Pennsylvania’s Governor Wolf has now tested positive for the latest viral scourge. He says he has no symptoms, and like anyone becoming infected, we wish him a safe and speedy recovery.
Yet this now gives us pause. Here we have the top politician in our state who, along with his chief medical officer, has presented himself as the very authority on avoiding the virus. More than almost any other state, Pennsylvania endures business shutdowns, school closures, onerous fines, and declarations aimed at preventing the freedom to travel or assemble, even in our own living rooms. How can such a wise politician succumb to the very problem he knows expertly?
Unlike so many other ‘expert’ officials, Wolf did not appear to be dining in French restaurants, vacationing in Mexico, or traveling to see relatives for the holidays. Perhaps someone in his sphere of experts slipped into Delaware to avoid our state’s onerous alcohol taxes and brought back more than bourbon.
This concerned the Science Committee of the Libertarian Party of Chester County, so we paid a visit to our laboratories in order to consult with our Science Officers. After passing through the usual decontamination baths, ultraviolet light tunnel, and underwear change, we consulted with the team to research the problem.
Using our modified Commodore 64 system to cruise the web using touchless thought control, evidence at first was confusing. There appeared to be little correlation between the genius of Wolf’s mandates and public rates of illness. How can this be? Governors are medical experts – they told us so.
We decided to look deep into the numbers using our proprietary combination of Lotus 123 and Visicalc. (This program takes years of study but works unlike anything we know). We looked closely at public infection rates, and the numbers were confusing:
Teachers/Students rate of infection: 1% (Brown University Study, September)
Flight Attendants: 1% (Airline Union Study)
Health Care Workers: 2% (Ohio Heath Care System)
Pennsylvania Overall Rate: 3.4% (Statista)
These numbers appeared too low, considering the economic and schooling damage being ordered. We decided to expand our study by looking at various rates of infection by profession when we stumbled across Ballotpedia’s report….on politicians.
We found that there were hundreds of politicians who have been infected in the federal government and at local levels. Here is a set of relative few people in authority, many of them instructing their constituents on how to avoid infection, sadly becoming infected (although many had few or no symptoms, including heads of major nations).
But one number stood out on our glowing blue Visicalc sheets – U.S. Governors.
Seven state governors have contracted the virus that we know of, including the latest report in Pennsylvania. That represents a 14% rate among U.S. governors. Clearly, this indicates the dangers of this particular occupation, among the highest rate our science team has discovered.
Accordingly, the LPCC is working on a new set of voluntary guidelines designed to minimize risk among Pa. residents. The recommendations include:
Avoid all contact with state governors whenever possible.
Enjoy family and friend holiday parties without the presence of a governor.
If a governor is in line at the supermarket, choose Self-Checkout instead.
When a governor speaks on TV, mute the sound (you cannot be too careful)
After touching a governor, grab a hot shower and take Vitamin D
Do not allow governors to light your Chanukah candles or decorate Christmas Tree
Most of these are common-sense suggestions, but there is one that we have that differs from the views of our chief state executive. We recommend that our governor crosses state lines at the earliest possibility and remains quarantined in a separate state until expiration of term of office. This way, both the executive and constituents will be safer.
We hope you enjoyed our Modest Proposal (a Holiday Blog Edition by the LPCC) and with you all a happy Chanukah and a Merry Christmas.