Horowitz: Coronavirus scam: Our kids can’t go to summer camp, but rioters can rampage by the thousands

Shutting schools for a virus that killed one-eighth the number of children who die from the flu every season will turn out to be one of the most devastating decisions ever made by government. At least our kids will be able to enjoy the fun and companionship of camp this summer, with the virus burning out in the summer heat. As thousands are encouraged to rampage through the streets every day, surely our kids can get together in bunks of 10-15, right?

Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah, otherwise known as Baltimore, Maryland, and many other liberal bastions.

Last week, we received an email from the camp my cooped-up son was planning to attend in Baltimore saying that it can no longer open – even at the end of the summer, even in a modified way, because the restrictions are too prohibitive. Mayor Jack Young placed even greater restrictions on the city than were being observed in New York, the epicenter of the outbreak. He also canceled all outdoor events for the remainder of the summer.

Or at least we thought so.

Last week, thousands of protesters began marching in downtown Baltimore every day, with packed crowds. The mayor must have had a heart attack imagining all of the microbiological matter of SARS-CoV-2 in the air creating mass infections, right?

Wrong!

"In Baltimore yesterday, we were a national example of what it looks like to engage in passionate protesting without widespread breaking of the law," said the mayor, praising the protesters last week.

Nobody in the media held him accountable for his glaring hypocrisy about the virus. So what if they were peaceful? Why was he praising them and not condemning them for spreading the virus the way he would July 4 parades, anti-lockdown protests of small business owners, or even summer camps?

Camps are full of children who, even at the peak of the outbreak, suffered one-eighth of the fatalities as from the seasonal flu and one-tenth of the hospitalizations. We never shut schools or camps for the flu.

At this point, liberals are engaging in national child abuse against America's children for a nonexistent threat that they themselves suddenly overlook when it comes to mass protests against a nonexistent race problem.

Study after study has shown that kids play no meaningful role in community spread of the virus. And contrary to what the doomsayers warned, asymptomatic individuals of any age are very unlikely to transmit the disease. Consider that one serology study done by Tribeca Pediatrics found that 20 percent of children tested in New York City have antibodies. Thus, the reason we are not seeing child-to-adult transmission is not because children do not get the disease, but likely because almost none of them present meaningful enough symptoms to transmit.

This is true of adults too. A study of 455 "contacts" in China, including 35 asymptomatic patients, 196 family members, and 224 hospital staff, failed to find a single transmission. Dr. Donald Yealy, the chair of emergency medicine at UPMC, who's been responsible for 30,000 tests in Pennsylvania, concluded based on his observations that "the risk of catching COVID-19 … from someone who doesn't even know they have the infection, in our communities, is very small."

And indeed, this is why we are finding that there is no measurable outbreak in mass gatherings – from the much-scorned swimming pool party on Memorial Day in Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks to the endless riots and protests.

Clearly, the politicians recognize the truth that this virus, especially at the current stage, is not nearly as transmissible as they made it out to be. So why are they continuing to treat summer camps like the plague, while genuflecting to protests that are as packed as the one in Philadelphia over the weekend?

Take a look at this crowd in Philadelphia, where people can't have more than 30 mourners at a family funeral.

Based on everything we've been told, this protest in Philly should set off a greater wave of infections that what happened in Philadelphia in 1918 when a war bond parade was held in middle of the Spanish Flu epidemic. But nothing will happen, the same way nothing happened in the countries and states that set their people free (not just criminals and rioters) weeks ago.

Officials in Switzerland announced an end to the national emergency last week, after having been partially opened throughout May. Summer camps, schools, vocational training, zoos, amusement parks, swimming pools, and sports and fitness are all open. Professional sporting events can have up to 1,000 people attending. Schools have been open for weeks. The result?

So why are American liberals continuing to leave draconian restrictions in place when they are permitting larger crowds for racial protests than even the Swiss?

The answer is very simple. This was never about science or public safety. It was a pretext to beat down the forgotten Americans who have no voice in our government while promoting anarchists at the same time. That is why the decisions were consistently designed to benefit favored classes of citizens or businesses rather than reflecting the best science. After all, under a scientific approach, subways would have been the first thing to close, yet they never were closed, even as five-person small businesses were shut.

Last week, whistleblowers who identify themselves as members of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's Pandemic Response Team wrote in a letter to state legislators that rather than using real science and data, top state officials are just "making things up as they proceed or making decisions and justifying them on the back end."

Now that we see the powerful juxtaposition of restrictions on Americans with the permissive attitude toward the rioting, we know this was always a pretext to fundamentally transform America. So remember, those of you who plan to send your kids to camp, just tell the staff to inform the state that they are merely engaging in a riot. After all, boys will be boys.