Where Is The Truth?

When I got on the computer yesterday to check email, a headline caught my eye . . . It said "California county opens up, then closes again."  I was curious to know which county in my state they were writing about so I clicked on the article and saw that it was Lassen County.  I normally don't read articles because there tends to be more "spin" than "truth" in most of what the media puts out, but given that an old boyfriend of mine grew up in Lassen county, I decided to give it a read. I figured I could do a little fact checking with him if I wanted to, since some of his family members still live there.

The article states that they had to reverse their course because of an outbreak of Covid-19 cases. (4 people tested positive after having no confirmed cases for the last 3 months). The county's public health officer is quoted: "Unfortunately, this did happen and now we have a serious problem." They plan to use "contact tracing investigations" to track the outbreak.

I clicked on the comments to see how people were reacting - not something I normally do because comments on most article are typically anything but nice and/or helpful - but I went for it and the first comment I saw was from someone who stated that they live in Lassen county so I was interested to see what they had to say.

Here is the information they shared:
- Initially they weren't doing testing in their county and were sending people out of county to get tested
- They didn't show any local cases until the state came in and began testing within their county
- They only followed the SIP regulations for about 2 weeks, after that most people went back to business as usual. Masks were and still are optional.
- Restaurants opened to inside dining before it was officially "allowed"
- Rallys were held while the rest of California was still under SIP orders

So, where's the truth in this?

How did the county realize they "opened too soon" if they never really shut down?

How does anyone know how many cases there have been if they weren't doing testing there at all for several months?

Were people sick and got better? The article only states that "now we have a serious problem" because 4 people tested positive. But is that really a serious problem? Or is someone trying to create some "fear" to support the idea that we need to stay in lockdown?

Would it be normal for 4 people to get sick with the regular flu?  If so, why is this being used as an example of "we opened too quickly, now we need to shut it all down again"?

I have no idea who is right. The author of the article? The commenter who lives in Lassen county? Does the truth lie somewhere in between? Maybe none of it is the truth?  How will we ever know?

I am pointing out inconsistencies in ONE article about Covid-19 . . . When you think about the number of articles that are published every single day by our media, just how much disinformation is being put out there?  It really concerns me.

I wasn't clear on what "contact tracing" was so I decided to look at the CDC website.  What I read made me shudder.

The first line says:

• Contact tracing will be conducted for close contacts (any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes) of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.

So if someone tests positive OR they are a probable Covid-19 case, they will interview everyone who stood within 6 feet of the infected person for 15 minutes?  How will the government employee get the information to "interview" all those people?  Will the "infected person" be required to turn all that information over? The CDC guidelines seem to clearly allow this to be done, whether it is laboratory-confirmed or "probable." Does that sound ok to you?

If I am reading this correctly, it seems to be saying that if someone deems you a "probable Covid-19 patient without laboratory-confirmation, they can make you give them the contact information for everyone who stood within 6 feet of you for 15 minutes? And if so, do you really want to share that kind of information with the government? What if you were in line to get into a store? (or went to multiple stores?) How will they find out who stood in front of you or behind you in line?

I also notice that no where on the CDC site (in the "contact tracing" section) do they mention masks.  So if someone stood within 6 feet of you - it doesn't matter if they were wearing a mask or not? If so, why are we being forced to wear masks? And why do they want us to believe they are doing any good?

If a mask really makes a difference, wouldn't the CDC guideline that I pasted above (directly from their website) specify that they are referring to "any NON-MASKED individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes"?

It seems the CDC is actually telling us that masks don't do anything to protect us if they are still going to "trace" any individual whether they were wearing a mask or not. Think about that for a minute. Am I the only one whose head is spinning over the confusing and misleading information that we are getting from the CDC?

Then I read on the CDC site:

For COVID-19, a close contact is defined as any individual who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 48 hours before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 10 days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.

So you need to turn over a list of names/numbers that include anyone you were in contact with for 48 hours before the onset of illness? and if you have NOT SHOWN ANY SYMPTOMS (which is what asymptomatic means), you need to go back 10 days?

Does that make any sense?

I swear I am not making this up.  I am pulling this straight from the CDC official website.

I am not telling you what to think. We all need to do our own research and form our own opinions. Honestly, I AM hoping that reading what I have written will make YOU want to ask more questions.

I am trying to point out that what we are being told doesn't appear to be anywhere near "truth." It is making me wonder what is really going on here?

Why do they want to keep us in lock down?  Why do they want us to stay in fear? As I have written about previously, why do they want us to think the numbers are higher than they actually are? And why do they want us to keep wearing masks if wearing a mask doesn't seem to matter according to their "contact tracing guidelines?" What is the real purpose of the "contact tracing?"

We have got to start asking "What is really going on here?" because my sense is that whatever it is, it is likely bigger and scarier than whatever this "virus" is. It's up to each one of us to look into this further and not just accept what we are being told. It is up to each one of us to decide if we want to stay in fear or if we'd rather find out what the truth really is.

Can We Handle The Truth?

Lately, I've been observing how much resistance there is to people hearing anything that doesn't match their current beliefs. I see people lashing out at the person who has attempted to shine the light on something, whether it is a concern about increasing government restrictions and the motivation behind them or the chemtrails blanketing our skies. They react by ridiculing the person or flat out bullying them with negative comments, labeling them with harsh things like "idiots, conspiracy theorists, fear mongerers" etc. or demanding that they "prove that with irrefutable scientific evidence."

As someone who has been on the receiving end of it, as well as a witness to it happening to others, it can be incredibly disheartening when you see how downright ugly we can be to others when we are presented with something that we are not ready to consider. It seems that the more we don't want to believe something is true, the more resistant we can be to it. Why we are so afraid to open up to the possibility that we may not know the truth about everything?

Seeing someone or something that we have believed in or felt was a trusted authority crumble before our eyes can be difficult to wrap our brains around. I get it. I have experienced this myself, many times, when someone I looked up to fell off the pedestal I had put them on. I didn't want to see it at first - I just didn't want to believe that the "truth" that was being shown to me could be possible.

There's that feeling of overwhelm that comes with it, the fear that everything we thought was true is going to come crashing down around us if we accept this new information. And yet, it can be much harder on us when we continue to resist the truth.

Over the years, I have come across a lot more information that I didn't want to believe at first. Even though it often initially had me reeling, I learned to just sit with it. I learned to wait and see if more information on the topic came across my path in the coming weeks and months. I learned to keep my eyes and my mind open so that if more information DID come along that either confirmed or refuted what I had read before, I would see it.

I know that the only thing we can truly control is ourselves . . . our reactions to things . . . so to me, that's usually a good place to start. When someone says something that riles us up, rather than lashing out at that person, maybe we can stop and ask ourselves "Why is that bothering me so much?"

Is it possible the person is sharing information that you just don't WANT to believe? What if what was being shared WAS true? What would it mean to us and our life? Would we be able to continue living as we assimilated that new information? or would our world truly fall apart if we accepted a new "truth" into our reality?

If you still think the person is an idiot or a conspiracy theorist, can you keep that to yourself rather than publicly slamming the person with those labels? Can you just file it away and be open to the fact that everyone has a right to believe what they believe? Can you maybe even consider the possibility that there might be some truth in what they shared?

Sometimes new information forces us to let go of some of our old beliefs. That isn't always a bad thing. Decades ago, I was given the opportunity to learn that doctors don't always have all the answers. Does that mean I think all doctors are bad? Not at all. It just means that I don't expect them to be perfect anymore. And it means that I do a lot of my own research instead of relying solely on their knowledge and opinions. Was it disappointing at the time? You bet it was . . . and yet I can also see how it helped empower me . . . how it helped me build trust in myself and my own knowing. Ultimately, some good came out of the situation.

I keep having this very strong feeling that many of the things that have been "hidden" from us for decades (and centuries) are going to start coming out . . . that we are going to be told things we don't really want to know or shown things that we won't want to accept. It seems like now is a pretty good time to prepare for it, to look at ourselves and see how we react and respond to information that is outside our comfort zone or outside of our "reality bubble" . . . and I think it will really help us to look for ways to process new information that we might not initially be comfortable with.

I think our current "reality bubbles" are going to be popped - one by one - and whether that is a horrible experience or an experience that ultimately allows us to begin spreading our wings will be entirely up to us.