I don't think it was their heads that experts have been scratching this past year.

As anyone with a cognitive ability north that of patio furniture could have told you, shutting people up inside where the virus spreads quickly and easily is a "bad" idea whereas permitting people to move about as is their right, is a "good" idea, particularly for the people least vulnerable to the virus.

Anyone paying attention already knew this. A survey of hospitalizations last May in New York was among the earliest evidence.

A new survey of 1,300 patients at 113 hospitals around New York state suggests that 66 percent of all new hospitalizations are people who are sheltering at home. And only 3 percent in New York City had been using public transportation.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo knew this as well.

"This is a surprise," the governor told reporters at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York. "Sixty-six percent of the people were at home, which is shocking to us."

"They're not working; they're not traveling," Cuomo said of these recently hospitalized coronavirus patients. "We were thinking that maybe we were going to find a higher percent of essential employees who were getting sick because they were going to work — that these may be nurses, doctors, transit workers. That's not the case. They were predominantly at home."

Confronted with mounting evidence that lockdowns don't work and do more damage than good, the Today Show did what any credible journalistic institution with the pedigree of NBC News behind it would do and conceded that the scientists and governors who went with a looser strategy were right all along.

Ha! I had you there for a moment, didn't I? No? Not even a little bit?

Naturally, we cannot permit science to become the handmaiden to truth, no, we need "SCIENCE!" to reaffirm our preexisting narrative lest the citizenry starts to question the wisdom of our leaders shutting down the economy, suspending the constitution, traumatizing a generation of children, and overall ruining people's lives.

That way lay anarchy!

We no longer really have a scientific community, but rather court wizards whose job it is to justify their rulers' claims for clinging to power.

And so The Today Show offers three explanations for why the more open states are doing better, each uniquely ludicrous in their own way.

#1 Cherry Picking.

They note that Alabama where infection rates have plunged 50% in recent weeks doesn't test as much as the northern states. (While they don't bother to mention it, I checked, and the testing rate has been dropping in recent months.)

What else don't they mention? The testing rates between Texas, an open state with low infection rates, and Pennsylvania, a more locked down state with higher infection rates, don't explain why Pennsylvania infection rates per capita are more than twice that of Texas.

It's not as if they weren't aware of these states, they used them earlier in their own infographic!

"State of Confusion" indeed.

You might be considering the possible explanation that with fewer infections, fewer people are seeking out tests in those states, but they didn't raise that issue so it must not be important and so stop thinking about that and don't forget to double mask because science.

# 2 Using an Example That Proves The Opposite

This might be my favorite one in that it attempts to explain away the open states' success while blatantly, and apparently cluelessly, proving their approach correct.

Covid fatigue?

"In Michigan where people are just coming out of lockdown for the first time in months cases are up more than 100% as demographics shift."

They bring on a doctor to explain that these are younger people coming out "the vast majority of which are not vaccinated."

"Texas on the other hand began reopening its doors months ago and just jammed 40,000 people into the Rangers ballpark many without masks."

Oh no! No wonder they have... lower infection rates. Wait, that can't be right.

They trot out another doctor to explain. (How many of these guys do they have?)

"A lot of individuals in the southern part of the US and especially here in Texas have already been exposed to the Coronavirus. So many individual already have Coronavirus antibodies."

Oh well, is that all...

Wait, did they just inadvertently concede that the scientists behind The Great Barrington Declaration, on which the governors in the open states relied were right all along?

Yes, they did, and they don't even know it, or at least are trying really hard to not know it.

It's just "Covid fatigue," you see, and not "Cuomo/Whitmer/Newsom fatigue."

#3 The Hit Job

It's not that the open states are doing it right, it's that they are sabotaging the efforts of the enlightened, double-masked, socially-distanced, increasingly neurotic lockdown states by exporting carriers across the nation to take down progressives! Why, for all we know, Covid was actually created in a lab in Palm Beach County under the direction of Florida Governor Ron De Santis himself!

They first cite the "reckless behavior" of young people as they insist on behaving like young people.

"Theory number three, that young people are acting as carriers as doctors say they are returning from other states taking the virus with them."

"Doctors say."

They offer no explanation as to why those returning to their own states, or states that are also open, is not increasing infection rates in those places, or even offer any statistical evidence that would support this "theory" in any way.

This is not a theory. It's not even a hypothesis.

It's a political position.

Bottom line: Health experts say...

Who are all these "doctors" and "health experts" and why do they need to keep saying things, anyway?

...the falling figures in the south might be giving a false sense of security.

Q: Do medical experts worry... [strange editing cut here] is emboldening leaders who said this is a good idea, to loosen restrictions?

A: We worry about if there is a perfect storm brewing.

And finally, the host asks,

"What about the variants?..."

Oh no, the variants!!

Wear three masks!!! Stay 20 feet apart!!!!! Wash your hands every 30 seconds!!!!!!!

I'm going to need more exclamation marks.

To his credit, while the reporter gives the basic line about the scary UK variants in other states experiencing surges, he notes that Florida has the greatest percentage of UK virus infections but "a very small increase" overall compared to what the lockdown states are experiencing.

I am frequently reminded of Occam's Razor.

Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami), or the principle of parsimony or law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae) is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied without necessity",[1][2] or more simply, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

Sometimes issues are complicated and demand subtlety and a consideration of the complex.

But when you are doing back flips, contortions, and a high-wire act in a futile attempt to explain away the obvious, maybe you should stop to consider the possibility that you are no longer performing as a fair arbiter of facts but rather performing as a circus act doing the bidding of the ringmaster.