How Should We Respond to News of the Latest COVID Variant?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. And now, by calling 866-34-TRUTH, that's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Well, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

I hope you got some rest, some family time. But either way, we start our week together with some really important subjects to look at. News of the latest COVID variant, nicknamed Omicron, fears coming out of South Africa. Oh no, this could be the worst thing yet. Reaction around the world to it. How should we respond as believers? This is Michael Brown, your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Welcome to the line of fire.

Here's the number to call 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Before I get to some of the news about this, some of the latest reports, play an interesting video clip from England, I want to show you a poll that I did on Twitter over the weekend. Now, all I'm doing in this poll is finding out what people think. I'm just getting their reaction, just getting their thoughts, your thoughts in this case. So, I'm not trying to determine the truthfulness of a situation. In other words, if I asked for your opinion about whether it's going to rain or not tomorrow, that's not seeking to determine truth, but just your opinion.

Okay? If I say, which team do you like better in sports? It's just getting your opinion. Which theological position do you agree with? Which candidate are you voting for?

And on and on. It's just soliciting opinions. So, I'm looking for your thoughts.

I'm curious to know what you're thinking when I ask these questions. So, over on Twitter, over the weekend, I posted this. Let me just scroll down to the actual tweet here. And it's just a poll that I did.

It's 16 hours ago, so people are still voting 500-something votes thus far. In your opinion, is the very strong response to the latest COVID variant, one, a sign of real wisdom after so many deaths? Two, simply panic and fear? Three, a further attempt at government or business taking over our lives? And to the Twitter censors, I noticed I'm simply polling opinions.

And four was not sure at this point. So, I wanted to make sure on Twitter that I didn't get banned or blocked for putting something up about COVID that was considered disinformation. If I felt it was critical to do that, I would do that and get banned or blocked.

But that was not the hell I was going to die on here. All right? And by the way, other news that Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, has resigned. And we shall see where the new CEO takes things in terms of freedom and censorship. A lot of talk about that already, but we're not going there right now.

Okay. What's your take? 866-34-TRUTH. This is very interesting to me. And of those that I polled on Twitter. So, this is just a sampling of only 40-something thousand people that I have on Twitter. So, this is not world opinion or what everyone's thinking around America, but a response from a certain group of people that follow me on Twitter. That's all this is, but I still find it interesting. Less than 10%, only 9.8% said that they think this is a sign of real wisdom. Israel shutting down travel outside.

So, if you're not an Israeli citizen, can't come in. And America now banning travel from eight African nations and others saying, okay, we've got to up things with mass mandates or, okay, we've got to get another booster or more vaccines or et cetera. And then stocks plummeting. Is this a sign of real wisdom? Like, hey, we've been through this. We've watched people die. I've had friends of mine die of COVID.

Yes. So, this and others were at the edge of death and we're in terrible battle for weeks and are now just recovering. So, I'm not one to downplay the reality of COVID or the danger of COVID, but I am one to question the responses and the wisdom of the responses, the reason behind the responses, the rightness of the responses, and certainly the rightness of the mandates.

So, I will question those things and put them on the table. So, only 9.8% of those who responded on Twitter said, this is real wisdom. Now, look at this. 30.5%, so slightly over three in 10, said this is just panic and fear. This is just panic and fear. And we'll talk about that fear. I want to confront that head on. I've got a whole article that I wrote over the weekend that's up on the stream, stream.org, about God's response and our response should be the same to this latest variant, which is fear not.

Use wisdom, but fear not. Number three, how many believed that the response was a further attempt at government or business to take over our lives? 45.8%.

Four and a half out of 10 people. This was the biggest single response did not think this was wisdom, didn't even think it was panic or fear, thought it was yet another attempt by the government or business to take over our lives. That's scary. No, it's not scary that so many believe this. Like, how could they be so wrong? How could they be so ignorant? How could they be so foolish to believe this? No, it's scary that so many people feel there are reasons for this.

I can assure you. So, this is 45.8% out of 518 that responded, right? So, let's just say we're talking 250 people, all right? I can assure you that if we found out who these 250 people were and went through their Twitter feeds, that we would find plenty of them are rational thinking people, plenty of them are God-fearing people, plenty of them are America-honoring people, and yet they have these concerns. And 13.9% said not sure at this point. What's your take and why?

What will get your calls in a little while? Here's the article that I wrote on Saturday. With word of new COVID variants, again, this is up on the stream, stream.org, with word of new COVID variants, God's message again is fear not. So, I looked at the headlines on Drudge Report on Saturday. This is one of the most read and used news websites, period. And it's just headlines in stark, black and white, and then certain things highlighted in red and so on. It's just stark headlines. In years past, if you went to Drudge in the morning and looked at all the headlines and then listened to Rush Limbaugh in the afternoon, you would find that he cited a lot of things from Drudge because it was a convenient gathering from a certain right-wing perspective. And obviously, the headlines you post and the way you post them, the way you describe them, this all paints a certain picture. So, look at the headlines on Drudge from Saturday. This is in the middle of the page in red, so very much attention-getting.

Omicron sinks stocks. New travel bans. Vax resistant. Global alarm. WHO. Emergency meat. World Health Organization. And then, if you go to the upper left of the page, this is the next major list of headlines.

Here they are, one after them. I'm just going to read the headlines. Super variant puts South Africa at risk of global shutout. From discovery to global panic in 48 hours. Emerged in HIV patient.

Worst ever mutation. Spreading rapidly among young. USA to restrict travel from 8 countries. Belgium confirms case. Israel emergency after detecting.

Another shot? Europe surge highlights warnings. German military airlifting patients. Ireland considers hotel quarantine.

Merck pills significantly less effective in new analysis. Flood of cases. Unmanageable strain in Michigan.

CDC director lauded success of China's really strict policies. WHO skips Greek letter G, I'm pronouncing it the Chinese way, in naming new strain because you don't want to confuse it with Chinese leader G. So, when you, think of it, when you see headlines like that, what does that cause? Oh no, oh no, this is bad. This is really bad.

This one could get me. Now look, I have been responsible. I have, by God's grace, been totally diligent with my diet for seven, just about seven and a half years now.

I take certain health supplements for my immune system and in general to have me at maximum health level. I work out regularly and whatever the laws are, I follow them. So, you have to, right? You're at the airport the moment we get on the plane until you get off. Until you leave the airport, right? Excuse me, the moment you get to the airport to the moment you leave the airport. So, at the airport, on the plane, mask on.

Do it. In fact, I even try to be conscientious to people next to me unless they're concerned about someone without a mask. So, when you're eating the right way, technically, let's say I'm having some raw nuts or just a little healthy snack on the plane and drinking some club soda. So, the proper way to do it is you take your mask off for a second, just pull it to the side or pull it down, take your food, take your bite of food, whatever it is, and then put the mask back on. Now, it's not take a drink, take the drink, put it back on. Many, if not most, just take it down while they're eating and drinking. Because I want to be conscientious of the people I'm sitting right next to, lest they have a fear that there's something wrong with sitting next to someone without a mask while eating. I actually do it by the book. I take a bite, take a drink, and put the mask back on until the next one.

Seriously. So, I'll be honoring of the authority if that's what's required at that moment. All right. So, if I have to wear a mask to go into a particular place by law, then I will do that. I've sought to be careful, conscientious, gotten doctors' recommendations as to whether or not I should be vaccinated, et cetera.

So to be conscientious on all fronts. And I've been for a year and a half now, but especially the last year, around a lot of people. In some cases, thousands and thousands, in some cases body to body, in some cases body to body with thousands of people, most of whom or many of whom have not been vaccinated. And although I've been tested a couple of times for COVID and then tested for the antibodies to see if I had it without knowing it three different times.

So, five total different tests without ever having gotten it. As I'm reading all this, this thought hits me, oh, well, this one, this is the bad one. This is the one that's going to get you.

I thought, isn't that wild? This is the way fear works. This is the way it hits us. So, we're going to deal with it. Our response to this new variant should be exactly the same as what it's been.

I'm talking about our own personal response, fear not, news twist, fear not, and news twist. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us, friends, on the line of fire. As always, my goal is to build you up, to see you strong, healthy, vibrant in the Lord, to infuse you with faith and truth and courage. So, it's my pledge to you, friends, as you listen every day, you will be built up. You will be strengthened. You will be encouraged. You will be challenged. You will be stretched. You will be built up. Courage will be imparted. We'll ground everything in the truth of God's word.

866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Are you confident if the government put out more mandates, more shutdowns, would you say, hey, these are sincere people really trying to do what's best for citizens of America? If Big Pharma was pushing for more boosters and more vaccines, would you say, hey, these are people, yeah, they may be making money, but these are people who truly care and that want to save lives? Or are you at a point of having real mistrust towards the government? Is your mistrust higher now than it was under the Trump administration? Or did you have problems then with the way COVID was handled?

Is your view of Big Pharma the same now as it's always been, or has it gotten better or worse? 866-34-TRUTH. Before we go to the phones, let me expand on what I was saying before the break about our response to this latest variant. Should be, fear not, this is what God says to us, don't fear. Doesn't mean don't use wisdom, but don't panic, don't fear. No, no, it's all coming down.

What are we going to do? Oh, that's fear. That's panic. That can be irrational. That can now step into another realm where you are not thinking clearly, where you are not acting based on truth.

Here, so panic and fear would respond to reports of a coming hurricane with, oh, no, we're going to die. Oh, we're never going to get out. Oh, what are we? Oh, yeah. Oh, we'll never be able to protect that.

What's the use? Or you flee five days early, you know, whatever. Whereas wisdom would be, all right, tracking this seems to be very, very serious in terms of coming hurricane.

The reports seem to be consistent. All right, so what we need to do is we need to board up windows on the house here, and then we need to plan to leave a day or two early, whatever it is, and you formulate a plan. So our first reaction with whatever negative report comes, even if it's a truthful report, even if the variant was the worst thing yet, our response is not panic because God is God.

Now, if you don't know the Lord, if you don't have a relationship with God, if you're not in right relationship with Him, then you have every reason to fear and panic because you don't know what's coming, and you don't know that God's going to protect you, or you don't know that He's going to be with you through the storm, and you don't know if you die where you're going. So first things first, you need to get in right relationship with God. We can help you do that. If you call in, we're happy to help you.

If you go to our website, AskDrBrown.org, we're happy to help you. But not just that, if you're in right relationship with God, so whatever comes, even sickness, even death, we still know God. We still trust God. We know He is with us through the storm. Sometimes He delivers us from the storm. Sometimes He's with us through the storm. Sometimes He uses the storm to cause us to grow.

Sometimes the final answer comes in the world to come, not in this world, but either way, we have nothing to fear ultimately. At the same time, we use wisdom. So here, just look at this. Let's say you want to get in shape. Let's say you should weigh 170 pounds and you weigh 300 pounds. Let's say that you are so out of shape that literally you have shortness of breath going up one flight of stairs. Well, you don't say, okay, I'm just going to go out and run as fast as I can, as long as I can. You're going to collapse.

You might even have a heart attack. That's not wisdom. Nor is it wisdom to eat whatever in the world you want to eat, which terribly weakens your immune system if you're eating unhealthily, to not work with God for the good of your body and then to just think, ah, I'm untouchable. No, that's not true.

Any more than it would be true that you're untouchable driving 100 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour speed zone without a seatbelt. So use wisdom, but fear not. Okay, back to your thoughts, your responses.

We'll start with Marilyn in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown. Thank you.

I listen to you every day when I'm in the car line in front of my daughter's school. And I often think I should call in, but today I really felt compelled to call in because I am a graduate student working on a master's in healthcare administration. And I'm on the last week of an epidemiology class. And the project that I submitted yesterday with a group of people was on the handling of the COVID pandemic. And one of the things that I can say that I learned was that any time the public is faced with a disease that could threaten public health, it is the leadership of a nation's responsibility to provide risk communication and community engagement to the population so that the population can take the steps that it needs to to protect itself.

And in our research, we found that there's a new term that I never heard of before. We heard pandemic, but there was also an infodemic of misinformation and conspiracy theories that somehow got out into the atmosphere. And it caused a spirit of confusion over the nation, which delayed the response that we should have had to prevent the disease from moving so rapidly through the community, specifically New York being the epicenter. And we looked at, there was, other countries were impacted by COVID, but New Zealand's leadership immediately with the new cases that showed up, just a handful, immediately closed the borders.

No one coming, no one going. They shut everything down. There was a complete shutdown of everything. Quarantine of the people who were impacted with the, you know, with the virus and case tracing to find out, tracking rather, to find out who the people who had the virus had contact with and quarantine those individuals. Everything stopped moving and the virus stopped moving and they contained it within a month. But just the delay and all of the confusion that came from leadership and, you know, all of the theories and everything, it delayed the response that we should have had, where people needed to have on PPE, they needed to be socially distanced.

If they were having symptoms, they didn't need to bombard the hospital, but stay home, contact your doctor. None of these things were communicated from the leadership. And as you well know, as a believer, the body does what the head instructs and follows. Okay? If the head, if the leadership of a nation is not communicating correct information that will be helpful, then what's going to happen to the rest of the nation?

Our boundaries were left wide open because leadership did not follow risk communication and community engagement protocol. And I think that we really need to take the variant seriously. I don't quite understand everything.

I do not. I have some questions regarding the vaccine. I was like, how in the world did they come up with 90 million bottles of a vaccine for what is supposedly a new virus?

But if you know anything about artificial intelligence and all of this nanotechnology, it is quite possible to put the information into a computer and the computer can generate the solution. So we have to be wise and intelligent enough to not believe everything that we hear, but dig and find the answers because they're out there and there is truth and there's truth in this world. We can't believe everything we hear. And unfortunately, I hate to say that about leadership, but it was true.

So yeah, let me just, yeah, let me just ask you one question and thanks for choosing this day to call in and share your viewpoint. We've had now two administrations handling COVID. First the Trump administration under which the vaccine was first developed. Now the Biden administration.

We've had actually more deaths, COVID related deaths reported this year than last year. But in your view, did both administrations fail? Has one done a better job than the other? What's your opinion? You got about a minute to weigh in on that.

Okay. To be honest with you, I haven't really followed closely what the Biden administration has done. I do know that there was a conference today where the president made statements about the new variant.

I just don't sense the spirit of confusion. I will tell you, I work in healthcare and we have seen quite a few more cases of COVID of late and people are vaccinated and they're still getting COVID, which makes me wonder, okay, was the vaccine a placebo? Why are people still getting COVID if they're vaccinated? So I just, I'm putting that out there because that's what you're saying, come on. That's our question. Yeah.

The answer would be, according to those that are believing in the vaccine, yeah, they're still getting it, but the symptoms will be less serious and there'll be less deaths. And then others of course are pushing back against that. Hey, this is Marilyn. We're up against a break here, but I wanted to let you weigh in without interruption, especially given what you're doing with your graduate studies and the paper. And I'm going to let your comments stand. You can feel free to agree with Marilyn, disagree, or just come in with your other point of view. I'm going to play an interesting video clip, audio clip when we come back and then talk this through and then talk about how we feed our faith versus feeding our fears. Thanks for being a regular listener and enjoy the rest of your day, Marilyn, with a child and beyond.

All right. 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back with more of your calls, some interesting clips, and again, how to build your faith, not your fear. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire. 866-34-87-884. Sometimes when I take calls on the broadcast, I'll interact more. Many of the times callers are asking for my questions. Sometimes I'll do my best to let the caller speak, put a position out, whether I agree or disagree, maybe probe a little and then leave it out for your comments. That's what we're doing today as much as possible about our response to the COVID variant, the government's response.

So I'm going to go back to the phones in a moment, but first I want to share this with you. This is from my article on the streams. You can currently read this on stream.org.

Last year I started writing articles on COVID, talked about it on the air, some social media broadcast, that kind of thing. And then it struck me, boy, I believe I got a book in me about this. Reached out to the publisher and I said, can we get this out now? I mean, if I write this quickly, can we get it out immediately? That's called crashing the system because everything is ordered. In other words, you have X number of books you're working on, editors are working on this, PR people working on this, everything with printers, you have things scheduled. So it's all in its slot. You can't suddenly say, oh, let's push this one in.

This is a real reason, but everyone felt right to do it. So in an intensive eight days, grabbed a couple of previous articles, otherwise wrote this fresh, the book When the World Stops, and it's about words of faith, hope, and wisdom in the midst of crisis. So I wrote it directly addressing COVID, but I also wrote it with the goal that you could read it 10 years later in whatever crisis situation you're facing and it would be relevant.

So God gave me grace to write it quickly, publisher put it out super quickly. And I'm thinking it's going to go on maybe a matter of months and it'll be past it. That's what I was thinking. I didn't have divine insight on that part, obviously.

That was just my thought. Yep, probably a matter of months. So get this book out immediately so it can have immediate readership and relevance. And then the future can have relevance, but not in this exactly direct way. Of course, here we are now more than a year and a half later and still the restrictions out, still the problems out, still people getting sick, dying, still controversy of a vaccine, et cetera.

So here's, here's what I wrote in the opening lines of the book. We are living in unprecedented times and it's easy to give way to fear. After all, the news reports are daunting and the scientific predictions terrifying. The whole countries are in lockdown and cities across America are telling people not to leave their homes.

Schools are closing businesses because schools are closing. Businesses are shutting down and the media is shouting through the airwaves, danger. The virus is coming your way today. Now it is danger. The latest deadly mutation of the virus is coming your way. But here's what I wrote again in When the World Stops.

The truth be told, without the Lord, it would be very easy to give place to fear. What will happen to my loved ones? What will happen to me? What about my job? How can I pay my rent or mortgage?

How can I feed my family? What does the future hold? Does anyone know? The good news is that with the Lord, there's no place for fear. He's not rattled. He's not surprised. He's not taken off guard. He's not in a panic.

To the contrary, He's working actively in the midst of the crisis and He has a great plan for His people in the midst of the storm. God is on the move and He's with us. That's why the first message that has been sounding from pulpits across America, meaning a year and a half ago, is fear not. And that's the first message He wants to speak to each of our hearts. That is, if we're His children, the right relationship with Him. Fear not, He says to us, because I am with you.

That's all we need to know. If the Lord Himself, the Creator of the entire universe, is with us, we need not fear epidemic or pandemic. We need not fear demons or people. We need not fear the natural or supernatural. If we have a healthy reverential fear of the Lord, then all other fears will vanish. Fear not, the Lord says to you and me. Again, that's to those who are in right relationship with Him. We'll stop there.

You can read the article, stream.org for more. You can get the book, When the World Stops, you'll still find it relevant. Again, you need to be in right relationship with Him because if you are defying His will, living in willful sin and rebellion, you don't have promises of protection.

And you certainly don't have promises of being with Him forever. Because all of us, unless Jesus comes first, all of us will die. One way or another, we'll all die. The ultimate question is, where will we be forever? But if you're in right relationship with Him, no matter what comes your way, it can work for good.

Either good in this world or good in the world to come. And we can be more conformed to the character of Jesus through it, whether the things are good or bad in and of themselves. So it's just important to have that grounding and to feed our faith.

You say, how do I do that? Well, you meditate on promises from God. You clear your head.

You put aside the distractions. You look at a verse. You write it out.

Maybe it's part of a song. You sing it and you say it slowly. You repeat it.

You digest it. You renew your mind to that. And you take the words, the words to fear not. And I go through this in the book.

If you need help, we do it in the book in the second chapter when the world stops. But our response is not panic. Not, okay, it may be calamity around us or it may be exaggeration.

Either way, either way, our attitude remains one of calm in the midst of the storm. Eight, six, six, three, four truth. Let's go back to the phones over to Claire in Arlington, Virginia. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure thing. Um, yeah. Um, I just want to say I don't, you know, I don't agree with the way that the, the COVID has been dealt with by, um, the politicians and the health professionals at all. I think it's, um, it hasn't been for the best of the people. I think there's other nefarious things going on. And, um, I mean, I don't believe in conspiracy theories in the sense of things that can't be proven, you know, believing things that can't be proven.

But I do want to say that I've watched a lot of, read a lot of historical novels, you know, watch documentary and history all throughout history. There's been conspiracies to, you know, all the Kings and the Queens. They always had people conspiring against them. And that's, you know, there's often more going on behind the scenes than we realize and different forces working together.

On the other hand, there are, there are a baseless conspiracy theories and that's, that's where we look for truth. So, so let me, let me ask you a question, Claire, and you speak for many and having that suspicion when president Trump was pushing hard for vaccine to be developed and said, we're going to, we're going to go past government red tape and go straight to companies, et cetera. Do you think that his motivation, let's put aside ego, let's put aside that he wanted to look good.

Let's put that aside. You would think any president or leader wants to look good rather than look bad. But do you think that his motivation was he really wanted to stop this thing in its tracks and see America get healthy and strong. In other words, that, that his motivations for pushing for the vaccine were good and pure. Or do you think even back then that something suspicious was going on? Well, I, I personally think Trump had a good heart and loved the nation for all of his faults that he has many, many. So I don't think he had a bad heart in that, but I do believe that the people that were advising him did have a bad heart and he did not recognize that or have the wisdom and also the, I mean all the pressure and everything to stop it.

So he went ahead and I mean, I believe he thought it was a good idea. So what, what was the motivation in your view in the hearts of others, the, the not so good or even bad motivation? Well, one thing would be money. You know, the pharmaceutical industry controls a lot of politicians. The universities are funded by the pharmacies. Also the TV, most of that, most of the ads on television are funded by pharma. So there's a big push.

Vaccines are very, very lucrative. You know, and they're trying to get everybody to take one. I also believe that there's, you know, it's control. There's always been a desire for control and power in people.

And I believe unfortunately that a lot of people in high places, you know, have fallen victim to that. I mean, so yeah. Got it. All right. Again, Claire, I wanted to probe and get your viewpoint on that. I appreciate you weighing in and Chris, let's just pull up that poll that we looked at earlier for those just tuning in that may have missed this. I'm going to go back to the phones in a moment.

This was on Twitter. I started the poll yesterday and so it's what 16, 17 hours later. My question in your opinion is the very strong response to the latest COVID variant. One a sign of real wisdom after so many deaths. Two simply panic and fear. Three a further attempted governor or government or business taking over our lives. And four was not sure at this point. So 45.7% said it's business or government trying to take over our lives.

That was by far the highest. Next was panic and fear, slightly over 30%. And then not sure at this point, 14% slightly under 10% real wisdom. So that's, that's just telling you a lot of people are very suspicious right now and wondering are there ulterior motives and what the government's doing or big pharma's doing. I'm just putting out what many are saying and feeling. It's six, six, three, four truth over to Laura in Dayton, Ohio. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks for tuning in. What's, what's your thought on this? Well, I called in to chime in on that survey that you were just talking about. Um, um, yeah, I'm, I'm up the camp that I'm highly suspicious.

Got it. And your reasons for being highly suspicious? Um, because right out of the gate they wanted to shut everything down. Um, and put us into protective, uh, you know, they, they said face masks won't protect you. And you know, within a few weeks they were required everywhere.

And, um, and wearing a face mask all day long, especially if you're doing physical work, it's not healthy and they really don't provide protection against, um, uh, catching viruses. Um, and right out of the gate also they started talking about how they needed to get a vaccine for this. Uh, they technically didn't know how deadly it was going to be, but they wanted to have a vaccine for it. They were going to need a vaccine for it.

There've been absolutely, you could say almost zero research into other alternatives for treating it. Um, and I believe for a long time that government can fix it. Hey Laura, tell you what, we're, we're out of time here, but thank you for, thank you for weighing in. And, um, one quick question we just branched out to date. Are you listening on our new radio station there? All right. Awesome. Well, welcome aboard.

Glad to have you. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire. So if you say, well, what, what's your purpose in bringing all this up today? Again, to help us respond the right way.

Fear not, but use wisdom. All right. It is not to incite anger towards the government. It is not to launch attacks on Dr. Fauci or big pharma. It is, it is not to attack Joe Biden or Donald Trump. It is to say, this is how we should respond.

Now let's look at some of the bigger pictures and hear what you're thinking and feeling and process this together. Uh, I was sent this clip, we'll play about two minutes out of 10 minutes from Neil Oliver on, on great Britain news. I was not familiar with him or the broadcast.

Just looked into him as much as I could. And some background as a historian and as a presenter, document documentary maker and uh, associated with some views that are now more controversial. But he's weighing in on the latest variant and, and he, he says some things that are worth hearing. This is Neil Oliver on great Britain news.

Here we go again with Christmas on the horizon, a holiday that should be a time for families to put the past behind them and look towards the future. A new variant of the virus has seemingly been dispatched from poor old Africa as the gift no one asked for and no one wants. After months of messages of fear from our governments and their favoured scientists, here comes more of the same. We can only presume that too many of us were seen to be awakening from the toxic trance into which we had been put by propaganda from the nudge unit. Fear has been the key to nearly two years of unprecedented power for politicians and their scientists.

Fear has also blinded people to the reality of manipulation and mass gnosis used to make them and to keep them compliant. But with that fear on the wane, losing its power to do harm, much like the virus was losing its power, it was plainly time to cast another spell. And here it is in the form of yet another variant.

How timely. Someone even managed to sprinkle for a while the acronym HIV over this latest mutation like bitter icing on a stale cake. While our government, like so many governments around the world, seeks to eat yet more months, perhaps more years out of the worn out pandemic by replaying their greatest hits of last year, something else is becoming obvious. And it's that the virus seemingly had the power to stop people, including clever people, from thinking for themselves. Covid overcame logic, reason and common sense.

Covid even made some scientists unlearn science. So a lot of points raised here. He's obviously quite articulate. Some of you may take issue with his presuppositions or where he's going. Others may be saying amen to every word. But I want to point out the fear issue. And look, there are aspects of irrationality in this or concerns about precautions that are being taken.

For example, I saw this little cartoon just a meme and it was talking about how virus prevention works in a restaurant. And it shows when you're standing waiting to be seated, you're wearing your masks. Right.

And of course, the virus is is is hitting at face level. Right. Then when you sit down to eat, you take your mask off, even though you can be right next to people in the table near you and you're all around, you know, maybe a bunch of at the same table. Right.

You all met there at the restaurant and came from different places. Well, the virus just goes over your heads then because you're not standing up. It's like, OK, is it really that big a difference when you're standing waiting to be seated versus when you're all sitting and in some restaurants you're pretty close to each other. Right. And but you don't have the masks on. But that's not a problem.

Or if you're on the plane and you you take the mask off while while having bites, drinking and you're right next to someone and maybe they've got their mask down, taking a bite of food. And so those seconds, does the virus stop being transmitted? You know, as Nancy's often said, OK, what if you're dealing with Ebola? Right. And people just bleeding out of their orifices in this horrific disease and spreading rapidly.

And, you know, where do you draw lines as to what you do and what you don't do? All that to say there's there's reason for not having a lot of confidence in where the government's going as much as there is a valiant effort to develop a vaccine quickly and as much as it can be argued that the vaccine has saved lives. Others would say there are too many unknowns developing a vaccine this quickly and too many accounts of sickness and even death through the vaccine that are not being reported adequately. And and I have firsthand reports of people that were friends or colleagues that died of Covid. So I say firsthand, according to everything we know, they died of Covid.

And then other friends and colleagues who themselves have firsthand reports of people who died of the vaccine. So, again, question marks, question marks here. Let's look at this. I'm going to analyze two charts side by side.

OK, this is as simple as things can get. So for those watching, we're going to put up the two charts for you to look at side by side and I'll describe what we're looking at. On the right is the population of each state. All right, California.

Excuse me. On the left is the population of each state in millions. So California, 39 million, Texas, 29 million, Florida, 23 million, New York, 19 million, Pennsylvania, just under 13 million. So those are the top five. All right, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois and Pennsylvania are very close.

Now you look at the deaths in thousands. So the number one state, California, just as it is number one population, number two, Texas, number three, Florida, number four, New York, number five, Pennsylvania. So first thing, the order of states and population, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, is the order in COVID deaths numerically. California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania.

Ah, but let's dig a little deeper here. Texas, according to this, has had 73,605 deaths, whereas California has had 74,098. So California only slightly more deaths than Texas, whereas the population of California is 39 million compared to Texas, 29 million. So that would say proportionately California, which has been much more strict with its policies, has had less deaths per capita than Texas or Florida. Florida's number three was 61,000 deaths related to COVID, as reported. Florida, slightly under 22 million population, so a little over half the size of California, and yet six out of seven deaths comparatively.

But hang on, let's go down to New York now. So this would suggest that the states that didn't have the crackdowns and the lockdowns as much, Texas and Florida, have had per capita more deaths than California. But then you skip down to New York, which has had very strict lockdowns and all kinds of strict policies, and of course the terrible policy under Governor Cuomo to send elderly people who were sick with COVID to nursing homes to make room for the young people that are going to get COVID.

I mean, horrific decision. New York has had 57,000 COVID deaths compared to California, 74,000, but its population is less than a half of California. So New York, with all the crackdowns and lockdowns and restrictions and COVID passports and things like that to get into certain places, that's had a much, much higher rate per capita than California or, for that matter, Florida or Texas, especially Texas.

So the point is, and I'm done with the chart for the moment, the point is you can use this to argue either way. Right now, Florida, as of a couple days ago, last report I saw, had the lowest per capita death rate of COVID. Was it death or new cases? Either way, in America, it was the lowest. Whereas just a few weeks ago, it was getting blasted.

Look, they're being irresponsible. They have the highest rates. So you could almost take either argument. You could almost make either argument. I have been reading, seeing steadily, that the states that were the most vaccinated were having the most new cases of COVID.

And so that raises the concern, could it be that those that are vaccinated are more readily carrying the disease than others? And anyway, it goes on and on. You could really get in the tizzy over all of this.

Or you could go back to this. Make sure your relationship with God is solid. Feed your faith, not your fears, and use wisdom. Part of that wisdom is living as healthily as you can.

And anyone can start now. According to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, whose dietary guidelines have followed by God's grace for the last seven and a half years, even if you are obese and in poor health, the moment you start really eating a totally healthy diet, yes, rigorous discipline, a totally healthy diet, it will immediately start to work to your benefit with your immune system and other things, even while you are working on everything else. So use wisdom. That starts with getting as healthy as you can, strengthening your immune system however you can. And then from there, what other wisdom dictates work out in your own life? Pray about it.

Think about it. Look at alternatives. Look at issues concerning vaccines, protection, all of that. Make the wisest choices you can, but start with fear not and get your body in the best shape you can. Steps we can all take. No panic is needed.