One of the worst aspects of the ongoing Covid hysteria, among many, is that the mask requirement has made airline travel even more uncomfortable and annoying than it already was. But at the beginning of December, the mask mandate for air travel was extended through March, and it is certain to be extended beyond that as well, as the political and media elites show no sign of giving up their hysterical fearmongering anytime soon. Dr. Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, who can always be counted on to stoke Covid fears among the lumpenproletariat, appeared on CNN Thursday to disparage mask skeptics as the foes of science and levelheadedness that everyone knows they are.
Yet despite all this sweet reason, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly and American Airlines CEO Doug Parker have dared to question the need for masks on planes, and Hotez was fuming. “But, also,” he continued, “why say this now, when we have the most transmissible variant of all accelerating? I don’t know. Some of these CEOs, they have the emotional intelligence of a doorknob. I don’t know why they would say that kind of thing.” Hotez did not mention, of course, that the omicron variant, while highly contagious, is extremely mild, a fact that the purveyors of the current hysteria are trying desperately to conceal.
Meanwhile, Hotez’s choice of words was extraordinarily revealing. “Emotional intelligence,” he said. The CNN sycophant who was interviewing them didn’t ask Hotez about this, and that is a shame. What does “emotional intelligence” have to do with the supposedly irrefutable results of scientific studies demonstrating the efficacy of masks? Hotez’s words were telling: he betrayed the fact that the mask mandates are not actually based on solid scientific fact, but on emotions. The masks are really just symbols, signals to others that one is taking the Covid threat seriously, and behaving as a responsible citizen. But they are more safety theater than they are safety measure.
Related: If Criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci Is a Hate Crime, I Plead Guilty–And I’ll Do It Again
Fauci defenders, among whom Hotez is foremost, insist that Fauci revised his view since then in light of new information, but this is farfetched: Did Fauci discover after he wrote that email that the virus was not actually small enough to pass through mask material? Or did he simply bow to the rapidly spreading hysteria and give his imprimatur to what is in effect a placebo?
As far as Hotez is concerned, such questions should not even be asked. How dare the unwashed question the great men of science? As PJ’s own Stacey Lennox has noted, Hotez considers such questions to be signs that the questioner has rejected that most sacred of things, science itself. “There is a troubling new expansion of antiscience aggression in the United States,” Hotez claimed last August. “It’s arising from far-right extremism, including some elected members of the US Congress and conservative news outlets that target prominent biological scientists fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Indeed. In the meantime, he is deriding those who have had their fill of the Covid hysteria for their lack of “emotional intelligence.” Dr. Hotez, it’s time for you to stop being ruled by your emotions, and to listen to the voice of reason that you claim to represent but resolutely ignore.
This article by Robert Spencer originally appeared on JihadWatch.org and is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
JOIN US @NewRightNetwork on our Telegram, Twitter, Facebook Page and Groups, and other social media for instant news updates!
New Right Network depends on your support as a patriot-ran American news network. Donate now