Last week, Steven Crowder published an explosive video in which New York City's COVID tsar boasted about the drug-fueled sex parties he had during the lockdowns that made everyone in NYC miserable, destroyed livelihoods, killed thousands of the elderly, and devastated children's education. Today, Kristen Brown, writing at The Atlantic, explains that the problem wasn't the sex parties; it was that Jay Varma wasn't open about his participation at the time. This is one seriously weird application of the old "cover-up is worse than the crime" mantra from the Nixon era.

In the video that Crowder released, a fast-talking Varma explained to an undercover journalist that he was under a lot of pressure locking people up (my words, not his), so he let off steam during COVID by having sex parties that involved serious amounts of drugs. He did this even as he proudly used extreme forms of bullying to make people's lives miserable to force them to take a vaccine many deeply opposed (and that even he concedes was unnecessary for many).

The whole story is disgusting and disturbing, especially because it reveals how the self-styled elite believe that they're above the rules they create for others.

Naturally, the mainstream media (almost 97% of whom are anything but Republican) must save the legacy of the COVID regime from this damage. Brown's approach, though, is somewhat eye-opening, to say the least. Brown first explains that, really, Varma probably wasn't doing anything wrong:

It's not clear whether Varma personally violated any COVID rules. The sex parties involved, by the account he gave to the podcaster Steven Crowder in a companion video, "like, 10 people." At the time, New York's guidelines -- which Varma was promoting far and wide -- limited gatherings to 10 people or fewer in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Separate city guidance on "Safer Sex and COVID-19" discouraged -- but did not forbid -- group sex. ("Limit the size of your guest list. Keep it intimate," the guidance said.) Varma explained that he'd sex-partied responsibly, noting, "Everybody got tests and things like that." He also said that he'd attended a dance party with hundreds of others in June 2021, after he'd left government (but while he was still consulting for the city on COVID policies).

However, even Brown must acknowledge that some of what Varma described may have shown his family violating rules. For example, Varma explained that his family traveled to Seattle for Christmas in 2020 but that Varma himself refrained from joining them because Mayor De Blasio was worried about optics.

And then it comes out: In June 2021, at the same time that Varma had left NYC government and participated in a massive "dance" party (i.e., more drugs and sex), The Atlantic published an essay in which he explained that he wasn't being that draconian when it came to locking up a free people and forcing them to take a vaccine. Thus, Varma wrote, "Many academic public-health experts favor more stringent restrictions than public-sector practitioners, including me, believe are realistic."

You can just feel the compassion oozing out of him, can't you? (I don't even want to think about what else might be oozing out of this man.)

Given that Varma was "conflicted" about destroying people's lives, Brown suggests that he could have handled the whole drug-fueled sex orgies thing differently -- he should have kept people posted about his sex life in real-time, to show that he understood their pain:

Perhaps it would have helped if he'd shared his own struggles with that tension at the time. Social-science research tells us that public-health messaging wins trust most effectively when it leads with empathy -- when leaders show that they understand how people feel and what they want, rather than barraging them with rules and facts. Clearly Varma struggled in the way that many others did as he tried to navigate the crushing isolation of the pandemic.

[snip]

"It wasn't so much sex," he told the woman who was trying to embarrass him. "It was just like, I need to get this energy out of me." So did the rest of us.

Can't you just imagine the press conference?

Hi, this is Jay Varma again, your friendly COVID tsar.

I know that you all are suffering now. I hear complaints about parents trapped in assisted living facilities with COVID-infected patients; about your depressed, illiterate children watching their gender-confused teachers on a monitor; about your ruined businesses; and about your general misery.

But I want you to know that I'm suffering, too. However, when I suffer, I don't just whine, I act.

That's why I want to tell you about my sex parties. You see, I really need to get this energy out of me. So, I invite a few friends -- no more than 10 -- to join me in a secret hotel room. I make sure they've had all their tests (you know, COVID, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, etc.).

Once they're cleared for take-off, I remind them to bring their sex aids (things like pot, mollie, LSD, ecstasy, heroin) and condoms. Then, we're ready to get naked and relieve our stress together. This method really works, so I recommend it for the whole family (unless your family, like mine, is away for the holidays).

Thank you for your time. I look forward to giving you a further update on my kinky sex life tomorrow.

I don't know about you, but I suspect that even tolerant New Yorkers might have found it hard to take this particular empathetic confession during an era of lockdowns and forced vaccinations.