Weird Science

A few days after the election, someone tweeted some earth-shaking news: Biden was seen entering a briefing about COVID. Joy and relief! So good to have a real grown-up back in charge!

What they thought happened before:

Trump skips the daily briefing on COVID, but when he walks past the meeting room he sticks his head in and says, “What about Sea-Monkeys? Do they get COVID? Maybe we should try eating Sea-Monkeys. They come in powder form. All I’m saying is give it a try. Why not? Sea-Monkeys. Very important.” And then he leaves to watch cartoons.

What they think happened when Biden had his meeting:

“Good afternoon, everyone. I don’t have your list of pronouns yet, so in the interests of being respectful I’ll simply address you all as the Smart People whose faith in science embodies the hope of a nation. Before you brief me on the regional R0 numbers and positivity rates — and I’m particularly keen to learn whether that spike in 16 Wisconsin counties was due to the new RT-47B test — I want to ask you all something. I’ve been thinking off and on about whether BACE-inhibitor enzymes might actually unlock dormant coronavirus defenses, if the stimulus is significant. Might not a greater viral load actually work to the benefit of the infected, counterintuitive as that seems?”

Scientists exchange looks, one clears her throat: “Actually, Mr. President — ”

“President-elect! Let’s be clear. We have a constitutional process to be followed to the letter of its penumbra.”

“Yes, Mr. President-elect. Actually, the Swiss have been working with that very theory. That was quite brilliant of you.”

Biden waves and smiles. “It was just a thought I had in the shower. Happy to know the Swiss are on it. All right, you’re the experts, fill me in, and I’ll listen with fierce attention to all the science. Hail the science!”

Scientists, in unison: “Hail the science!”

That’s what the Biden admirers might have thought, anyway. Here’s what might have happened:

“Mr. President, vaccine trials continue, and case numbers continue to rise.”

(Four-minute pause.)

“So people are getting it from other people, or are people giving it to other people?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s just that, the thing, you know! C’mon. I’m not the sharpest egg in the carton but I know when someone’s rubbing malarkey on my leg. The hairs, the little fine ones, they . . . they perk up. When I used to be a lumberjack I’d sit in the chair watching the kids in the pool, and if the little hairs, they’d stand up if someone handed me a cup of malarkey. I saved six lives that summer when kids would drown, and I’d bring ’em back with mouth-to-mouth, and I’d be giving it, and the kid would be getting it. We ought to shut that down! Trump could have shut the pools, but he didn’t! And now we have kids who aren’t just drowning, they’re at risk from getting COVID from something that ought to be, what did we call it, the Life Kiss. The Kiss of Life.”

Well, that’s not fair, and not right for this period of National Reconciliation. (Translation: Everyone on the right, fall in line.) It’s just amusing to see people swoon over Biden, particularly if one has long regarded him as a grinning intellectual mediocrity with a core so hollow it could be rented out to recreational spelunkers.

So what will Biden do about COVID? Well, we’re told he will listen to the Scientists. See, there’s this wise clique of serious people in their late forties, all in white lab coats, holding clipboards. They know what to do. They are sitting in the Science Building in Washington, D.C., waiting for someone to ask. Trump dropped by in February, said, “Everyone should drink bleach and shove a very, very powerful flashlight up their rear, the kind police have, we love our police, so important,” and then said germs were a hoax. Right? Everyone knows that.

The Scientists sat silent with horrified expressions, until one of them said, “He does not believe in Science,” whereupon they all crossed themselves in honor of Saint Copernicus.

Whatever Biden does will be cheered, because he listens to the Scientists. Personally, I’m in favor of Science. It’s how we figure out things. But some people regard a Scientist like Moses coming down from the mountain and saying, “Take these two tablets and call me in the morning.”

If a Scientist says we have to lock down for a month nationwide, with the same standards applied to dense Manhattan and a sparsely populated North Dakota hamlet, it is not a rejection of empiricism if North Dakotans resist. If President Biden issues an executive order that requires everyone to wear masks at all times, it would establish a subatomic level of control over the individual that would make Mao clap his hands in glee.

How did this happen? Seventeen seventy-six: All men are endowed with freedom by their Creator. Twenty twenty-one: The government shall set the minimum distance you may stand from another human being. I’m all for everyone believing in the round-earth theory, but I’m not in favor of federal troops arresting flat-earthers.

Federal mask laws will be moot if the vaccine news is as good as it seems, but probably it isn’t. We’ll be masked up for a long time, just in case. Next May you’ll be scrabbling around the glove compartment, trying to find a mask that doesn’t smell like a goat thong, wondering if President Biden will let us show our faces in public again. But at least he’s not an authoritarian.