Please Don't Listen To Elon Musk
Elon Musk broke free from the shackles placed upon him by his evil governmental oppressors so he could access Twitter if only for a fleeting moment to fire off a missive that, he hoped, would spark a revolution.
"FREE AMERICAN NOW," said the maker of glorified RC cars and bottle rockets to his fawning fan base of bros with the word "crypto" in their bios, who hang on his every word as if it were gospel handed down from the great Dubebro above and he is simply its vessel. As the modern cartoonish ideal of an American industrialist, Elon's words hold incredible weight among the crypto boys and even some women who are likely just bot accounts. They will never believe it, but the man they love so dearly has proven, time and again, that he has no idea what he's talking about when he talks about the coronavirus. He's got an impressively terrible history of being exactly, absolutely incorrect about pretty much everything.
Let's look at Elon's views on the coronavirus, and everything that must be done to save lives through the prism of the four inarguably worst takes a person could possibly have right now.
1) Thinking Coronavirus Panic Is Dumb
The U.S. is home to one-third of all the coronavirus cases on Earth. It's killed 60,000 people as I write this, but the real number is probably way, way higher. It is significantly deadlier than the flu and more contagious -- so contagious that you can catch it by just being in the general vicinity of an infected person who's talking. This virus is absolutely worth panicking about and taking damn near every conceivable measure possible to mitigate. Given all that, let's see what Elon had to say about the measures cities and states were taking to make sure people don't die...
It appears you've bested the collective concerns of the medical community with your inciteful rebuke. Touche, Musk. Touche
2) Ignoring Stay-At-Home Orders
The best thing we can all do while we wait for a vaccine is just stay home as much as possible. It's going to be miserable, the economy's going to tank, and we're all going to realize our dream of playing video games and watching TV all day is just as amazing as we all imagined it would be. Elon did his part by outright refusing to temporarily shut down Tesla factories in California for a week, as local officials begged him to put his entrepreneurial bloodlust aside to keep his employees safe, even as two of his office employees tested positive.
Unless he puts on a hard hat and starts installing his garbage self-driving car systems himself, all he's proving himself to be is just another rich guy willing to put his employee's lives at risk for his own financial gain.
3) Blind Faith In Chloroquine
I recently wrote a whole thing on how Trump and the entire right-wing media machine went wild over the supposed corona-killing benefits of a malaria medication called Chloroquine. In the case of coronavirus, scientists are finding that it actually does way more harm than good in that it does no good, and it will probably just kill you. Elon claims to have taken Chloroquine after he contracted malaria, and it made him all better. He then said that "Doesn't mean it works for C19," and undercut that terrific sentiment with, "but maybe better than nothing."
Cauterizing a wound in lava after a lion took your arm is "better than nothing." Taking a medication designed to fight parasites when you have a virus is not "better than nothing." It's medically stupid and is based on nothing other than Elon's inability to shut the hell up about subjects he knows nothing about.
4) Being A Crappy Prognosticator
Elon has been cursed with thinking success in one field is like a theme park fast past that gets you to the front of the line in every other field. That's why, with no background in the fields of virology and immunology, he felt it was totally cool for someone with his influence to proclaim that there would be zero cases by the "end of April."
You're likely reading this on April 30th. For the sake of argument, let's say "end of April" is defined as the 25th through yesterday, the 29th. Elon estimated that "based on current trends," there would be zero new cases in the United States. There have been over 100,000 new cases in that time. I know I'm just spitballing here like our pal Elon, but I'd guess he didn't pull that prediction from any kind of official document unless his ass is parchment paper and his fingers are quills.
The point is, Elon Musk is a one-man misinformation machine who is habitually wrong about everything pandemic-related. Please, please, do not listen to him.
Luis can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Catch him on the "In Broad Daylight" podcast with Cracked alums Adam Tod Brown and Ian Fortey! Check out his regular contributions to Macaulay Culkin's BunnyEars.com and his "Meditation Minute" segments on the Bunny Ears podcast. Listen to the first episode on Youtube!
Top Image: JD Lasica/Wikimedia Commons
