Bruce Dowbiggin
“Revise, Hide, Resubmit”: The Deadly Fabrication Of Covid Policy
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For all those attempting to enjoy this mask-free summer: Even as you fill up your car for $120 for a drive to the country— okay, a drive three blocks to the park— the Usual Suspects are priming the pump for a return to Lockdowns™ and Masks® this fall.
Fill your days with mirth because, according to the human tongue depressor Teresa Tam, come October you’ll likely be stepping over dead bodies again as another Covid variant ravages North America. Or else Monkeypox. Take your pick. After all, when have the Dr. Tams steered you wrong before? (She just got a 22 percent pay raise.) Her methods positively scream Science!
Or made up on the fly, if you believe Dr. Deborah Birx, the lady with the Hermes scarves in U.S. VP Mike Pence’s White House Covid Task Force. Her “scientific” method, as described in her new book Silent Invasion, was “write, submit, revise, hide, resubmit”. Hide? Hide what?
In her book, Birx reveals her scientific method for how many folks could attend Thanksgiving: “I had settled on ten knowing that even that was too many, but I figured that ten would at least be palatable for most Americans—high enough to allow for most gatherings of immediate family but not enough for large dinner parties and, critically, large weddings, birthday parties, and other mass social events.…
“Similarly, if I pushed for zero (which was actually what I wanted and what was required), this would have been interpreted as a ‘lockdown’—the perception we were all working so hard to avoid.” Science-y, huh? She just made up a number she could sell to president Donald Trump. Similarly, six-feet distancing was a concoction, too, to placate nervous politicians. So was endless hand washing.
Birx recalls how she tailored her lockdown/ masking prescriptions to suit politics, not science. “We had to make these palatable to the administration by avoiding the obvious appearance of a full Italian lockdown… We were playing a game of chess in which the success of each move was predicated on the one before it.”
Make no mistake. The pleasant-looking woman was calling the shots. As Doctor Scott Atlas, who battled Birx inside the White House, reveals in his book A Plague On Our Houses, Dr. Anthony Fauci stole the spotlight. “However, it was really Dr. Birx who articulated Task Force policy. All the advice from the Task Force to the states came from Dr. Birx. All written recommendations about their on-the-ground policies were from Dr. Birx. Dr. Birx conducted almost all the visits to states on behalf of the Task Force.”
What made her queen? Birx’s viral experience was with AIDS ( a non-aerosol virus) where she again traumatized huge swaths of the public into thinking they’d get a disease that infected a small proportion of the population. She admits that faked video from China’s first Covid wave in 2020 inspired the brutal isolation/ mask/ PCR testing regime she instituted (and which Canada followed).
As journalist Michael Senger observes, “the woman who did more than almost any other person in the United States to promote and prolong Covid lockdowns, silencing anyone who disagreed with her— to the incessant praise of mainstream media outlets—telling us she’d been inspired by all those images of Wuhan residents falling dead and constructing a hospital in 10 days, and still didn’t realize they were fake two years after they’d been proven fake.”
There’s more, much more, as Birx blithely recounts orchestrating the lockdown for a frightened, gullible public. “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it. Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread was a start, but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.”
As Jeffery Tucker writes, “It was a solution in search of evidence she did not have. She told Trump that the evidence was there anyway.” And convinced him to lock down society indefinitely. In Birx’s view, “symptoms mean next to nothing because people can always carry around the virus in their nose without being sick. After all, this is what PCR tests have shown. Instead of seeing that as a failure of PCR , she saw this as a confirmation that everyone is a carrier no matter what, and therefore everyone has to lock down, because otherwise we’ll deal with a black plague.”
It was a fire drill ridiculed by the pesky skeptics like writer Alex Berenson — who were soon shut down by Twitter, Facebook and social media at the behest of Birx and Fauci. For all the pressure to trust the white coats and deny those working in the trenches, it was political science, not medical science, writing the rules. And the medical authorities who enforced the catechism of Covid.
Contrary to the beneficent image Birx projected, she was determined to play the long game and chastise those, like Atlas, who contradicted her. ”She was furious, screaming at me, ‘NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!! AND IN THE OVAL!!’ I felt pretty bad, because she was so angry. I had absolutely no desire for conflict. But did she actually expect me to lie to the president, just to cover up for her? I responded, ‘Sorry, but he asked me a question, so I answered it’.”
In one of the least surprising admissions in her book Birx describes how she manipulated the anti-Trump Media Party: “In particular, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta was a key component of my strategy… He specifically spoke about a mild disease—another way to describe silent spread. I saw this as a sign that he got it. As a doctor himself, he could see what I was seeing. He could serve as a very good outside-government spokesperson, echoing my message.”
Birx was also not above a little entitlement. Writes Jeffery Tucker: “In the days before Thanksgiving 2020, she had warned Americans to ‘assume you’re infected’ and to restrict gatherings to “your immediate household.” Then she packed her bags and headed to Fenwick Island in Delaware where she met with four generations for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, as if she were free to make normal choices and live a normal life while everyone else had to shelter in place.”
This is not to say that every policy was flawed or every non-prescription drug a saviour. It is to state that as fall flu season arrives the public still has no one they can trust implicitly after the work of Birx & Tam. The best Biden and Trudeau can offer when confronted on needing more lockdowns is “Why take a chance?” For all their attempts to say “Trust Us”, there is nothing conclusive in the tsunami of claims faced every day about masking or vaccinating children, for instance.
Meanwhile, using the “Science” beloved by Biden & Trudeau, Americans officials are still reflexively hiving to Birx Law, scaring the public. “@nicolesaphire Jul 11 To be clear, the U.S. Open won’t allow (Novak) Djokovic to play an outdoor, no-contact sport because he hasn’t been vaccinated with a vaccine that has negligible efficacy in preventing transmission of the dominant BA.5 variant. What a joke U.S. public health has become.”
A joke with no punch line.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
The week after Grey Cup is always a good time to look in for our first serious analysis at how Canada’s NHL teams are doing. So let’s take a quick… WHOA… what’s happening here?
If the playoffs were to begin next week (we wish) then it would be a cold breakfast for teams in Elbows Up. Just two clubs—Winnipeg and Montreal— would even qualify for the postseason. And the Jets have just found out their star goalie Connor Hellybuyck is unlikely to play much before mid-January.
The two putative Canadian hopes for a first Stanley cup since 1993— Toronto and Edmonton— are sucking on vapour trails. After being raked 5-2 by Montreal, the Leafs have just a 24.9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Conor McDavid’s Oilers have a better percentage but their same old goaltending woes and a ticking clock on McDavid’s back.
Granted that, going into the weekend, no team in the East was more than four points out of the wild-card spot while all but three teams were within three points of a playoff spot in the West. But the Canadian teams are stuck behind some premium teams and need lotsa’ luck so they end up like Max Verstappen not Lance Stroll.
Maybe a Canadian men’s Olympic gold medal can reduce the sting of no Cup, no future for another season. But it won’t save the jobs of coaches in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver unlikely to survive also-ran status. Let’s take a close look at the not-so-magnificent seven starting west to east.
Vancouver: The Nucks have a sterling 4 percent chance of making the postseason as of this writing. In the powerful Western Conference that’s still an insult to a franchise that hasn’t recovered from the hasty 2013 firing of GM Mike Gillis—who won… let us us see… two Presidents Trophies and six Western Conference titles in a row. Since then? Uh, bagel.
It’s nice that Elias Petterson has come back from the morgue this season. But it will come down to goalie Thatcher Demko staying healthy and whether ownership wants to go full tank or just a quarter-tank for a draft pick. Hard to see Adam Foote surviving as coach.
Calgary: Speaking of tanking, everyone in Calgary wants the Flames to do a teardown for the top picks in the 2026 Draft. Everyone, except, for the Flames absentee owner Murray Edwards and his robo-spokesman Don Maloney. They want the five percent chance at a playoff spot and a mid-round first draft pick. The Flames missed the chance to restructure in 2023 when Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk departed. But again, denialism in the management suite tried to make it an even trade with Florida, sign huge new contracts and keep pushing. Bad decision.
Only question here is when does the purge begin and what can they get to help Dustin Wolf— signed for seven more years— in net?
Edmonton: We’ve written at length here and here about the McDavid saga. He and the management team halved the baby with a short-term deal to pretend he’s staying in the Chuck. Their healthy chance of making the playoffs (75.5 percent) says one thing. Their play in the putrid Pacific— they’re given up six-goals-plus five times in just 24 games— says another. But as long as McDavid and Leon Draisaitl stay healthy they might still finesse a ticket to a their third straight Finals ride.
But if they get near the trading deadline and the postseason is a mirage the noise to trade McDavid will be deafening. And the offers staggering for a capped-out team.
Winnipeg: Last year was supposed to be the Jets big year. Okay, that didn’t work out so well. The Jets kept their core together for another chance at finally making a serious playoff run. So it will all come down, as it has in the past, to the health and playoff juju of Hellybuyck. Their ticket out of the Central Division lies in beating powerful Colorado and Dallas and, if that happens, staying healthy.
The Jets would probably just as well their stars didn’t go get beat up in the Olympics, but that’s unlikely. There’s always been a karma about Winnipeg breaking the Canada Cup jinx. Still a long shot.
EAST
Toronto: So you’re saying Mitch Marner wasn’t the problem with the highly rated Maple Leafs never getting as far as the Conference Finals? They’re 3-5-2 in their last ten, their captain is still a sulky figure— only now his output doesn’t make it worthwhile. And the Toronto media is trying to do the players’ will to get coach Craig Berube fired for them. The same problems remain from years previous: dubious goaltending and a shallow talent pool on defence.
The biggest problem for the Leafs is their closing window for success. They’re old, have few tradeable assets in the system and have traded top picks away for short-term gains that never appeared. Expect fireworks after the Olympics if this crate doesn’t get moving. New MLSE boss Keith Pelley has no ties to the current administration and will sweep clean.
Ottawa: The Sens have managed to survive the loss of captain Brad Tkachuck to a broken finger. How? Ottawa have gotten goals from 17 different players which means they have balance. And so far they are above average 5-on-5. All good. They’ve also taken advantage of the mediocrity of the Leafs and other Eastern teams to stay afloat.
Their Achilles heel? Between the pipes. Both goalies have a save percentage under .875 and that ain’t going to cut it come spring. As always finances will limit their trades and manoeuvrability.
Montreal: The Habs were the fashionable pick before the season as the Canadian team most likely to get to the Cup they last won in 1993. Defenceman Laine Hutson is all that he promised last year. The dynamic top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky have cast back to the days of the Flying Frenchmen. Managing expectations in Montreal’s rabid hockey culture— where a misplaced apostrophe can cause chaos—means never taking anything for granted.
Now if only goaltender Jacob Dobes can keep up his play long enough for Sam Montembault to regain his form the Habs could be a thing in the spring. At this rate they might be the only thing.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
The Liberals’ first budget under Mark Carney— about nine months overdue— snuck through Parliament with Green Party leader-of-one Elizabeth “Margarita” May as the deciding vote. (All it took was a commitment to her insane climate targets.) A quick review of the Book of Revelations does not reveal this as a sign of the Apocalypse. But to Canadians who voted for a change in the spring it’s a rude reminder that no one is minding the store in Ottawa.
The Parliament Hill media has largely shelved discussion of Carney’s budget ‘guzintas (the PBO said there is a “less than 10 percent chance the government will keep its deficit-to-GDP ratio on a downward track through 2029-30… and Finance Canada has “changed its reporting of deficit financing, separating capital from operational spending.”) Translation: If Carney keeps on this track till 2030 the total GST collected from Canadians will not be enough to service the federal debt.
The chattering class is, however, full speed ahead on their Pierre Poilievre deathwatch. The leader of the CPC is one of their more anodyne figures to lead a party since Mackenzie King. His earnest kitchen-table schtick is about as dynamic as a cheese sandwich. Even when he famously defenestrated a blundering BC journalist in an apple orchard he never raised his voice. (What page am I taking from Trump’s book?”)
In the House of Commons, he has performed a monotone strafing of Liberal policy since becoming leader in 2023. He hasn’t elbowed aside a female NDP member. In the fine tradition of the House he does mock the Liberals front bench, throws water on their fevered policies and acts like a vice-principal of a small high school disciplining a student.
But in the judgment of today’s febered media— okay, the Liberals— he’s “rage-farming” or “rage-baiting” when pointing out that Canada’s debt is out of control, its real estate is a bubble waiting to burst and the relationship with the U.S. is flat lining. In fact he’s all rage, all the time, for their purposes. According to Carney’s bots, Poilievre stoops “to stirring and riling up ‘white-trash’ elements in society into hateful rhetoric against the prime minister. “
Team Carney has gloried in his travails since Donald Trump upended the spring election by cozying up to Carney. (Poilievre didn’t help himself taking pot shots at Trump who then dismissed Poilievre). CBC/ CTV/ Global savants who spit every time they mention Trump bizarrely were suddenly in enthusiastic approval of Orange Man Bad spanking PP for them.
The tone about his performance as opposition leader is vitriolic. “Pierre Poilievre’s rage-baiting and empty slogans aren’t what Canada needs”. His slogans (stolen by Carney during the election campaign), his by-election win in Alberta, his insistence on core issues— it drives the panelists on talk shows to fits for pique.
Which is funny when you think about it. Those with longer memories can recall the hijinx of the Liberals’ Rat Pack in the 1980s and 90s. Led by Sheila Copps (dubbed Tequila Sheila by Tory justice minister John Crosbie), Don Boudria and John Nunziata they were an early version of Polievere and Melissa Lantsman and the CPC front bench. Just more obnoxious.
Except the wind therapists were amused by them. Instead of rage monkeys they were the subjects of puckish CBC features. Copps could speak Italian with her (Hamilton) constituents and also had “perfect French,” said reporter Jason Moscovitz.” But she needles Mulroney in plain English,” he added, as Copps introduced a question for Brian Mulroney by comparing him to to Johnny Carson.
The irreverent Rats even produced their own T-shirts to wear in the House. “Other MPs say he’s sleazy, slimy, and a snake,” said Moscovitz, of Nunziata as he donned one of the T-shirts. So Nunziata used the same words in the House of Commons.”Sleazy, slimy Tory patronage!” he proclaimed on the floor of the House.
Laugh? We could have died. It was entertaining in the collegial debating club of the time. The sparring of the feisty Copps and her target John Crosbie was mint.
But now that the Liberals are entering a second decade of mismanaging the nation, their appetite for impertinence has disappeared. So the clever ripostes of Copps are now Poilievre “rage” farming and “rage baiting”. Some people have noticed the contrast: “Caucus unrest treated as a calamity when it involves the Conservatives, while Liberals get a pass” But the bubble-bound Canadian public only hears one slant.
In the U.S. there are hopeful signs of a bubble breakthrough. Hip TV host Bill Maher was forced to tell Woke comedian Patton Oswalt that his BlueSky world was strangling him. He enlightens an oblivious Oswalt on the UK grooming gangs. He also brought him up to reality when Oswalt said the Left never orders gender off of passports.
It’s not much, but it’s hopeful, at least in America. Here in Canada the information corridor is so thoroughly policed by the culture Stasi (using their dreaded Trump guns) that nothing can get through. Singing O Canada and not abusing the lyrics is considered a sacrilege on the Left. Daniel Smith is a Trumpist etc. Carney is intent on importing British hate speech convictions, not AI chips and nuclear energy.
If that isn’t enough of a bummer remember that Carney is just a stop-gap, a guy to rag the puck for a few years till the Liberals have groomed Justin’s eldest for the PMO. Where he can complete the Woking of traditional Canada that Grandpapa Pierre started in 1968.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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