ROGER KIMBALL: Calm down about the Delta variant.

I thought we’d be well beyond the the Wuhan flu by now. Yes, it probably came from a Chinese virology lab, one where ‘gain-of-function’ (i.e., bio-weaponization) research, generously funded by St Anthony Fauci’s NIH, was taking place, but you’re not supposed to say that. The Chinese don’t like it to have it bruited about publicly. So I won’t say it.

But I thought we would be beyond it because, after all, it is a seasonal respiratory virus that ebbs and flows and it is definitely on the ebb now. But what about (cue scary music), what about the Delta variant? They should have called it the Andromeda Strain for all the carefully cultivated and deliberately fanned panic its advent has occasioned.

Here’s a biology lesson. Viruses mutate. They can’t help it. It’s in their nature. Perhaps the so-called Delta variant is ‘more communicable’. So what? It is also markedly less deadly.

But, but, but: there is a great surge in people ‘testing positive’ for COVID. Again, so what? ‘Testing positive’ signifies — nothing. It really is a tale told by an idiot, many idiots. What if the people who run our lives, who bark at you on public transport to put on a face-diaper, who pontificate from state capitals about who can eat in restaurants, go to the theater, travel on airplanes — what if they started testing for your ordinary run-of-the-mill coronaviruses, the ones that are responsible for the common cold? Want to bet that there would be an awful lot of positives?

It’s Rahm Emanuel time now and forever: never let a good crisis go waste, he advised, and rest assured, they — the alphabet-soup pod-people who we put in charge of our lives — they have run with it big time.

Speaking of which: “I just have to note as well, after I wrote this, that could there be worse messaging than the CDC telling vaccinated people to wear masks. Readers know that I don’t find any evidence to suggest masks play any role in limiting transmission in the community. I have summarized my reasons for that repeatedly. And what is the point in pushing, even forcing people to get vaccinated if they have to still abide by all the same futile and stupid restrictions. But at least the CDC is consistent, they have done an absolutely atrocious job of communication.”