Smart Tony was called from his slumber—he was rapt in the Wheel of Fortune and nodding off to sleep yelling “Spin, spin!”—for an urgent press conference.
“The Science President has COVID,” said Jake Tap Dancer, “And everyone has questions. We need you out there right away to explain what’s going on. They all fear for his life and his supply of tissues.”
Yes, it was true as Smart Tony knew, this horrific variety of Omicron COVID, which he himself lived through to talk about, created more snot than virtually any other bug in history. But that wasn’t all. When people got it they felt tired and achy and had a sore throat and headache. If that’s not the worst plague to hit mankind, then Smart Tony didn’t know what was!
Because of the haste of the moment, Smart Tony didn’t have time to gather his handler and speech writers. This time he vowed to fly solo. As the Universe’s expert on COVID and on practically everything else—because in the end, isn’t everything about COVID?—Smart Tony knew he would be ok alone.
The press conference began with a lot of buzzing. Only science-friendly news anchors were allowed in, because, as Smart Tony and the Science President knew, in a democracy, you can only allow people to speak who agree with you.
Rachel in the Meadow put her hands up first. Like the other compliant media in the room, she wore three masks and had washed her hands for 27 seconds, just like Smart Tony told her to do for these past two years and for the next several dozen. She looked frightened.
“Smart Tony,” she cried out. “What are we to do? The Science President wore masks everywhere, even in the toilet, even when he nodded off during press conferences, and usually he wore two when he remembered. And he had all the boosters, he even snuck in a few extras because he didn’t remember whether he had them or not. And yet, just like you, he still got COVID. How are we to survive this when all the scientific measures you’ve told us all to follow are failing us now!”
“Now Rachel in the Meadow, please don’t be afraid,” said Smart Tony in his grandfatherly tone. “We told you the truth, we told you science, and there ain’t no denying truth and science when they are spoken by experts like me and my pals. Believe Smart Tony when he says that masks are the only defense against COVID, and that the boosters, they’s all we got between us and the COVID killer that lurks out there every second of every day waiting to smash into us and give us a hell of a lot of snot. We know the scientific truth, Rachel in the Meadow, and it’s as simple as this: masks work, the booster that is produced by our caring good friends at Pfizer, they all work. That’s the truth.”
“But Smart Tony,” said Joe in the Morning, who by the late afternoon had begun to get tired and yawned a lot. “You were wearing masks and had all the boosters, and you got COVID. The Science President was wearing masks and had the boosters, and he too got COVID. In fact, most Americans getting Omicron are wearing masks and had the boosters. It seems that they’re not working.”
“Please, Joe in the Morning,” snarled Smart Tony through his N-98 (and he was also wearing a M-95 safari hat to prevent the deadly Monkeypox from falling from the sky and digging into his head). “Those facts you site, them’s is misinformation. You see, there’s the Scientific Truth, which is what I and all my hand-picked doctors from top-notched medical schools who I pay and who are on TV a lot to tell you smart stuff every day, and our good friends at Pfizer and all the Democrats and half the Republicans they say the same truth so how can it be wrong? And the truth is that masks and boosters work! So if facts get in the way of that truth, well, those facts have to be misinformation. Only facts that agree with the truth are true. That’s just science, people. Therefore, don’t you’s people worry, masks do work, the booster is lifesaving, and that’s the truth and there ain’t nothing no one can say otherwise.”
“But Smart Tony,” said another CNN reporter. “I wear masks every day and had my boosters, and I only hang around with mask-wearing quadruple vaccinated friends because like you told us anyone who doesn’t wear masks and get boosters is dumb and mean and evil. But I got COVID, and my friends got COVID, and although we weren’t very sick and they say that 99.99% of people with Omicron don’t get very sick, it’s still the worst plague in history, and you and the Science President got COVID, so how can you tell us that masks and the booster work?”
“First of all, young lady,” said an unflustered Smart Tony. “You got to have faith. Science ain’t about facts, it ain’t about studies—cause if you read all the studies about masks and the vaccine you may not believe the truth that I always tell you and you may think they don’t work since that’s what all the studies say—but it’s about having faith in experts like me and all the doctors I pay and the good people at Pfizer. Have you seen the ads on TV with all the Pfizer people? They are good people trying to help us in this time of need, and they are like saints in my book, and if you see the TV ads, you’d know that’s true, because you see how smart and caring they are in them ads? And TV ads, they don’t’ lie, we know that. So, my dear, have faith, cause in science, that’s what it’s all about.”
“Then how do you explain how all of us and you and the Science President got COVID even through the masks and despite getting all the boosters?” asked another reporter, who was quickly whisked out of the room.
“Look, it ain’t got nothing to do with masks and boosters,” said Smart Tony. “It all comes down to the ignorant, noncompliant, non-scientific, misinformation-spreading people who refuse to get the lifesaving booster or to wear the lifesaving masks. Them’s the problem. You see, even thought the Science President got the booster and wears his twelve masks, when someone across the country refuses to get the booster or wear a mask, he causes the COVID germs to spread and hit the President, and so even though the President is being careful, that other bad person who don’t listen to Smart Tony, it’s his fault. In fact, all of us who follow the rules and do everything that the scientific truth tells us are put at risk by the people who don’t wear masks and don’t get the lifesaving boosters, because they’re the bad people, and so it must be their fault. That’s science, people, and that’s the truth, and so blame them and keep blaming them. It ain’t my policies that caused us to have the worse outcomes in the world; it’s them anti-science goons who mock Smart Tony. They’re why gas prices is high and so many kids hurt themselves and lost their education and so many people lost their jobs and why life is so dour. It’s them people we need to blame! We can’t blame masks and boosters, because we know they work and are safe, because I told you so!”
Everyone in the room stood and applauded, and Smart Tony bowed and clapped back at them. “You’s people is all the heroes,” he said. “You who blindly follow what I say and tell it to the American people every day on the TV. You and the good people from Pfizer. Thank you.”
“Smart Tony,” asked a yawning Joe in the Morning. “We know that science saved us and that the bad people who refuse to get boosters and wear masks are the real villains. A lot of bad people told me that this virus isn’t so bad, that the horror of Monkeypox which is invading our land and may kill off our species and lead to the monkeys being in charge of the world, that we shouldn’t worry about that too. They don’t want us to shut down schools and stop democracy and take away people’s choices. They say that a million people die every year from smoking and obesity, that most of the hospitals are full with people who have bad health habits but we don’t stop them from doing that, so why should we impose our will on everyone about COVID. Tell us, Smart Tony, so the American people know, tell us that in our country, science rules the land and always has.”
Smart Tony smiled, because he knew that right from the country’s founding, science was the one thing that all the great patriots could count on. So he told the group a story about his hero, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the greatest founding father of them all!
“Let me say this about Tom Jefferson,” said Smart Tony. “He was a true scientist, and he believed in democracy too, thought the two should go hand in hand. Now, he was a slave holder, and he hated that he had to have slaves to make money. But then he talked to scientists, including smart people from Harvard and Yale and even the founder of University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and they said, Tom, you got nothing to worry about, because science shows us that them darker people are inferior to us lighter people because they got smaller skull sizes, it’s solid proof. Well, Tom got all happy, but sometimes a dumb anti-science person would show him a skull and say, look, dark people got the same size skull sizes, here's the proof. But Tom was smart, and he knew that any facts that contradicted scientific truth was misinformation, so he dismissed those people and threw out their bad skulls. And here’s the lesson, people. Because science showed Tom Jefferson that his slaves was ok, he had enough money to write the Declaration of our Independence, and because of that we got to be free of England, which was a good thing because England wanted to ban slavery, and if we never had our independence then the anti-science British would have made us free our slaves and then all our founding fathers would have suffered, including George Washington himself.
“And,” he continued to a rapt crowd. “There’s another lesson here. Tom Jefferson knew that not everyone gets to be part of a democracy. Anti-science types and people who we think aren’t up to our standards, we have every right to tell them to shut up and to censor them and to get them kicked out of school and jobs unless they follow scientific truth as we declare it. And our Science President, just like Tom Jefferson, he knows that truth, and because he wore masks and had boosters he knows the value of science and he is still with us today. That’s cause he listened to the truth and, like me, Smart Tony, he took his Paxlovid lifesaving pill that we want everyone to take because the good people at Pfizer did a small study of 100 people who weren’t vaccinated and had no other health issues and found like one of them may have lived a day longer during Delta so therefore it is what saved the President’s life and it the only thing standing between Omicron and universal extinction!”
Most of the audience stood and applauded, but then the young CNN correspondents stood up and started talking without even having the decency to raise her hand!
“But Smart Tony, if 99.99% of people survive this variant, why are we making such a big deal of it?” she asked, to the gasp of the crowd. “I mean, more people die of other things, and even people who don’t wear masks and aren’t vaccinated are doing just fine. I mean, you talk about using Paxlovid, but why use anything when no one is dying? You can run around a tree and lick the bark and you’ll have a 99.99% chance of surviving, the same chance as you would if you took Paxlovid.”
“You are so naïve, you young hussy,” Smart Tony shot back. “Of course Paxlovid works; why do you think the Pfizer people tell you to take it and so does the Washington Post and all the smart University doctors who get paid by me and Pfizer tell you to take it and why the Science President bought $6 billion dollars worth of it in case people get sick, money he could have used for other things like gas prices and education, but who needs money for education when we keep closing the schools and scaring kids, but anyways, what I am saying is that it has to be a good drug if we all tell you so. And you talk about running around a tree? What if that tree falls on you and kills you? Paxlovid can’t do that! It’s just a little pill so it won’t fall on you and kill you like a tree. We have to trust the drug companies because they have our interest in mind. They always have and always do, and the doctors from Harvard and Yale, the ones the drug companies pay to do their studies, just like they did with Tom Jefferson, they always speak the truth because they know that a lot of people benefit from their truth.”
“Then,” she continued, as several guards whisked her away. “How do you explain all the rebound cases with Paxlovid? Why take a drug that makes things worse and that is hardly studied? Even you got a rebound case which was worse than the first time!”
Smart Tony stomped on the floor. Oh how he hated the anti-science people who always kept talking about facts and other such nonsense! He thought he had vetted this crowd and kept them away! He glared at the girl. “Let me say this about that. It don’t matter if you keep getting rebound cases, because every time you get COVID, you can just take more Paxlovid. Even if taking Paxlovid makes you get COVID over and over again, you can take the Paxlovid over and over again, and how can anyone argue with that? It’s a win-win, that’s what Smart Tony and the smart and generous people from Pfizer say. Have you seen their commercial?”
Jake the Tap Dancer raised his hand. “I do have a question along those lines, and I mean no offense by it, because as you know I agree with everything you say, I never ask you any questions, and I too benefit from Pfizer’s success. But some of my pesky nieces and nephews have asked me why we keep counting cases and not counting just the people who die from COVID and who are in the hospital. At the beginning of COVID we only cared if the hospitals were overcrowded. Now we seem to stop everything and force mask mandates just if cases go up. I am a very compliant man on a tight leash, so I understand why we do that. But can you explain it to some of the anti-science knuckleheads out there.”
Smart Tony smiled. “Let me use another example to show you why we count cases, Tap Dancer,” he said. “Let’s take car accidents. Well, every year about 60,000 Americans die of them. More kids die of car accidents every year than die of COVID in ten years. But we can’t stop the car deaths unless we know how many people are driving cars, how many cases there are of car drivers. That’s because everyone who drives can get into an accident and can die, so we have to count all of them, every driver. And so if too many people drive, well that's too many cases and can lead to car deaths, so it's best to stop everyone from driving in that case. That’s kind of what Smart Tony’s COVID policy is like, and we are the top country in the world when it comes to COVID. We count all the people who get COVID because some of them may die, which in the case of Omicron is one out of every hundred thousand people. So if we shut down the world when enough people get COVID—just like if we ban driving if too many people are driving—then we save lives. And ain’t that what our democracy is all about, saving lives? We can’t give people choice, we can’t just focus on the people who die or are hurt by a disease, we have to look at everyone who gets the disease and may die of it, and even if we kill and harm more people by stopping people from driving and shutting down the world when there is too much COVID, well that don’t matter, so long as we just do it. Does that answer it?”
The Tap Dancer nodded up and down and clapped for his hero.
“And one more thing I wants to tell all of you’s about and then I got to go and pee because Smart Tony, even though he takes like a million pills from the good people at our country’s drug companies, he sure as hell got to pee a lot. And it’s this. We know that all the hospitals are mostly filled with people who are too fat or who smoke or who don’t take care of themselves. But like the Science President says, it ain’t nice to say bad things to them people, because we are all about choice, so we let them get sick and fill the hospitals and say nothing; the hospitals get paid, so who cares? But COVID is different. It is the worse plague in history, and if that don’t kill us, then Monkey Pox will, or even whatever we come up with next. And so, we don’t have to care about nothing else other than COVID. And a lot of you people are right. The masks and boosters are lifesaving, but because of all the bad anti-science people out there, they ain’t enough. So, along with Merk and Pfizer and some other smart and helpful companies, the Science President is launching his new initiative, Moonshot to Wellness. Here’s a picture of it below, just so you see what we’s all is doing for you.
“So, we will put you in these protective chambers the rest of your lives, you will wear masks and wash your hands and get the vaccine, you can smoke and eat anything you want, and trained animals who don’t never get COVID, they will give you food pills every day to keep you alive. This way you can live, and ain't that all that's important? Haven’t we had enough snot? Haven’t we had enough muscle aches? So, now we have the Moonshot to Wellness, assuming the Science President survives his Paxlovid and assuming he remembers. And just so you know, Smart Tony, I am always there for you, even after I retire and you build a big monument to me and put in near the one of Thomas Jefferson, so you can remember how science and democracy works hand in hand to help lots of people do better. Now I got to pee!”
And with that, Smart Tony ran off after once again saving the day!