Not New York, not Philadelphia, embarrassed to be New Jersey (Opinion)

After hosting a couple super-spreader events over the weekend, ya know, multiple households, people from out of state, etc., we headed out past the New Jersey border to visit with friends and family in anticipation of the upcoming holiday. Noticed a couple of things in my travels.

First, traffic on Monday was outrageous. And second, gas prices are through the roof. We filled up before coming back to NJ and paid $1.97 a gallon! But more on that in a moment. Where's all the traffic coming from? You'd never know that the state was in lockdown mode. Where is everyone going? Seems that big corporate and big box stores are immune to the lockdown measures, while your small business suffers.

Most of my friends are in the small business community and they are hurting. Badly. Holistic healing centers, dry cleaners, restaurants and even small doctors' offices. Hurting. Potentially shutting their doors and either moving or just closing up shop. Dreams crushed. Opportunities lost. And what's perhaps worst about all of this is that geography matters. Head south and west and it's a completely different story. As if the virus acts differently in different states.

First of all, we can see the actual results of cases "spiking" (although the term itself is absurd because it's based on a dramatic ramp up in inaccurate tests) in all the areas suffering under the greatest lockdown measures and mask mandates.

We also know that the survival rate is 99% higher if you're under the age of 20, where it's 99.997%, but who's counting? We also know that so-called hospitalizations are based on everyone in the hospital who tests positive. Nothing to do with catching COVID-19, falling ill and then needing to be hospitalized. That number is low. And no different than EVERY OTHER flu season. As a matter of fact, 2019-20 was one of the lightest flu seasons and still an estimated 400,000 people ended up in the hospital. Years before? As high as 800,000.

Imagine if we replaced the word COVID with flu. You'd have a panic every year. People die. Viruses come and go EVERY year. We have allowed fear of a simple virus, not even close to as deadly among young healthy people as the flu, to dominate our discussions and our actions.

Gov. Phil Murphy is a bad person for sure. He's playing on your fears and making you doubt your normal instincts as a free American. But evil, selfish people have always existed. Arrogant elites like Murphy have always been around. It's up to you whether you're gonna let him ruin your life. Because if you look around the world and take the estimates from the WHO, that approximately 750 million people have had coronavirus (and that stat is a month old) so it's likely closer to ONE BILLION people now, then the mortality rate for COVID comes in around .12. The seasonal flu? .11.

Seems the rest of the country, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Tennessee, to name just a few, are back to normal. No universal masking, no closure of restaurants and no cancelling of school sports. Now, do you think the virus operates differently in Red and Blue states? Or do you think that we have a crisis-actor governor who is using tests results, calling it a spike and punishing you for the spread of a virus that will spread every year regardless of your behavior? What will you do next? Comply? Resist? Or leave?

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.