The COVID Madness In Shanghai Should Be Teaching All Of Us A Lesson: You Have To Vote Out Those Who Love The Taste Of Control

While other zero-COVID countries have long ago given up on the idea that they can beat the virus with harsh lockdown rules, in Shanghai, China, citizens are now into their third week of being trapped by rules that have American diplomats expressing "concerns" over health and safety of Americans in the city.

Things have gotten so out of control in Shanghai that the U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency workers and families to get out now as the Chinese government has ordered some children to be separated from their parents to be quarantined or isolated in some fashion.

And that news is coming from the lib lib New York Times which also reports the local government has "begun allowing children with special needs to quarantine with their families."

What?

Tuesday, Shanghai reported 23,000 new COVID cases in a city of around 27 million people. The streets are nearly empty. COVID test checkpoints are set up in neighborhoods. There are food shortages, as reported by the lib lib American media outlets.

And drones are warning people to follow the COVID rules and to avoid singing on their balconies.

Seriously, what are the Chinese thinking here? What's the end game for preventing humans from singing? This can't be about solving COVID. Let's stop and think about what's going to happen to the brains of children who have been separated from their parents.

Let's also stop and think about American politicians who see such actions by the Chinese and start thinking they should dip their toes back into the lockdown waters. Just this week, Philadelphia leaders announced they would go back to indoor masking -- beginning April 18. You know, because COVID waits a week before being passed amongst people.

Is it expected that American politicians would try to lock down cities and fly drones around high-rise apartment buildings to order citizens to obey or else? No, but these ideas are now in their heads as they conjure up their own version of controls. The cat is out of the bag with some of these ideas of controlling citizens.

And the costs for these bright ideas from politicians have been disastrous to citizens.

Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, recommended ALL children as young as 8 years old should be screened for anxiety as a mental health crisis builds for young children.

“What the pandemic has done is, it exacerbated a pre-existing issue,” Nasuh Malas, director of pediatric consultation and liaison psychiatry services at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., told the Wall Street Journal. “These guidelines are a preliminary step to many, many steps that we need to take nationally as a community of people who are concerned about our youth.”

The news is even worse for children between 12 and 18, who should be screened for major depressive disorder, the task force announced.

Pediatric mental health was already an issue before COVID and then the virus absolutely ravaged a segment of youth in this country.

A CDC survey found a staggering one-in-three high school students reported poor mental health from the start of the pandemic through June 2021.

High levels of sadness were reported. Drug overdoses were way up. School dropouts in Chicago were expected to hit 100,000 in the fall of 2021. Parents couldn't depend on buses to pick up their children for school. It's pure chaos out there for children.

Will the politicians pay the price for what they've caused? Of course not.

The Chinese have no recourse for their government torturing them over the virus.

American parents have recourse. It's called voting out the maniacs who have crippled their cities with these rules and lockdowns.

What cannot happen in the United States is for citizens to allow so-called leaders to keep control of political offices where they launch draconian lockdown orders. Leaders who have that taste of lockdown and control on their lips cannot be allowed to find their next COVID moment.

Drones flying around lecturing humans cannot become normalized. The same can be said for the Shanghai-lite lockdowns American politicians concoct in their heads.

Now it's up to American citizens to say, "No more."

Written by
Joe Kinsey is the Senior Director of Content of OutKick and the editor of the Morning Screencaps column that examines a variety of stories taking place in real America. Kinsey is also the founder of OutKick’s Thursday Night Mowing League, America’s largest virtual mowing league. Kinsey graduated from University of Toledo.