throughout the country, anyone who dies within 30 days of a positive test is added to the COVID-19 death count.

In Minnesota, state reps. Scott Jensen and Mary Franson examined 2,800 death certificates and found that 40% of certificates did not list COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death, but were still swept into the total death count for their state. Is this happening all over the country?

If a true audit of all COVID death certificates ever takes place, what will we find?

Now let’s take a closer look at a few other countries.

England, whose government is currently forcing economic suicide upon its most vulnerable citizens through a brutal “Tier 5" lockdown policy, has suffered 80,000 COVID-19-related deaths. But over 80% of those deaths occurred in patients over the age of 75, and less than 1% of deaths occurred in those under 44, according to the Office of National Statistics. On December 28th, the Daily Mail reported that only 388 people under 60 had died where no underlying illness was involved.

Back in the spring and summer, Italy’s COVID-19 crisis and rising death toll became front-page news, scaring the living daylights out of everyone with an internet connection or cable TV. But let’s look beyond the fear and see what we find. As of December 29th, the Nation’s COVID death toll had reached 70,797, according to website Statista. And yet 85% of the deaths occurred in patients over 70 years of age. 14,080 deaths in patients over 90 years of age, 29,224 deaths among patients between 80-89, and 17,493 in the 70-79 age group. Only 54 deaths occurred in patients under 30. Only 1% of deaths, 805, occurred in patients under 50. A December report from the Instituto Superiore de Sanita found that only 3.1% of Italy’s deaths occurred in patients with no underlying health conditions, while 65.9% had three or more pre-existing conditions.

Belgium has also been cited numerous times as experiencing one of the highest per capita COVID death tolls in the world. As of January 11th, that number reached 20,000, which would be pretty scary without any context. But, according to Statista, 9,809 of the deceased were over the age of 85. In contrast, only 79 deaths occurred in the 25-44 age group. Only 5 deaths have been recorded for anyone under the age of 25.

It’s the same story for Canada: 17,086 deaths. 11,601 deaths over age 80. 3,063 between ages 70 and 79. Only 192 deaths under the age of 50.

Back to the United States, we find something much more ominous hiding in the numbers.

In 2019, total mortality for U.S. citizens between 75-84 was 4,308.3 per 100,000 population. In 2020, based on preliminary data, that rose to 4,627.8 per 100,000. A clear 7.4% increase. The 65-74 age group experienced an 8% increase.

But let’s look at the 15-24 age group. 77.95 deaths per 100,000 in 2020, up from 69.7 in 2019. An 11.8% increase in mortality.

Now let’s look at the 25-34 age group. 146.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2020, up from 128 in both 2019 and 2018. A 13.8% increase.

The same grim picture plays out in the 35-44 age group. 228.8 per 100,000 in 2020, 199.2 per 100,000 in 2019. A 14.9% increase.

These age groups are at virtually zero risk of COVID, far less than those above 70. And yet they experienced a significantly larger increase in the mortality rate than the elderly population. COVID-19 is not the cause. These are lockdown deaths. The real crisis has been the government’s destructive response to the virus.

The lesson to be learned is that COVID-19 is not a random killer, despite what the corporate news, and increasingly the large tech monopolists, would have you believe. A very specific demographic is at risk: the very ill, and the very old. Usually a combination of the two. It’s a pattern that reproduces itself everywhere in the world.

Context is clearly crucial to understanding COVID-19's effects on society, but it’s the one thing missing from the public conversation. We are instead being fed a steady diet of fear, and even nine months later, many still accept the propaganda.

Context-free reporting on COVID-19 serves a purpose. The corporate media thrives on fear-inducing headlines. Enormous numbers of people tune in for their morbid fix of Armageddon. No one wants to hear that COVID is not a real threat to anyone in moderately good health.

The pandemic has also become big business, and a perfect opportunity for the growth of government power. For this industry to thrive, public fear must be sustained.

Around 2 million COVID tests are performed each day in the U.S., at an average daily cost of $250 million. The organizations and individuals getting rich off this grift will do anything to keep the money flowing.

Another crucial element of the propaganda is that lockdowns, mask mandates, or capacity restrictions have an effect on the spread of the virus. They don’t. The virus follows the same trajectory in locked-down California as it does in free Florida.

Mask mandates have done nothing to mitigate the spread of the virus. Researchers at Rational Ground compared states with mask mandates to those without, from May 1st to December, and found that states with the mandates actually saw 10 more cases per 100,000 population than states without a mandate. It’s all been in vain.

Despite the increasingly obvious truth that COVID-19 is a mild infection easily handled by the vast majority, the pandemic continues. It’s become a performance, a ritual, needlessly prolonging the suffering among the most vulnerable. So, what is the exit strategy?

And here we encounter the terrible truth: there is no exit strategy. The pandemic is not meant to end. It’s become a booming industry, and a perfect excuse for every variant of government and corporate intrusion into our lives.

Left to their own devices, politicians, bureaucrats, and the media would allow it to continue for decades. We instead must consciously end it ourselves, through education and the election of explicitly anti-lockdown candidates. We must create a safe haven for freedom, away from the politicized hysteria that has caused so much damage.

Our children deserve it. We deserve it. We must look at lockdowns, mask mandates, and the man-made diminishment of social life as the enormous crime that it is. We must put COVID-19 in the rear-view mirror, reject the bizarre hypochondriac ideology that surrounds the virus, and demand a complete return to normal. If we don’t, then our kids will grow up in the shadow of a massive pandemic industry, one that owns and controls our politicians, regulatory agencies, schools, and health professionals.

And when this industry realizes that they’ve milked COVID-19 for all its worth, they’ll move on to the next bogus threat. The propaganda will shift and focus on a new virus, or COVID “variant.” An unending cycle of propaganda, fear, and control.

Unless we actively work to stop it, this future is a certainty.

Shane Smith is a pro-liberty writer based in Norman, Oklahoma. He blogs at: RepublicReborn.com, and can be reached at: digitalsunset86@gmail.com