Bill Maher Rips Govt for Censoring 'dissenting opinions' About Pandemic That Were the 'right ones'; After Four Years, 59% in U.S. Say COVID-19 Pandemic is Over, and other C-Virus related stories

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Bill Maher rips govt for censoring 'dissenting opinions' about COVID-19 pandemic that were the 'right ones'

Maher says we 'should be able' to debate ideas around coronavirus

"Real Time" host Bill Maher ripped into the government, medical agencies and social media platforms for shutting down "dissenting opinions" on COVID-19 opinions Friday.

"As the years roll by now, we see that the dissenting opinions on a lot of these things were quite the right ones," the HBO host told his guest, author and journalist Kara Swisher.

The conversation started when Maher brought up Murthy V. Missouri, a Supreme Court case that originated from a lawsuit filed by state attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana accusing government officials of colluding with social media companies to censor posts online.

These allegedly censored posts included statements about COVID-19 and Hunter Biden’s laptop, among other topics. 

Swisher pushed back on Maher’s points, noting that it was a confusing time for everyone.

Maher said earlier in the interview that he "was always on the page during the pandemic that they should not be shutting down debate about medical matters."

"I was a dissenter on many of these issues," he said, before noting that there were valuable opinions that were silenced or discouraged at the height of the pandemic.

Facebook — now Meta — owner Mark Zuckerberg said last year that the "establishment… kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true."

On "Real Time," Swisher told Maher that "we’re not going to know perfectly."

The host continued, providing examples of where speech on the topic was discouraged. --->READ MORE HERE

After Four Years, 59% in U.S. Say COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over:

More than four in 10 do not expect their lives to return to pre-pandemic normalcy

Four years after COVID-19 forced widespread shutdowns of businesses and schools across the U.S., 59% of Americans believe the pandemic is over. At the same time, about as many, 57%, report that their lives have not returned to normal, and 43% expect they never will.

National worry about contracting COVID-19 is near its lowest point in the trend dating back to the early days of the pandemic -- although, as has been the case throughout the pandemic, Democrats express much more concern about COVID-19 than Republicans do.

The impact of the coronavirus on the public since emerging as a global threat in 2020 is evident in the finding that seven in 10 U.S. adults report having had COVID-19 at least once.

These findings are from a March 5-11 update to Gallup's probability-based COVID-19 web panel tracking poll, which began in March 2020.

Majority of Americans, but Not Democrats, Say Pandemic Is Over

Gallup has tracked Americans’ perceptions of whether the pandemic is over in the U.S. since June 2021, during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout when most Americans received their first shot. But it was not until late May/early June 2023 that a majority thought it was over. This was shortly after President Joe Biden signed a congressional resolution to end the nation’s state of emergency and the U.S. and global public health emergency declarations ended. Fewer, though still a slim 53% majority, continued to believe it had come to an end in late August/early September.

The latest 59% of Americans who believe the pandemic is over is up slightly from late last summer but is still shy of the positivity expressed last May/June.

Republicans (79%) are almost twice as likely as Democrats (41%) to say the pandemic is over, while 63% of independents agree.

Majorities of Republicans have thought the pandemic is over since April 2022, and majorities of independents have said the same since February 2023. In contrast, only once, in May/June 2023, has a majority of Democrats agreed the pandemic is over. --->READ MORE HERE

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