A far-fetched COVID hearing? Of course, it’s happening in Arizona.

We disrupted the state’s crowd of deniers, furious over Kari Lake’s most recent defeat earlier this week, and now we move on to the state’s COVID-19 plot crowd.

Why, oh, why, universe, is this our beloved Arizona?

On Thursday and Friday, the legislature will hold a hearing to “consider federal, state, and efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. “

Looking at the list of elected leaders and “expert panelists,” not to mention the cryptic appeal to QAnon, I guess this august testing organization wouldn’t be examining the link between Arizona’s low vaccination rate and our higher vaccination rate. mortality rate of nations. The one that rivals Peru.

The five-member Southwest Intergovernmental Committee on the Novel Coronavirus is chaired by state Sen. Janae Shamp, R-Surprise and a nurse who missed her job because she refused to get vaccinated.

“The other people of Arizona deserve to know the main points of the mishandling of the pandemic,” Shamp recently told Stephanie Innes of the Arizona Republic.

Also in the committee:

Representative Andy Biggs, who at the height of the pandemic denounced the mask as a form of tyranny and promoted hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug promoted from the beginning by then-President Donald Trump, as the elixir that would rid us of the pandemic.

Rep. Paul Gosar, who promoted the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned it could cause serious illness. Ivermectin is used to treat parasitic worms and viruses.

Rep. Eli Crane, who, like his far-right colleagues, retired from the World Health Organization and investigated Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who coordinated the country’s COVID-19 efforts.

The two-day hearing is subscribed to and heavily promoted through a pro-QAnon organization that uses the state-sponsored occasion as a cry to fools.

Ryan Randazzo of the Arizona Republic that The America Project hijacked the committee’s acronym, NCSIC (Southwest Intergovernmental Committee of the Novel Coronavirus), turning it into NCSWIC (Southwest Intergovernmental Committee of the Novel Coronavirus).

QAnon shooting? The acronym raises questions about the COVID event

Even Shamp promoted it as an NCSWIC event. traffic: NCSWIC is the code QAnon.

It’s “Nothing can prevent what’s happening,” a reference to their confidence that Trump will destroy the deep state.

The Q crowd will have to be extremely happy with the state’s nod to their beliefs.

But I digress.

Jerod MacDonald-Evoy of the Arizona Mirror offers an overview of the “expert panelists” who will speak at the hearing, which will be broadcast live to the masses from the Arizona State Capitol.

Do you know who hasn’t been invited across the state to testify about “federal, state and COVID-19 pandemic mitigation efforts” in Arizona?

He will be humble.

He’s a former state fitness director and current executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, a guy who warned the state wasn’t doing enough to prevent illness and death during the pandemic.

“This morning, while cleaning the pool, it occurred to me that some of the experts (panelists) remind me of Jude Law’s character in ‘Contagion,'” Humble told me.

The character of Hmmm. Law is a conspiracy theorist who profits from a fatal pandemic and uses social media to market a cure. And he becomes famous.

Of course, this kind of thing happens in movies.

But what if it’s real? Yes, it would be perfectly compatible with this official hearing sponsored by the state of Arizona.

Why, universe, is ArrayArray us?

Contact Roberts in laurie. roberts@arizonarepublic. com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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