Australian Ordinariate To Receive A "Visit"

On Sunday and Monday, I posted on Pope Francis moving Opus Dei from the supervision of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops to the Dicastery for the Clergy, with commentary from a knowledgeable reader on how this reflects on the Vatican's overall interest in accountability. One issue arising from this move is the suspicion among Catholic traditionalists that Pope Francis opposes conservative movements in the Church, although my own view as a convert to Catholicism is that if for no other reason, it would be silly to become a Catholic on one hand while on the other insisting that the pope has things all wrong. Catholics current or potential have lots of options available that don't carry that contradiction, including any number that might potentially ease their consciences by claiming to be Catholic in some way or another.

In any case, another Vatican move in recent days will stir this pot again. One of my last posts on the old blog covered a notice from the Australian ordinary that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican dicastery that supervises the Anglican ordinariates, had becomed concerned about the viability of the Australian ordinariate, the smallest and shakiest of the three erected under Anglicanorum coetibus. This concern was reflected in a January 21, 2021 letter from Msgr Reid that I attached to that post, which set particular conditions that would need to be met by January of this year; if they weren't fulfilled, the dicastery would send a letter to the Australian Catholic Bishops Council "asking counsel regarding the future" of the Australian ordinariate.

A visitor has sent me an update on this situation:

It was later explained that this deadline had been extended owing to COVID but now it appears that there will be follow-up (see letter below). Commenters on Facebook are treating this as part of Pope Francis’s alleged crackdown on traditionalists but in that case, of course, the OOLSC [Australian ordinariate] would not be the only Ordinariate subjected to a visit and a Visitor so obviously sympathetic to the project as Bp Lopes would not have been chosen. There has been no official update on communities’ compliance or otherwise with Msgr Reid’s original directive, but scattered comments from OOLSC members on Facebook seem to indicate that nothing has changed, financially or demographically.

Here is the letter (click on the image for a larger copy):

The original deadlines set in the January 2021 notice were meant to be met by January of this year, but presumably in light of COVID and the particularly stringent controls imposed in Australia, the threatened letter asking counsel regarding the future of the ordinariate from the ACBC has apparently been deferred. Nevertheless, there will now be a Visitor Apostolic to review the situation. The Visitor appointed is Bp Steven Lopes, the ordinary of the North American ordinariate, which is the largest and most successful of the three, but that is only in relative terms. He will be joined by two others whose identities are yet to be announced, and the visitation schedule is also yet to be announced.

For that matter, what it will decide, and how the decision will be made, remain completely obscure.

The visitor also forwarded a screen shot of typical social media commentary on this development (click on the image for a larger copy):

I spent nearly ten years running a blog that covered the history and progress of Anglicanorum coetibus, and I stopped it in some measure because I concluded the whole question had never reached the level of importance where it was worth my time. This suggests to me that even the Vatican is beginning to ask this question. I think the Australian ordinariate is only the weakest link, and eventually this question is going to be raised over the whole effort.

It's a big mistake to attribute this to animosity from Francis.

In LA, The Masks Come Off Over Masking

California, or at least part of it, has been seeing a resurgence of bien pensant opinion that we should be wearing masks, even though Drs Birx and Fauci have been publicly backing off their own previous endorsement of COVID measures. Contra Costa County, which includes both Oakland and Berkeley as well as very tony suburbs, tried to reimpose a mandatory indoor mask rule in June but dropped it after a few weeks. Los Angeles County has been threatening the same for two months now, but pressure against it has been building.

Lame duck LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who represents the uber-wealthy West Side and Hollywood Hills, had this to say about the growing opposition to a renewed mask mandate:

"I'm particularly struck by the blowback from a number, though not a really significant number of sort of, 'snowflake weepies' about how oppressive it is to wear a mask."

Kuehl has previously been a supporter of COVID restrictions that have been among the strictest in the US. In December 2020, demonstrators surrounded her home in Santa Monica when she voted to ban outdoor dining at restaurants but promptly went out the same evening to dine at an outdoor restaurant:

LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who represents Santa Monica, ate at a local restaurant just hours after voting to ban outdoor dining and saying doing so is “probably more dangerous in terms of contagion than any other kind of business.”

On Tuesday, November, 24 Kuehl along with two other Supervisors voted to suspend outdoor dining for three weeks in Los Angeles County due to rising COVID-19 cases. The ban passed with a 3-2 vote.

“Outdoor dining is probably more dangerous in terms of contagion than any other kind of business,” Kuehl, a Santa Monica resident, said at the Tuesday meeting. “The servers are not protected from us, and they’re not protected from their other tables that they’re serving at that particular time, plus all the hours in which they’re working.”

That evening, however, Kuehl ate outside at Santa Monica restaurant Il Forno, as confirmed by Barbara Osborn, Director of Communications for the Supervisor.

If it's as dangerous as she claimed, why on earth did she risk her health and her life to do it one last time? In any case, she was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2014 and had been subject to a three-term limit, which would hsve ended in 2026. It is not entirely clear why she announced last month that she would not run for reelection in 2022, although she is currently 81, but her positions on COVID, as well as her public conflicts with County Sheriff Villanueva on homeless encampments, may also have convinced her that reelection might not be a sure thing. Oddly, there has been no serious coverage of her decision.

Previous restrictions have not played well in the county, and although there's an existing mask mandate on transit, neither Amtrak nor the Metrolink commuter rail agency has enforced it since the spring. In addition,

The local governments in several cities in Los Angeles County, including Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach and Long Beach, have already said that they would defy a county mandate on masks, reports NBC Los Angeles.

Additionally, neighboring Orange County's Healthcare Agency said in a statement that the would not be implementing a mask mandate.

My guess is that a substantial part of the population anywhere in the US is simply done with COVID and recognizes that masks are, and have been throughout, useless in controlling the pandemic. Nevertheless, even without a mandate, my estimate is that roughly half of those who attend Sunday mass wear them, and a remarkable number still wear them on the street. If LA County or any other jurisdiction is serious about limiting transmission, they should take Dr Fauci's advice and require everyone to wear N95 masks, properly fitted.

And of course, if they're in a restaurant, they should remove the N95 only briefly when they take a bite and quickly replace it while they chew. But as Supervisor Kuehl has already pointed out, even this is highly dangerous.

The fact is that nobody, starting with Supervisor Kuehl, actually takes any of this seriously. On one hand, it's kabuki. On the other, it's a sign of assent. As with Darth Vader, it shows you take orders. The wealthiest seem to want things back like they were in 2020.

The Politicization Of Public Health Continues Notwithstanding

For proof that the official response of the public health establishment to COVID was a debacle, we need to look no farther than the fact that states like Florida and Texas that didn't enforce lockdowns, masking, and other controls had statistical results no worse than those that imposed the strictest ones. Even the most visible spokespeople for such controls, Drs Birx and Fauci, have recently been backing off the recommendations they issued in 2020 and 2021, maintaining they never said vaccines prevented transmission and, now, masks didn't work because everyone wasn't wearing the right ones.

So why didn't Dr Birx say vaccines didn't prevent transmission back then, or why didn't Dr Fauci tell everyone to get an N95 mask right off the bat? They're implying that things would have gone better if they'd been honest back then -- so why did they fudge things and make the pandemic worse? And of course, they're backtracking now because they recognize that if they're right, in failing to do so then, they damaged the credibility of their colleagues and their institutions for the next public health emergency.

But as far as I can see, nobody's learned a thing. They're following the discredited COVID playbook with Monkeypox:

Despite a WHO panel not having consensus on labeling the sickness a global health emergency, WHO leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus directed the organization to declare it a “public health emergency of international concern.”

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria” Tedros told the press.

The disease, which primarily spreads among men who have sex with men, joins both COVID and polio as the other diseases designated as international emergencies by the global health organization.

COVID and polio, of course, affected the population at large, and both could be fatal, while polio could also be massively disabling if it didn't kill people. But according to NBC News,

No one has died of monkeypox infection outside of Africa during this outbreak. And for many people, the disease is relatively mild and resolves on its own in a few weeks without any need for medical intervention.

And of course, people outside one particular demographic have almost no chance of contracting it. At the same link,

Now infectious disease specialists are developing an increasingly refined understanding of the predominant conduits of monkeypox transmission, as well as the typical disease course patterns.

“These data point clearly to the fact that infections are so far almost exclusively occurring among men who have sex with men,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, of the new study, which was published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. “And the clinical presentation of these infections suggest that sexual transmission, not just close physical contact, may be helping spread the virus among this population.”

Even those who aren't gay adult males apparently contract it because they're in the same household. According to the UK Daily Mail,

Two children have tested positive for monkeypox in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed Friday.

One is a toddler from California; the other is in an infant who is not a U.S. resident and was 'transiting through' Washington D.C. Neither had contact with each other.

. . . It is thought both children likely caught the virus from 'household contacts'.

Dr Rochelle Walensky said the children both had contact with gay or bisexual men — the community where most cases are being detected in the current outbreak.

But the WHO isn't backing down:

World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took the “unprecedented” measure this weekend of ignoring the agency’s special advisory committee to declare the spread of monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern” – despite his lack of medical background and his own admission that the risk of it spreading was “moderate” at worst.

. . . Concerns regarding Tedros’ actions on monkeypox posit the opposite problem – that he overreacted to a situation, even as the medical experts tasked with assessing the risk did not believe it merited the label of public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

. . . “Stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus,” Tedros declared. He added that the fact that the disease was not spreading widely among a generalized population did not diminish the PHEIC, but rather meant “that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.”

So, what are the right strategies in the right groups? Oddly, this isn't clear -- the group for which the right strategies would apply is clearly identifiable, but, well, if we identify them, we'll increase stigma and discrimination or something. This is the conundrum, which is entirely political:

During the China Flu pandemic, we were shamed for leaving our homes, going to the beach, opening schools, gathering to worship God, standing together, hugging, attending funerals, visiting nursing homes, allowing a mask to slip under our nose, and showing up at a political rally that didn’t involve burning and looting (because health officials assured us burning and looting do not spread the virus).

During the coronavirus pandemic, and for two whole years, every facet of normal life was condemned as the equivalent of committing mass murder.

. . . Now there’s monkeypox. . . [ellipsis in quote]

But there’s no behavior-shaming…

Even though, according to what we now know. . . [ellipsis in quote]

Gay sex is the chief spreader of monkeypox.

. . . If the government had a single standard when it comes to spreading a virus, gay bars and bathhouses would be shuttered, police would be knocking on doors to break up gay sex parties, the media would celebrate a costumed Specter of Death walking through gay neighborhoods, gay men would be told to stay home, and any gay gathering would be smeared across the media as a selfish superspreader event attended by serial killers.

But that’s not happening, and it shouldn’t happen, but that’s what happened for two years to those of us who are not among the left’s protected class.

I think the point here is that Monkeypox is mostly the occasion of public-discourse kabuki: there will be the usual denunciation of stigma and discrimination, but as with AIDS, even closing bath houses will be a tough call if it's ever made at all -- and unlike Monkeypox, AIDS killed people. The subtext will continue to be that gays are a special protected class, and that's about it. Nobody's gonna demand that gays wear not only condoms but hazmat suits during sex, but if Dr Fauci has his way, the rest of us will be back not just to masks but N95 masks.

People aren't stupid, and they see pretty clearly what's going on. Dr Birx at least had the sense to skedaddle as soon as she was caught celebrating a normal Thanksgiving with her family. Dr Fauci is playing the odds that the public health establishment won't need to fight a real epidemic with its credibility badly damaged, at least during his lifetime. For that matter, the odds are that Dr Walensky will be fired before that happens, too. But that's the game they're all playing.

Let the next generation fix the problem they've created. .

A Visitor Clarifies Pope Francis's Move On Opus Dei

As I hoped might happen, a visitor with more knowledge than I have of Opus Dei e-mailed me to provide additional context on his apostolic letter Ad Charisma Tuendum:

This is mostly a canonical move that puts OD under the dicastery of clergy rather than under that of bishops. Under the bishops, OD wanted to be treated as its own diocese---just as a diocesan bishop makes an ad limina visit to the pope every 5 years, so did the prelate of OD. Now OD will give a yearly accounting of its activities (& not to the pope). Also, OD has to put together a constitution which OD has avoided all these years. OD has operated under its statutes in the public arena but behind closed doors the "members' of OD have been trapped by one instruction after another. (Interestingly, there seems to be no verification of when the statutes were approved by Rome, if they were.)

There has been confusion about the 'members' of OD. As the code is written now, only clergy are members of OD, but it very apparent with this letter that ONLY clergy are members. OD has been able to cloud that distinction by pointing to its position in the hierarchical structure of the Church---kinda like it's a worldwide diocese. One of the consequences of that distinction has allowed OD directors to tell those who wanted to leave OD that they only way they could do so without incurring mortal sin was to be released from their contract by the prelate. (ODers don't take vows or make promises; they have a contract with OD. Contracts are not a part of religious or diocesan life so it's a curiosity that's been allowed. Hopefully, this new letter will clear things up for those on the outside, as well as, for those on the inside.)

I don't know if you've seen some of the concerns being voiced by those attached to the Tridentine Mass. They're afraid this is one more way Francis is going to keep them from perpetuating the rite they feel they have a right to. This takes away any possibility of orders like the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter to continue its ability to exclusively say the TM. There is a lot of conspiracy surrounding this letter. (Francis has been clear for a while that he would like to see the Church united in the Mass of Vatican 2. Best of luck to him. I'm afraid his stand is making the TMers more intransigent.)

I don't know if you've heard this take on the letter, but I saw it mentioned in an article. Some who are affiliated with the ordinariate are fearful that Francis is coming for them next. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around people who want to be Catholic but want to keep their former litugrical practices. How would it be if an entire Calvary Chapel decided to convert & wanted to keep their worship as it was but just insert the consecration somewhere? (I know the Anglican rite isn't like that: it's just for absurd comparison.) Probably the saddest reality for the ordinariate is the amount of disaffected Catholics who have wandered (or run) to an ordinariate parish because they don't want to deal with their local parish....liturgical abuses or not.

So broadly, there are two issues here. One deals with the legal basis of Opus Dei practices, especially those which have been characterized as "cult-like". Over the medium-to-long term, it looks like Opus Dei will need to provide a more transparent, legal, and constitiutional basis for its activities, which strikes me as a justifiable move. The second issue applies to Catholic "restorationists" or "pre-Conciliarists", who tend to interpret any move Francis makes as detrimental to their interests.

I think the visitor is correct that this is a canonical move related to the unique standing of Opus Dei as a personal prelature and directed toward placing it on a more solid constitutional foundation subject to review and accountability. Francis has issued separate policies related to the Latin mass, and other than his stated overriding goal of preserving the Second Council, there is no relationship between the two moves. (I can't disagree with Bp Barron's point that you can't get a higher Catholic authority than an ecumenical council.)

As I pointed out yesterday, Opus Dei and the Anglican ordinariates are juridically different animals, and insofar as the military ordinariates are on a canonically more solid foundation, so are the Anglican ordinariates. The threat against the Anglican ordinariates is primarily one of failed execution. The first generation of mostly married former Anglican clergy who were grandfathered in via instant ordinations has begun to retire, but there's been no second wave of celibate candidates in formation sufficient to replace them.

Our diocesan parish for some years has had a number of the archdiocese's vocation staff in residence, and this has given me an opportunity to learn a little about how the process works in a successful diocese. Vocations come from supportive, actively Catholic families and sympathetic parishes. Candidates are normally formed throughout adolescence by parish clergy and diocesan vocation staff even before they enter seminary. (There are exceptions, but they're exceptions.)

The Anglican ordinariates aren't necessarily made up of those families, and especially if the groups attract mainly the disgruntled, they aren't those sorts of parishes. And that leaves out the need for full-time diocesan vocation staff. If for no other reason, I don't see much of a future for Anglicanorum coetibis, notwithstanding the posture of the current pontiff or his successors. Opus Dei has nothing to do with this.

Pope Francis And Opus Dei

As a Catholic covert, my views on Pope Francis are inevitably affected by our parish clergy, who as positive role models tend to disfavor sin and favor the Holy Father. They frequently cite unnoticed but productive remarks by the current pontiff in bulletins and homilies. Thus I'm reluctant to join the usual chorus of "ain't it awful" from other Catholics over this or that policy change, and that includes the most recent apostolic letter Ad Charisma Tuendum issued Friday. As someone with no particular insight into the Vatican political winds, I can't say much about what it means other than to quote the Catholic News Service:

Saying he wanted to highlight the spiritual gifts of Opus Dei and its contributions to the Catholic Church's evangelizing activities, Pope Francis said it will now work with and answer to the Dicastery for Clergy, rather than the Dicastery for Bishops. . . . Francis also said the head of the personal prelature of Opus Dei "will not be made, nor will he be able to be made" a bishop.

Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, who was elected prelate of Opus Dei and approved by Francis in 2017, said that while the first two prelates of Opus Dei were bishops, "the episcopal ordination of the prelate was not and is not necessary for the guidance of Opus Dei."

Francis said his decision was meant "to strengthen the conviction that, for the protection of the particular gift of the Spirit, a form of government based more on charism than on hierarchical authority is needed."

. . . Francis noted that his new constitution on the Roman Curia gives the Dicastery for Clergy responsibility for relations with personal prelatures, "of which the only one so far erected is that of Opus Dei."

Opus Dei is a highly controversial topic. In my old blog on Anglicanorum coetibus, I had occasion to look into the early career of Cardinal Bernard Law, who during his years as a Harvard undergraduate in the late 1940s was associated with an early Opus Dei group. Although his subsequent rise in the US Church was via the conventional diocesan path, he remained close to his Harvard schoolmate William Stetson, also a member of that group, who became an Opus Dei priest and some type of regional authority in the prelature, although its specific organizational details are at best obscure.

Cardinal Law's earlier career paralleled the rise of Opus Dei, and it's hard to think he didn't have some involvement in its establishment as a personal prelature, especially considering his relationship with Stetson. At the same time Opus Dei became a personal prelature, Law was also working behind the scenes with dissident Episcopalian clergy to establish what he hoped would become another personal prelature, this one for dissident Anglicans/Episcopalians who wished to become Catholic. As I wrote in 2020,

Law, an extremely ambitious man whom I've heard intended to succeed John Paul II as pontiff had it not been that John Paul outlived Law's expectations, was an opportunist and may have hoped that an Anglican personal prelature could in some way leverage his rise in the Church.

As it played out, a special provision for disgruntled Anglicans did finally emerge in the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of 4 November 2009 under Pope Benedict XVI. However, it was as a personal ordinariate, rather than a personal prelature. According to a Vatican document clarifying the status of the personal ordinariates,

just as the Military Ordinariates are described in the Apostolic Constitution Spirituali militum cura as specific ecclesiastical jurisdictions which are similar to dioceses (Ap. Cons. I § 1), so also the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus describes Personal Ordinariates for the faithful coming from Anglicanism as juridically similar to dioceses (Ap. Cons. I § 3).

. . . . Nor can these Personal Ordinariates been considered as Personal Prelatures since, according to can. 294, Personal Prelatures are composed of secular priests and deacons and, according to can. 296, lay people may simply dedicate themselves to the apostolic works of Personal Prelatures by way of agreements. Members of Institutes of Consecrated Life or of Societies of Apostolic Life are not even mentioned in the canons concerning Personal Prelatures.

The Ordinariates for the faithful coming from Anglicanism are therefore personal structures in as much as the jurisdiction of the Ordinary, and consequently also of parish priests, is not geographically defined within the territory of an Episcopal Conference like a particular territorial Church, but is exercised “over all who belong to the Ordinariate” (Ap. Cons. V).

As I said above, Opus Dei is highly controversial. Visitors to my former blog sometimes urged that I take on Opus Dei as well as the Anglican ordinariates, but, other than being briefly acquainted with the late Msgr Stetson in connection with Anglicanorum coetibus, I never had direct experience with Opus Dei. In addition, Los Angeles Abp José Gómez, a highly successful and respected figure in the US Church, rose via Opus Dei, and I have no disagreement with him.

Nevertheless, a web search brings up numerous links to sites and news accounts that accuse Opus Dei of cult-like practices. Whether Francis's intent in moving Opus Dei under the supervision of the Dicastery for Clergy might be to promote reforms that could minimize such controversy is a matter beyond my competence. It's also beyond my competence to say whether this move could reflect any disposition by the Holy Father to modify the current structure of the Anglican ordinariates, although these have proven to be a disappointment at best -- but they're juridically different from Opus Dei.

"I Knew These Vaccines Were Not Going To protect Against Infection."

Fox ran a remarkable interview with Dr Deborah Birx yesterday evening:

DR. BIRX: I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines, and it made people then worry that it's not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization. It will. But let's be very clear: 50% of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older, vaccinated. So that's why I'm saying even if you're vaccinated and boosted, if you're unvaccinated right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid. It's effective. It's a great antiviral.

Wait a moment. Wasn't it just this past January that the US Supreme Court blocked an OSHA order requiring 80 million workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs? Haven't the US armed forces still been firing service members who don't get vaxxed, except that it's become abundantly clear that the vax doesn't work? But now Dr Birx says she knew about that all along.

And it turns out that the newest vademecum isn't to vax at all, it's something called Paxlovid. It's effective. It's a great antiviral. Well then. That'll sure work, huh? In fact, they're giving it to President Brandon as he powers through his 8+ hour workdays with the virus. By the way, how's he doing?

On Thursday, the White House announced that Biden had come down with COVID, and they gave out some information. The White House tried to stifle any questions about where Biden might have gotten the virus from, claiming that wasn’t important, even though one has to consider it for things like contact tracing and who he might have been in contact with. On top of that, what was very abnormal was that we weren’t hearing from Joe Biden’s doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the person who is treating him.

Instead, they trotted out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, neither of whom is treating Joe Biden. Even the perpetually incurious, liberal White House media found this odd and asked why they were having to play “telephone” to get any information that was being fed through the White House. Why wasn’t the doctor speaking about Biden’s condition?

. . . Jean-Pierre shared that Biden said he was still working more than eight hours a day. . . . in the two days before his trip to Massachusetts earlier this week, he had nothing on his public schedule and the White House couldn’t give any real explanation for that other than to say that “he was in meetings.” Uh-huh. Given that he later came down with COVID, I wonder if he wasn’t feeling well at that point. But because they’re not straight with us, it’s harder to get at the truth.

Another story goes farther:

What is the Biden team trying to hide?

If Joe Biden has COVID, he should be doing all he can to rest and recover. Instead, his team is trying to convince us that everything is normal; they said he’s working an eight-hour day. Heck, I don’t think he worked an eight-hour day when he was well.

But he should be taking it easy and not working when he’s sick; he’s 79 years old. But they had him sitting up in a suit for a remote meeting and quite frankly, to me — who has been covering him for a while and is used to how he normally looks — he looked awful.

He looks like he’s not well, and out of it, not absorbing anything that’s being said; his eyes just have sort of a vacant look.

What's so unusual about that? But there's more. Vice President Harris joined in trhe comedy:

[E]very once in a while not even their minders can explain away something their bosses said and/or did, which brings me to the appearance Harris made Friday at the National Urban League annual conference.

As we previously reported, one of the first things Harris did when she walked onto the stage was to take her mask off and hug Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin, who was also maskless.

The problem with this is that Biden, as we all know, has COVID, and Harris is considered a “close contact” of Biden’s. Because of that, she is supposed to be masked when she’s around other people per the CDC’s guidlines, you know, the ones we common folks are supposed to follow according to them.

. . . Refreshingly, during the Friday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Biden COVID Response Coordinator Ashish Jha were grilled by multiple reporters as to why Harris wasn’t masked when the CDC very clearly says that she should be. . . . At one point he got so desperate he tried to bow out by saying he really couldn’t comment on something he hadn’t personally seen. He even looked to Jean-Pierre for assistance but she ended up deferring right back to him because she couldn’t explain it, either[.]

Nobody in the loop takes any of this COVID stuff seriously. Exactly why it fell on Dr Birx to announce the vax didn't work as they claimed is a bit puzzling -- she's been out of the government for more than a year and is warming a seat in a well-paid sinecure. I suppose it if were Dr Fauci who let the cat out of the bag, there'd be demands that he quit or be fired, but Dr Birx is already out.

Nevertheless, the whole charade is wobbling to a stop.

COVID, Biden, And The Fuddy-Duddy Factor

The annoucement that the First Fuddy-Duddy has caught the 'rona was accompanied by wags on social media who reminded us that one of the symptoms is brain fog. The White House issued the photo above that looks like it was carefully composed to show that Brandon is hydrating properly. has his whole dysfunctional family in his thoughts, and, apparently, is even about to read some books. That in itself should show how phony the whole tableau is.

Contrast this with Franklin Roosevelt lending his prestige to finding a cure for polio via the March of Dimes, even though his administration normally kept the fact that he'd had the disease himself very quiet. A big problem for his successor is that he insisted throughout last year that if you're vaxxed and boosted, you can't catch COVID. So instead of being the champion of the cure, Brandon is the case in point that the health authorities have had it wrong throughout. Biden himself variously said duriing a July 22, 2021 town hall,

If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die. . . . You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.

When challenged after the event, he said,

It may be possible, I know of none where they’re hospitalized, in ICU and or have passed away so at a minimum I can say even if they did contract it, which I’m sorry they did, it’s such a tiny percentage and it’s not life threatening.

So now, fully vaxxed and fully boosted, he's the poster boy for his own bloviation. Roosevelt was the man of fortitude and foresight, Biden is the man of fuddy-duddy and brain fog. Roosevelt is to polio as Biden is to COVID, which says a great deal about both Biden and COVID.

The problem goes beyond Biden, the problem is that the public health authorities have been losing prestige over their pronouncements that have been overtaken by events throughout the pandemic. The gradual recognition during 2022 that the vaccines and boosters now have no efficacy in preventing infections, while at the same time infections are less and less serious, vax or no, is only the most recent blow to the authorities' credibility. That began with "15 days to flatten the curve", after all.

"Dr" Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County public health director, has been threatening to reimpose indoor masking for the last two months.

Mandatory indoor mask-wearing could return to Los Angeles County in a matter of weeks, possibly by the end of June, absent a downturn in the rate of new COVID-19 cases and virus-related hospitalizations, the county's public health director said Thursday.

But the end of June came and went with no new indoor masking order. And while she's been threatening to reimpose indoor masking at the end of this month now, she may be about to let this deadline pass as well:

Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer today gave Angelenos a ray of hope on the looming prospect of a universal countywide mask mandate next week.

While caveating her statement with “I think it’s highly likely we could stay in High” — meaning the CDC’s High community category — “should we start seeing steep declines in our [case] numbers next week, because we know hospitalizations are this lagging indicator, we are likely to want to take a pause on moving too quickly on indoor universal masking. Because if our cases start a steep decline, it’s likely that our hospitalizations will take a steep decline [two weeks later].”

. . . Earlier in the day, an alliance of Los Angeles County business groups today called on health officials to abandon plans for the mask mandate, saying the move would be “heavy-handed” and a burden on businesses that will be forced to enforce the rule.

It would, of course, be absurd for health officials to order indoor masking, only to see any justification for it disappear in a matter of weeks. Beyond that, it'd become more and more accepted that most masks are ineffective in stopping transmission, while each new COVID variant is more contagious but less dangerous. And whatever LA County does is unlikely to be emulated elsewhere, while states like Texas and Florida continue to show that masking has no effect on the disease.

The public health authorities are finding there are limits to crying wolf, and COVID is no longer sexy. That Biden would contract it this late in the game is the best possible indication of that.