Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 496 | 'Vaccine Apostles': How the COVID Cult Hurts People

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Today we're going over more data on COVID that goes against the mainstream narrative. The Left is still intent on forcing kids in schools to wear masks all day, but there just isn't any data to suggest that will help anyone, and in fact it's more likely to do harm to kids. Then, we discuss New York Governor Kathy Hochul's speech in which she called vaccinated people "the smart ones" and called on her audience to be her "apostles" for the vaccine. --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs — making things with your hands is so good for you! It's therapeutic & stress-relieving, & Annie's makes it easy. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first kit! Good Ranchers safely delivers American craft beer & better than organic chicken, right to your door! Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & use promo code 'ALLIE' to save $20 off & free express shipping, or save 20% when you subscribe! --- Past Episode Mentioned: Ep 495: The Truth About 'Social Emotional Learning' & What Your Kids Are Reading | Guest: Sherry Clemens https://apple.co/3m5Z5OA --- Show Links: CDC: "2017 - 2018 Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths and Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths Averted By Vaccination in the United States" https://bit.ly/3B1Xwaw New York Intelligencer: "The Science of Masking Kids at School Remains Uncertain" https://nym.ag/3zOPKQ0 The Atlantic: "The Downsides of Masking Young Students Are Real" https://bit.ly/3D98nR1 Wall Street Journal: "The Case Against Masks for Children" https://on.wsj.com/2Y5nzzq CDC: "Association Between K-12 School Mask Policies and School-Associated COVID-19 Outbreaks — Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona July-August 2021 https://bit.ly/39N2JXP The Atlantic: "Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning" https://bit.ly/39LPnv6 AllieBethStuckey.com: "Why Kids (And You) Shouldn't Be Forced to Mask" https://bit.ly/3nRtz9q --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful day, a wonderful week so far. So a couple things before we start. We're going to talk about some COVID things. But I just want to remind you that next Tuesday is our 500th episode. And I am super, super excited about it. We've got a bunch of fun.

things planned, things that we are working on. It's going to be a super fun episode. One thing that I'm asking you guys to contribute to that episode, and not the whole thing will be this, but a good chunk of it will be. You guys, if you would send me a voicemail and, let me pull up the voicemail number so I can give it to you. But if you would send me a voicemail telling me something that you have especially appreciated a bit about. the show or something that's something that your mind has changed on because of the show, then that would mean so much to us. And we will play several of those in our 500th episode. The number is, are you ready, 682-503-1369, 682-503-1369. That's where you can leave

a voicemail for relatable. We will be listening to those and we will play, like I said, said several of them, not all of them. And if we don't get to yours, it's not because I didn't so appreciate it. It's not because I'm not grateful to you for taking the time to do that. We just do have a limited amount of time. But please, if you haven't done that, please do so. That would mean a whole lot to us. I'm really, really excited about our 500th episode. I can't believe it's been that long. All right. Let's get into today's episode. One more thing, actually. Speaking of voicemails, we're going to play one or two or a few. I don't know how would you rather that you guys sent me via voicemail? And maybe I'll talk about one or two

couple other fun, separate things at the end of this episode. So stay tuned for that. All right. Today, though, we're going to talk about the new governor of New York, who took the place of Andrew Cuomo when he resigned. She gave a speech at a church in Brooklyn about God wanting you, calling you to get the vaccine and you being her apostles and going out and sharing the good news of vaccination. We're going to talk through some data and discuss how yet again the CDC has proven itself to be a political entity rather than a scientific one, specifically as it comes to booster shots. And then I said, like I said at the end, we might talk about a couple other things. Let's talk about first, why does talking about all of this COVID stuff matter? And I just like to

remind everyone of this because we've been talking about it for so long, so persistently, especially over the past few months. But I'm reminded every day, every week, how much the truth matters, especially on this, based on things that are not true based on feelings, not grounded in reality, people are making policies that are negatively affecting people. And so the truth matters. And I don't have a monopoly on the truth. I'm not trying to say that. but certainly there should be a lively debate about the facts surrounding the virus and the measures that have been taken that are being taken to supposedly mitigate the spread of the virus. Like we should be looking at this from a variety of perspectives and I am offering you a different

perspective. And when I do, it's not my opinion. I'm not saying I have a hunch about this, that I, you know, am an armchair epidemiologist. That's certainly not what I'm saying. I'm saying, let's look at the data. Let's look at some peer reviewed studies that are not making it into the mainstream. And let's talk about those and try to, as well as we can, deduce some things from it that may have an effect on the policy decisions that the people in charge make. That is, if you actually think that this is about public health and science anymore, which I certainly have my doubts. I watched a speech of a parent the other day. It was actually in the same school district as the guest that we had yesterday, talked to a mom from Richardson ISD, who found a bunch of

just pornographic, grotesque things in a book that her eighth grader was recommended by a teacher. Go listen to that episode. If you haven't already, it's maddening, also super encouraging and inspiring to listen to the mom that stood up for her children. But I was listening to some of the speech is at that school board meeting and I listened to this mom talking about masks. So Richardson Independent School District in Texas, it's a suburb outside of Dallas. They are defying Governor Abbott's mandate or ban against mask mandates in school districts. What that means is not that a kid can't wear a mask or that a parent can't make a kid wear a mask or ask their kid to wear a mask. What it simply means is that the school cannot force the students to wear a

mask, it should be up to the parents. And so a lot of people who are, you know, freaking out about this ban on mask mandates seem to be very afraid of choice when it comes to masks, but of course, they're all about bodily autonomy and choice when it comes to killing an unborn child, but we don't have time to get into that kind of hypocritical argument. So this particular mom at the school board meeting was saying that kids without masks are biological weapons, that they're murdering people with their germs. And that is why she believes her school or her school district should defy Governor Abbott's ban on mask mandates and just mandate them anyway. Except her arguments, as passionate and as articulate as she was, and as much as I am sure she cares truly

about her children, what she was saying just wasn't factual. Like, we know that kids are not walking around murdering people like with their COVID germs. Remember, there have been, according to the CDC, 464 deaths of people ages 0 to 17 involving COVID. That's the CDC's words. And so there are instances when they simply had COVID. They also maybe had something else that primarily killed them because also if you look at the CDC data, the vast majority of these kids, if not all of these kids who died, quote, involving COVID, had some kind of underlying condition.

that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter that we should discount that, but it's important to know those facts. Again, to have some perspective if the truth is supposed to be influencing public policy, which has an effect on millions of people. So, 464 deaths, people ages 0 to 17, evolving COVID since February of 2020. So that's more than, or that's about a year and a half at this point. Now, for some further perspective, there are 73 million people aged 0 to 17 in the United States. So that is 0.000 63% of the adolescent population that has died involving COVID, according to the CDC. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,000 children die in car accidents every year. So almost 10 times the number of kids die in car wrecks in one year than have died from COVID in a year and a half.

So I'm just saying if you're not refusing to put your kid in your car to go somewhere, then you shouldn't be scared of them dying from COVID. Or you can be scared of both. And trust me, I can relate to that. You can choose to shield them from everything forever so that they're just purposeless little balls of anxiety their whole lives. And like I said, I get that. Like I'm a warrior. You love your kids. I don't doubt that.

But thankfully, like isn't this good. news? Isn't it good news that we don't have to live in fear of kids dying from COVID because the risk is so low? Isn't that a good thing? Like, shouldn't we feel liberated from that? Shouldn't we be glad that we really don't have to inhibit our children's well-being? Their social, emotional welfare, their speech development, their cognitive development, their school experience, because of our fear of COVID for them, it just, it should be really good news. It should be good news that it is so incredibly rare that they get a serious case of COVID and they die from COVID. Could it happen? Yeah, it could happen. You could also get struck by lightning tomorrow.

It's really about a comparable risk for kids. And the 2017 to 2018 flu season, the CDC estimates that 643 children 17 and under a diet of the flu will include the link to that in the description so you can see for yourself. The CDC says this, quote, deaths in children with laboratory confirmed influenza virus infection are reportable in the United States and 183 deaths were reported for the 2017 to 2018 season. However, influenza associated pediatric deaths are likely underreported as not all children whose death was related to an influenza virus infection may have been tested for influenza. Therefore, we used a mathematical model to estimate the total number of pediatric deaths based on hospitalization rates and the frequency of death in and out

of the hospital from death certificates, estimating that there were more than 640 deaths associated with influenza in children. Again, that's 2017 to 2018 flu season. That's about a six-month period. So we haven't stopped kids their entire lives, or we haven't stopped kids entire lives because of the threat of the flu, have we? Then we shouldn't be doing that now, Here's the CDC director just a few weeks ago admitting on CNN that kids are not getting sicker from the Delta variant. Now, the Delta variant isn't making kids any sicker per se. Is it because the statistics as the studies have come back from children in COVID? What from the UK? What did we learn there?

Some 99.995% of the 470,000 children in England infected survived. I mean, that's an incredible survival rate. The delta variant isn't making kids any sick or, is it? We don't have any evidence that is doing so, and that's really great news. But I do want to emphasize and I know all of the data, and it is so true that all of the data say the kids do better than the adults. Transmission is less in schools than it might be in other places. So, I mean, that's from the horse's mouth. And I don't think that Rochelle Wollenski, I don't think that she does a good job.

Like, I think that she is very politicized. I think that she is not a confident, competent spokesperson for the CDC, but she was kind of made to admit what we know is true. I hear a lot of people talking about, well, the Delta variant has changed the game for kids or long COVID has changed the game. There's really no evidence that long COVID is anything different than long flu. And I'm not saying that COVID and the flu are the same thing for all age groups. It's not COVID. it's a lot deadlier for the older age groups than the flu is, but it's not deadlier for kids. And so this idea that, oh, yeah, we might not have to worry about COVID deaths right now among

kids, but we need to worry about long COVID. The evidence on that is shaky at best. It just seems like people are just clinging to this for no reason when it comes to kids. I just don't understand it in a way that other countries absolutely are not. Remember, the New York Magazine article analyzing the CD, sees data on masking in schools and demonstrating that the data does not show that masking actually does anything. At least that's the data doesn't show it either way is what he concluded. There's a good summary of that article, which we have talked about on this podcast a few times

now on fee.com that says a recent New York magazine article states that the science on masks remains uncertain but noted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May published a large-scale study of COVID transmission in U.S. schools. The study, which analyzed some 90,000 elementary students in 169 Georgia schools from November 16th to December 11th, found there was no statistically significant difference in schools that required students to wear masks compared to schools where masks were optional. The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. the CDC said. This finding might be attributed to higher effectiveness of masks among adults who are at higher risk for COVID-19 infection, but might also result from differences in mask wearing

behavior among students in schools with optional requirements. And so the point is that looking at the data, I mean, there was no way to be able to tell. Like there wasn't any kind of statistical difference. We also read the article in the Atlantic by Vene Prasad, who is an epidemiology professor at UC San Francisco who writes this, quote, no scientific consensus exists about the wisdom of mandatory masking rules for school children. The World Health Organization, which recommends that children 12 and underwear masks under the same circumstance, or sorry, 12 in older, not 12 and under, 12 in older wear masks under the same circumstances that adults do, specifically advises against masking kids age 5 and younger. Many European nations have been taking the

agency's advice. The United Kingdom has emphasized rapid testing instead of masking and has not required elementary school students or their teachers to wear a face covering. Mask mandates can be challenging for little children to follow and deprive them of stimuli they need. In addition to recommending masks for young kids, CDC guidelines also urge masks for most vaccinated caregivers who work in infant daycare centers. This advice also deviates from standard practice in other nations, including the UK. Many studies support the importance of babies seeing caregivers faces. Of course, of course, we all know this. And prior to the arrival of COVID-19, many American professional organizations, including the AAP, strongly agreed. Now, I'm just going to insert my commentary

here, and I think that I've spoken about this before, but the AAP had a section on their website that talked about the importance of smiling at children, not just at school and in daycare, but also at home. and why it's so important for their social development, their speech development, to be able to see faces, to see the formation of words, to see smiles. And then when people started posting that on Twitter, they took it off their website. I mean, talk about Orwellian. Did the science change? Did they make a statement saying, you know, we've gathered some data and we realize that's no longer true. No, they didn't say anything about it. They pushed it down the memory hole. We've always been at war with East Asia.

I mean, it's insanity. It's insanity to me how people don't see this at this point. The article goes on to say, and I know I'm reading a lot out of it, but I just think that it's really good. He says, K through eight schools in a fluent and highly educated Palo Alto, California, require kids to mask even outdoors at recess. San Diego schools recently announced an outdoor mask mandate as well. Yet scientists have known for some time the outdoor transmission is exceedingly rare. and many experts believe the outdoor masking is misguided. When masks are required in outdoor settings, kids may experience limitations in play,

exercise tolerance, and socialization. And actually, I just saw, and this just came to my head, and I don't have it right in front of me, that obesity has increased by something like 30% or something like that among kids ages 5 to 11 over the past year and a half. and we're going to try to inhibit their recreation, their exercise even more by putting a mask on them outside? I mean, for what gain? That's what he asks too? For what gain?

The benefits of mask requirements in schools might seem self-evident. They have to help contain the coronavirus, right? But that may not be so. In Spain, masks are used in kids ages, ages, six, and older. The authors of one study, there examined the risk of viral spread at all ages. If masks provided a large benefit, then the transmission. rate among five-year-olds would be far higher than the rate among six-year-olds. The results of that study in Spain do not show that, he says.

Instead, they show that transmission rates, which were low among the youngest kids, steadily increased with age, rather than dropping sharply for older children subject to the face-covering requirement. This suggests that masking kids in school does not provide a major benefit and might provide none at all. So if you don't believe me, like if you think that I'm politicizing this, Listen to other doctors. Listen to epidemiologists that are standing up and saying, no, this doesn't make sense. And ask yourself why organizations like the CDC, the AAP, won't actually give you the science behind making, for example, two-year-olds wear masks or why they have decided to defy the WHO when it comes to this.

Why America and maybe Canada, I'm not sure, stands alone when it comes to masking little kids, even Australia where it's literally a police. these state in some parts. They don't make kids wear masks. And so this is, you know, people get mad when I say this, but it's true. If you are making your kid at this point wear a mask, and I'm not just talking about, okay, you have to get on a plane, you have no other option, you have to make your kid wear a mask. I'm talking about if you are choosing to make your kid wear a mask, whether you know it or not, you're doing it because of politics. You're doing it because of politics. The data isn't there. The science is not there. You're doing it because, and again, I'm sure it's not intentional, but because you have been told this is what it looks like to be safe, to be smart, to be scientific,

to love your neighbor. But none of those descriptors are actually true if the reason that you're masking your child isn't actually based in any scientific evidence. It's crazy. It's crazy. So we've also talked about Dr. Marty McCarie. He is a professor at the Johns Hopkins. Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He writes for Wall Street Journal about the adverse effects of masks on kids. He says, quote, in March, Ireland's Department of Health announced that it won't require masks in schools because they may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students. Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths. Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well documented that children

who mouth breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face. The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry. Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion, and happiness. That's something that I really worry about. I really worry about kids who are victimized, who are unable to describe their abuser who are unable to even express their discomforts, I just think it puts kids in a very vulnerable situation. And gosh, I can't even imagine what we're doing to them long term, which I'll talk about in a second. The article goes on to say by Dr. McCari, covering a child's face, mutes these

nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety, and depression. Seeing people speak as a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment. Also, a University of Waterloo study finds, and we've talked about this before, that cloth masks and surgical masks are not effective. Hardly at all. New York Post reports this. The results show that a standard surgical and three-ply cloth mask filter at apparent efficiencies of only 12.4% and 9.8% respectively. And that is if the masks are totally clean and totally dry, which the dryness and the cleanliness of those masks goes away in about 20 minutes.

We've talked about that that's according to another study that was done several years ago, I think in 2010 that I linked to in the long post on my website that I did about masks and all the studies that show that especially for kids, they're not all that effective. However, I want to give air to this because you might have seen a new study by the CDC that came out on the 24th that looked at schools in Arizona. The study finds this, quote, in the two largest Arizona counties with variable K through 12 school masking policies, the onset of the 2021 to 2022 academic year, the odds of a school associated COVID-19 outbreak were 3.5 times higher in schools with no mask requirement than in those with a mask requirement implemented at the time school

started. So what do we make of all of that? I'll tell you what I think that we should make of that of that, in light of everything else that we know and the other data that we have. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself.

On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us. So how do we square that what I just read about Arizona schools with the CBC study from a few months ago that was reported on a New York magazine of the 90,000 students in Georgia that showed that there there's really no evidence that masking helps. Well, I actually am guessing that they go together pretty perfectly. So David Zwick, I think that's how you pronounce his last name, the author of that New York Magazine article that analyzed the CDC Georgia study, writes this, quote,

At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published notable yet mostly ignored large-scale study of COVID transmission in American schools. A few major news outlets covered its release by briefly reiterating the study's summary. That masking then on vaccinated teachers and improving ventilation with more fresh air were associated with the lower incidence of the virus in schools. Those are common sense measures and the fact that they seem to work is reassuring but not surprising. Other findings of equal importance in the study, however, were absent from the summary and were

not widely reported. So that's one problem that he talked about. he was on a podcast talking about this and he said, you know, these studies, they give a summary and that's the only thing sometimes that journalists actually read. And so that's the only thing that they report on rather than digging into the data. And why not all of the findings are included in the summary that they know that most people are going to read? I'm not sure. But David's Wigg actually dug into the data. And he goes on to say this in his article. These findings cast doubt on the impact of many of the most common mitigation, measures in American schools, distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, hepa filters, and most notably requiring student masking, were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective. So knowing this from that CDC study, my question would be, what were the other differences between the schools analyzed in the CDC's Arizona study? Was there better ventilation in

Some schools did some schools spend more time outside. There are so many factors that could come into play here. And I think it's really important to look at them before we maybe unintentionally make a correlation causation fallacy. And even if it were true that there were higher case rates, just higher case rates in those schools without masks and say it even was because of the masks, which again, in light of the other data that we know, probably not, at least not probably not exclusively because of the masks. My question would still be, so what? So what? If you're a kid,

COVID, mostly, mostly, mostly, mostly, mostly, is no big deal for you. And if you're an elderly person who works at a school, you're a person who's vulnerable, or you live with someone who's vulnerable, you are totally free to get the vaccine, which has been available to you for a long time. That vaccine is supposed to protect you from serious illness and death. And if you're an adult who hasn't gotten the vaccine, well, you don't want to at this point. And you can't be scared of someone spreading it to you because you've made the decision not to get the vaccine. And so you have already kind of calculated your risks and all of that. And you're probably not afraid of a child spreading it to you. So I just don't understand. I don't understand what benefit there is to kids being

masked. I just don't. The risks clearly, in my opinion, from the fact, from the data, that we see from the arguments being made by many epidemiologists, the risks outweigh the benefits when it comes to masking kids. And when I see, as I have many times, I was in D.C. this past weekend and I saw this several times, parents walking around without a mask outside, which is fine. Great. Don't wear a mask outside. But they're holding the hand of their little four-year-old or five-year-old who is wearing one. When I see so help me, when I see that, it just frustrable. frustrates me so much. I mean, to be completely charitable, I do think people still have this erroneous idea that masks actually protect the wearer. So maybe they think that they're protecting their kids

walking around outside, literally not even within 30 feet of anyone by making them wear a cloth mask when it's 80 degrees. Maybe they think that they're protecting their child. But masks don't actually protect the wearer. And they've never claimed the CDC has never claimed that the masks are supposed to protect you. That's never been it. The mask is supposed to. to, supposed to. Stop your sickness from getting on someone else. But that's really only true. If you've got a certain kind of mask on that is clean, that is sterile, that is fitted perfectly, an in-95 mask has a pretty good effectiveness, at least from that University of Waterloo study, or at least a lot more than, you know, a three-plight surgical mask or, you know, a cloth mask.

So much of this, guys, so much of this is just, it's nonsense. It's nonsensical. We played the videos last week of two-year-olds being forced to mask against their wishes. I've gotten many messages from parents saying that they're hard-of-hearing children or their special needs child or their child in speech therapy, especially kids with autism that really are struggling to and trying to learn how to socially interact, how to pick up on people's emotions, that they're really struggling right now. I don't understand why we don't care about that.

We are supposedly, and I say a big emphasis on supposedly, we're supposedly this empathetic understanding society and yet COVID fear trumps everything. It gives people an excuse to appear loving by wearing a mask without actually having to be loving and self-sacrificial by doing what's actually best for those around us, especially the most vulnerable, especially children. I think Jesus had something to say about that, something about, you know, whitewashed tombs looking righteous on the outside but not actually having righteousness and love on the inside. I don't know. I seem, that seems to call something to mind. Anyway, all of this matters because these things affect people. These things affect people. I can't help but think that we are created a generation who is going to be even more anxious than millennials in Gen Z. The skim posted a picture of this precious little boy, probably. nine years old on their Instagram account who wore his mask in school in school pictures because

he said his mom told him that he couldn't take it off even for school pictures. Now, who knows if his mom actually said that or if she actually met school pictures, but he's, he didn't take off his mask. And he's just like, he's just, you know, sitting there with his little mask on for school pictures. And it's super sad to me. It's super sad. Again, it's nonsensical. We're teaching kids to be afraid of everything and everyone and to be irrational. Do you think, think that we need more irrationality and fear today? Or do we maybe need some more strength and some more courage, some more logic? And yes, of course, we need healthy discernment. We need wisdom and we need a healthy fear of the right things. Absolutely. But illogic and hysteria in isolation and further

distrust and division? No. And again, I say that as someone who definitely has the propensity to choose safety over strength for my kids. I want to protect them from all the things, all the time. But I also really want them, even more I want them to be functioning, critically thinking, wise, brave, kind, contributing adults who follow the Jesus who spit his ministry touching lepers. I mean, I cannot simultaneously teach my kids to love their neighbor and regard their neighbor as a virus vector. I cannot expect my children to be like, to be like Christ who mingled with, touched, and healed the sick and unclean if I teach them that their number one priority in life is not catching a cold from someone else. I can't teach my kids how giving a warm smile to a

stranger in the grocery store can change someone's day for the better if their faces are covered all the time, especially a covering that is not scientifically necessary for them in especially in situations like the grocery store or outside when we're passing by people that we don't know. It's not actually doing anything for anyone. It's not actually doing anything beneficial for anyone, I should say. So not only are we not teaching kids love, we're also not teaching them truth. And I just won't, I won't be a part of that. I'm sorry. Lies about masks and kids and risks affect people. Probably you want to talk about long COVID, which like I said is just very shaky evidence-wise.

Let's talk about the long-term social, psychological, emotional impact that we're having on kids that I promise you will be far more damaging to them than COVID is right now. Our kids may be affected forever by this. And the people who are spreading these lies, who are trying to whip up fear of parents, I don't even know why, honestly, just for clicks, control, I don't, I don't know. Or the people at least who are refusing to correct those misplaced fears. They don't care. They don't care. But lies affects people. And there's more than one example of this. We've talked about this. We talked about this a lot last week. This,

this story had me fired up, fired up. And we'll get back to COVID. But think about the Biden administration and the media spreading lies about the Border Patrol agents, whipping migrants. I talked about extensively on Instagram because I was so incensed about this. I talked about how that just wasn't true. We looked at the different angles of the different photos that were taken. We looked at actually the video footage. The photographer actually came out and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, this picture is being taken out of context. What people are saying was happening with like migrants being rounded up and whipped like cattle.

That just wasn't true. And yet you had every Democratic politician, including Joe Biden himself, saying, oh, this is not who we are. Biden actually took the podium and said, they will pay. It was a lie. It was all based on a lie. They were just doing their jobs. And yet the agents, based on this lie, were demoted and the agents can no longer use their horses to do their jobs. And the border will be more open, more vulnerable because of that. And none of these people that are crossing over, to bring it back to what we were talking about, are vaccinated. Most probably aren't even tested. Most aren't wearing masks. And yet, the Secretary of Defense just said we've

accepted at least 12,000 Haitian migrants into the United States. Now, if you want to know about, you know, refugee status and what's really going on and the deleterious effects of having open borders and having Border Patrol agents that are prohibited from being able to do their jobs effectively, go back and listen to last week's episode. We'll link. It's on this topic, and we talk about also how to approach it biblically. But a lie about Border Patrol, being migrants became public opinion and public opinion became policy. And now that policy will have serious effects on real people. I mean, those guys who are doing their jobs who from at least the footage that we saw weren't doing anything wrong, they weren't being abusive, they were actually

holding back a lot. I mean, really, a Border Patrol agent trying to enforce the law by grabbing a grown man's t-shirt, like that is going to be what sends people into the spiral of hysteria and not the hundreds of images that we have seen of little kids being drugged and smuggled across the border because of these lax border policies? It's just, it's crazy. It's so clearly political and it's so clearly nefarious. Now these guys who are making, I don't know, maybe $60,000 a year who already had an almost impossible job anyway because they haven't been equipped and supported by this administration. Now they've been demoted. Do they take a pay cut? Have their lives been ruined? are people still trying to docks him?

Like, think about their wives and their children and the people they know them. Because he grabbed the guy's t-shirt who was trying to enter the country illegally, like it was worth Joe Biden perpetuating a lie and trying to ruin their lives. What? But lies affect people. They affect policy. And the people who perpetuated that lie about the Border Patrol agents, they won't feel an ounce of guilt about it in the same way,

in the same way that the people who are perpetuating lies and are exaggerating. the risks of COVID to kids and the benefit of masks to kids, they won't feel an ounce of guilt in 10 years when we realize all of the negative psychological effects that these measures are having on kids. Other lies, like all police officers are racist, so let's defund the police based on that narrative. Well, now murder has ravaged cities like Minneapolis who have made that choice. lies have consequences left and right. It's not just a left-wing issue. Lies have consequences, whether it's Donald Trump saying a lie, whether it's Joe Biden saying a lie. Jesse Kelly did make a great point, though, about all of this on Twitter, a great sad point about all of this. He said 12,000 unvaccinated illegal immigrant Haitians are currently being fully supported by the United States.

and they're being brought into the United States, but a health care worker in New York who doesn't want the vaccine is currently unemployed and is not even eligible for unemployment benefits. Crazy. I mean, New York, and we're going to talk about the New York Governor in just a second. She said that they're calling in the National Guard to replace the health care workers that are being fired because of their refusal to get the vaccine. What?

What? How can we say that that's about health care? Can you honestly say that that's better? I mean, we've already seen the hospital in New York. There was at least one hospital in New York. I've heard a couple other reports of this happening around the country that they had to stop delivering babies because there were so many labor and delivery nurses that because of the vaccine mandate decided to quit their jobs. And anyone who says, well, I don't want unvaccinated people treating me. So you think it's better to not get treated at all? You think it's better that there are no longer competent nurses working in these places? so people don't get any care that they need? You think that that's better? So health care workers, servicemen and women,

people who signed up to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country, people in all kinds of jobs, even people, you know, frontline workers who never stopped working at the height of the pandemic, who risked, you know, getting sick, decided to still go out there and do their job. These people are being forced to quit. They're being fired.

because they aren't getting this vaccine for many different sincere reasons. Maybe religious. Maybe they want to wait and see. Maybe they're pregnant or breastfeeding and they just want to see more data. Maybe they have a medical reason. Maybe these people have already had it. So they know that their natural immunity, as we read last week in that Israel pre-print study, and as Dr. Fauci has said himself, and as the New York Times has reported, is very strong and very enduring. You are less likely as an unvaccinated person who has gotten COVID to be re-infected than a vaccinated person who has never gotten COVID previously. And all vaccinated adults, by the way, as we also talked about last week, are still more likely to die from COVID than an unvaccinated person under the age of 18.

I'm going to read you this quote. So there was, you know, a meeting about booster shots by the FDA. And there were a bunch of different doctors that came together and they discussed the need for booster shots and whether or not booster shots were something that were necessary. You might have seen Joe Biden. He got his booster shot on air. A lot of people were saying, did he really? I'm guessing it's real. Like he got his booster shot on air. And the FDA originally said, no, no booster shots. We don't know. We don't have enough data. We don't need this. But now it seems like the CDC is influenced. again by politics by the Biden administration to say, oh, no, we need booster shots. And why does it have to do with the support of companies like Pfizer? I don't know. I don't know.

But so Dr. Joseph Freeman. So I looked at the transcript of this FDA meeting and maybe I'll link to the transcript. It's like eight hours long and all of these different doctors are going back and forth talking about whether or not we should do booster shots. And I just thought that this was interesting from Dr. Joseph Freeman. He says this, no conflicts to declare. I'm an emergency physician educated at Cornell Medical School, my residency with Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

And I've been working in this region since where I work over 65% of the population are not vaccinated. I'm here today to ask for help for those working the front line to help us reduce vaccine hesitancy. For this, we need larger trials that demonstrate the vaccine reduces hospitalization without finding evidence of serious harm. I know many think the vaccine hesitant or dumb or just misinformed. That's not at all what I've seen.

In fact, typically independent of education level, the vaccine hesitant I've met in the ER are more familiar with vaccine studies and more aware of their own COVID risk than the vaccinated. And then he says next slide, please. For example, many of my nurses have refused the vaccine despite having seen COVID-19 caused more death and devastation than most people have. I ask them, why refuse the vaccine? tell me while they've seen the firsthand dangers of COVID and the elderly, the obese and

diabetics that their risk is low. They're not wrong. Next slide, please. He says, one nurse showed me this Oxford risk calculator. A 30-year-old female has about a 1 in 7,000 chance of catching COVID and being hospitalized over 90 days. She asked me, can I assure her that the studies found her risk of serious harm from the vaccine is lower than her risk of hospitalization? The truth is, I can't. So this Dr. Joseph Joseph. Freeman, who is clearly pro-vaccine. He wants to convince people to get the vaccine. At least he is giving credit to the people, to many of the people who don't want the vaccine, who have done a lot of research. Now, maybe that's not true for everyone who is refusing the vaccine. Maybe some people

truly, you know, they believe in conspiracy theories. But at this point, if someone hasn't gotten the vaccine, like, they probably cannot be convinced. And yet you had Joe Biden say yesterday that we need like 98% of the country to get the vaccine before we can move on. And we can move Is there any historical precedent for that kind of thing for saying like that is threshold for when we can move on past a particular disease? I guarantee you not even 98% of the country has had their MMR shot. Like there are probably a lot of adults walking around right now who either got their MMR shot when they were young and it ended up fading because that does happen. That's why, for example, your OB might tell you when you're pregnant to get the MMR shot again or they just never got. not that they never got the MMR shot.

Like there's a bunch of baby boomers who never got measles mumps or Rubella, but they also didn't get MMR when they were younger because it wasn't on the list of immunizations that were required for kids. So I guarantee you, there's a ton of people, a much bigger percentage than 2% who have never gotten their MMR shot who are walking around fine. We've never thought about it. But now we have to have 98% of people vaccinated in order to move on with our lives. Like when are you guys going to realize?

this does not have to do with the science for the most part. For the most part, I'm not saying it never does. I'm not saying COVID is fake. I'm not saying it doesn't threaten people. I'm just saying the measures that we're taking at this point, the policies that are being put into place at this point really don't make a whole lot of sense and obviously hurt more than help, especially when you see hospitals like those in New York that are really struggling.

Like when you see police officers in Melbourne, Australia and in France, beating unarmed women pushing elderly people to the ground who are peacefully protesting the lockdowns and they're doing so in the name of health? Like, do you honestly think that once you get vaccinated or do whatever else that they want you to do? If they want you to wear a, I don't know, a hat with a spinning wheel on top of it and they tell you that somehow gets the germs away from you and that you won't get COVID, I guess people would be willing to do that too. Like, do you honestly think that if you do, if everyone does what the government tells them to do that things are going to go back to normal, does this seem normal to you?

Does, like, dispatching the police, the militarized police around the world in places like Australia and France to try to push people to the grounds who are peacefully protesting or who are just in the wrong place, I saw a terrible video yesterday of a man in Melbourne, Australia, who was like smoking a cigarette outside with one of his friends who was like you know, 100 yards from his house, he was literally tackled to the ground by police officers, hands behind his back and got arrested. His friend is standing there like, what the heck are you doing? We weren't doing anything wrong. And the police in the video, you can hear them say he has no valid reason to be out in this park and eating with his friends. Like, do you think that has to do with

normalcy? Do you think that has to do with health? Is it healthier for these police officers to approach this person and get right in his face than it is to, than it is for the, than it is for the to just leave him alone and eat outside in peace? Like what about any of the people in charge makes you think that normal is the goal that they have? Like, does history give us many examples of people who get unprecedented power and then give it up willingly? No. No, no, it does not. Okay, let's play this interesting clip from our good friend, governor of New York, Kathy Hokel.

We are not through this pandemic. I wished we were. but I prayed a lot to God during this time. And you know what? God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers. He made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us.

And we must say thank you, God. Thank you. And I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say, I'm vaccinated. All of you. Yes, I know you're vaccinated. You're the smart ones. But you know there's people out there who aren't listening. to God and what God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go

out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love? But to care about each other enough to say, please get vaccinated because I love you. I want you to live. I want our kids to be safe when they're in schools. I want you to be safe when you go to a doctor's office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody, You don't want to get the virus from them. You're already sick or you wouldn't be there. We have to solve this, my friends. I need every one of you.

I need you to let them know that this is how we can fight this pandemic, come back to normal, and then start talking about the real issues that we have to. Fighting systemic racial injustice, which exists today. And if there's a denier, I will take you on any date because I've seen it. I know it exists. And we are not going to have a blind eye to this ever again. any longer under my watch. And that is my commitment to you.

How does that last part always get in there? Like we, there wasn't even talking about that. And somehow, like, let's bring in the racial injustice point. So, so strange. I have so many problems with that. I did say something that I was probably too rude.

And I regret saying on Instagram. When I posted this on Instagram, I said something super snarky, which honestly, I'm being serious. I shouldn't have said. said, you know what, people who are pro-abortion, that part is true, and who haven't read their Bible in 27 years, shouldn't pretend like they have moral and spiritual authority. That was rude. I do not know that she hasn't read her Bible in 27 years. In fact, I read some other things about

her, and, you know, she's Catholic, and I'm sure she has, you know, read her Bible. I should not have said that, so I apologize for being snarky. Her argument just really bothered me, and I'll explain, I'll explain why. First, just factually. Unvaccinated does not mean infected. Also vaccinated doesn't mean not infected. So someone who doesn't have the vaccine may not be infected and is therefore not passing it on. And someone who is vaccinated may have it. It may pass it on.

And you're not necessarily less likely to get COVID. And you're definitely not less likely to pass COVID once you get COVID if you are vaccinated. We have talked several times now about that CDC map that we have linked that you can look at vaccination rates. that vaccination rates and case rates. There are many parts of the country right now that have high vaccination rates and some of the highest case rates in the country. What the data does seem to show is that even if you get it and even, you know, if you're able to spread it, which we know that the viral load is the same in the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, that you're probably not going to go to the hospital and die. But you're also probably not going to go to the hospital and die if you don't get the vaccine.

But for some, you know, parts of the population, your hospitalization risk might be higher. And so once you get vaccinated, you have a lower risk of that. So my question is, knowing that you can still get it, you can still spread it, who are you loving by getting vaccinated yourself if the vaccine doesn't stop you from spreading it? And if everyone who wants the vaccine has gotten it and is supposed to be therefore protected. I know people say that, you know, that health. care workers are the ones that are really being burdened by all of this because people who are not

vaccinated or coming in and they're, you know, they're needing care that they shouldn't have to need because it's preventable. But I don't know about that. David Swig, now writing for the Atlantic, reports this. Quote, a new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases. Some COVID patients need extensive medical intervention, such as getting intubated. Others require supplemental oxygen or administration of the steroid dexamethone. But there are many COVID patients in the hospital with fairly mild symptoms, too, who have been admitted for further observation on account of their comorbidities or because they reported feeling short of breath. Another portion of the patients in this tally are in the hospital for something unrelated

to COVID and discovered that they were infected only because they were tested upon admission. How many patients fall into each category has been a topic of much speculation. In August, researchers from Harvard Medical School Tufts Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs health care system decided to find out. Did they need treatment for COVID or was there some other reason for admission like cancer treatment or a psychiatric episode and the COVID diagnosis was merely incidental? According to the researchers, 40 to 45% of the hospitalizations that they examined were for patients in the latter group. And these are being counted as COVID hospitalizations. I just don't

believe from what we know that it's true that most hospitals are overwhelmed because of COVID. Definitely not in the pediatric ICU, which is what we've been hearing. They're experiencing a big wave of serious RSV, which actually does kill infants. And just as an aside, consider why so far, we haven't seen a huge push for an RSV vaccine, even though it has been very dangerous and even deadly to children for a very long time. I don't know. Just something to think about. I think that, you know, the overwhelmed hospitals because of COVID, I think that's, you know, the case in some places. I don't doubt the people who some of the people, the nurses who are saying that, especially those of you who follow me who say that's true.

I'm not, I'm not doubting you. But I think, and actually I know, that most hospitals are also short-staffed and that you see this little phrase, staffed, beds are full in some ICU's and some hospitals, which actually means it's a staffing shortage, not a bed resources shortage. People are coming in also for things that they weren't coming in for last year because they were still shut inside their homes. They were scared of getting COVID. And so hospitals are also overwhelmed for that reason. And I really do fail to understand how your neighbor is all that affected, in light of everything that we just noted, is all that affected by you getting this particular vaccine. Now, I am actually fine with what the governor said. I'm actually fine with some

people saying that they believe that a vaccine or any development of modern medicine is a gift from God. I think that there are many forms of modern medicine and treatments and preventatives today that are what we call gifts of common grace. That means they're not exclusive to Christians. They are by God's grace available to everyone. So good food, beautiful mountains, sex. These are all examples. of gifts of common grace. But for whatever reason, you may not believe that this vaccine is a gift to us from God. And the truth is, this is an area that belief and however that belief manifests itself is an area of Christian liberty. So it's not a salvation issue. It's not something that the Bible speaks explicitly to. And that's really the big thing here. That's one of the big problems

that I have with this speech. Because what we're seeing and what she's saying is, spiritual manipulation. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that you hear from like those prosperity televangelists who tell you that God told them to tell you that God wanted you to do something. That's actually not in the Bible. But I want you to do it anyway. God is telling me that you need to give me $15.15 and that backache that you got will be released from you. Can you tell that I've seen this kind of stuff before? That's what the, that's like the same vibe. And her little vaccinated a necklace. It's like so obvious that this is worship. This is worship for some people. I mean, as Christians, we know God's will. We know what God wants us to do. Yes, we have to discern how

the Bible applies to different ways, you know, in different ways to different areas of our lives. But we know from Scripture it's to love God and love our neighbors. And he shows us how to do that in Scripture. So whether or not that includes getting a vaccine or wearing a mask really depends on a variety of factors. It's not unchristlike to get the vaccine, nor do I believe it's necessarily Christlike to get it. But you see how this has become not just a religion for some people, but really more of a cult,

because they've got the telltale signs of a cult, which is co-opcing, you know, language and concepts from Christianity and then applying it to doctrines that have nothing to do with Christianity. And this, you know, in the, midst of her saying that they are in the midst of her saying that they are actually going to allow hospitals to fire health care workers who don't get the vaccine again for a variety of reasons and bring in the National Guard are they trained in the same way that nurses are I mean this is just insane you can't say that that's for health how can you say that that is for health

I mean I honestly like if we are seeing a bunch of health care professionals, professionals walk out of their jobs and protest this mandate. Don't you think we should listen to them? I mean, these are people who, again, we're on the front line that the height of the pandemic were willing to get sick even when we thought that, oh, maybe this is like a 5% death rate for everyone. Those people were still going to work every day and now they're getting fired. Like even as, as, you know, we noted earlier, there are thousands and thousands of migrants

who are being untested and unvaccinated and being imported into the United States. ask yourself again, do you think that this is for public health? It's hard for me to believe that. It's very hard. And I don't know. I don't know the reasons for it. I think things start to make a lot more sense when you just kind of allow yourself to accept the fact that some choices are just being made for destruction.

Like they're purposely bad choices. They're purposely hypocritical. They're purposely duplicitous. They are purposely manipulative. and actually the point is destruction. The point is chaos. I don't like to believe that, even about administrations that I didn't vote for. Like, I pray for this administration.

I pray for the people in charge no matter whether they have an R or a D by their name. But everything makes a lot more sense if I say, okay, what would be the worst possible choice to make, the worst possible message to convey in the situation? Or what would be the best message to convey if I wanted things to go really badly? And then, you know, Biden tends to fill in the blanks. The people in charge tend to make that decision and use those means to get their point across. All right.

That's all we've got on that front. So let me play you. One or two, it depends on how much time. We don't have that much more time. But one or two, would you rather? And I will give my answer to it. So first, would you rather? I happen to know it's from Chloe.

I don't know what the would you rather is though. So let's go ahead and play that. Hi, Allie. This is Chloe. We met at March for the Martyrs this past weekend. And my would you rather is, would you rather have to wear low-waisted jeans forever or your hair be permanently styled with a middle part. Chloe, it was so great to meet you and your husband and your cute little baby son.

And she came up to me at March for Martyrs. And I was like, dude, she wanted to tell me her, would you rather right then? I said, no, you have to leave a voicemail. I'm so glad you did. So if you guys have been following me, especially on Instagram, you know I have protested. My Hill to Die on has been this resurgence of low-rise jeans, which absolutely no one asked for, nor do they need. And the resurgence of the middle part.

Like, we're going back to 2000. And you know what? I was never able to wear low-rise jeans. Plus, I was like too young. I was like nine years old when low-rise jeans were cool. But it's just not. not my body type, doesn't look good on me. I actually don't know anyone who looks better in lowerized jeans than they do in just like your

regular jeans. Like there's absolutely no reason for that. Now, you know, Abercrombie and Hollister are super excited. They thought that they were just going to go bankrupt. And now they're like, yes, lower ice jeans are back and we can maybe, you know, sell this to Gen C. And then we've got the middle part, which I literally look like a different person. And I know I'm going to get a barrage of messages from you guys being like, show us your middle part. No, I won't. I won't. I will spare you that. So would I rather have to do middle part

or low-rise jeans forever? That's really, really hard. Oh my gosh. I guess, I guess lower-rise jeans. I guess lower, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that. But I would just have to wear like a really long shirt forever. Or can I just like not wear jeans? Because I also don't like to wear jeans. I'm wearing them today. But I guess that I can't hide. I can't hide the middle parts. And I would probably lose my job. Like Blaze TV would probably be like, we can't sit you in front of a camera anymore. What are you doing? So I'm going to have to go with the lower-rise jeans. All right. Do we have one more? Can we do one more? Hi, this is Holly. I'm calling you with some virtue signaling, would you rather?

would you rather wear AOC's Tax the Rich dress to a dinner party or wear a mask with one of those mouthpiece hold in it to a dinner party so you can be wearing the mask the entire time even while you're eating. Thanks, Allie. Love your show. I love your little sign-off. I love the little like, oh, AOC's Tax the Rich versus a mask with like a mouth, uh, um, a C's tax the rich versus a mask with like a mouth mouth hole. Oh my gosh, that'd be so embarrassing. Both of them would be so embarrassing. Probably the tax the rich because then I could just be like, oh, irony. Like I am, you know, it's funny. I'm kind of making fun of AOC. Probably, probably that, probably that one. That's really difficult. Okay, let's, I got to stop. But let me think if I can just like think of, think of one

as it comes to me. Okay. Would you rather um let's see would you rather text your i'll give you an option just different stages in your life would you rather text either your father-in-law or your boss or your english professor give you some different options and say um uh hey i just wanted you to know that um i have been um uh i don't even know what I'm going to finish this sentence. I'm like Michael Scott. Like sometimes you start a sentence and you don't even know how you're how you're going to finish it. I've been thinking of you and I just wanted you to know that you are a rising star and whatever I can do to help you in your career,

let me know. So father-in-law, your boss or your English professor, text them, let them know that they're a rising star and if you can do the many favors in their career to let you know. Or would you rather have to every time someone says hello to you, either in passing or someone that you know, before you say anything to them, you have to quack like a duck. So you say quack and then you can go on with your life. But every single time someone approaches you, greets you, you have to say quack. Or would you rather text your father-in-law, your English professor or your boss, tell them that they're doing a great job that you've been thinking about them. And they're a rising star in their field and you can help them with their profession. However, you know,

however they need. Think through those situations, really think about the repercussions of both of them, and then let me know. Let me know what your response is. All right. That's all I've got time for today. We'll be back here tomorrow talking about a whole host of things. And I've got a guest coming on that's going to lend her expertise. So I'll see you guys then. Hey, this is Steve Daste. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Dasey, show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective

reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.