A brand-new COVID pandemic is knocking on the door, and the Democrats want you to be afraid — very afraid. After all, a citizenry that’s afraid is a citizenry that’s easier to control. And a citizenry that’s easier to control is a citizenry far more likely to vote for the Democrats.

“The left-leaning media is sounding the alarm on the new COVID-19 variant labeled BA.5,” reports Fox News, “asserting that it’s a ‘big deal’ and calling for people to mask up and get boosted.”

Last week, we noted that the Left keeps denying the science about COVID-19. We noted that those COVID-19 vaccines aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. We quoted Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch, who said that the people who’ve had multiple boosters “have higher risk of getting the virus and spreading the virus than unvaccinated people,” and that the data now clearly show that the mortality for COVID-19 “is now almost entirely in highly vaccinated people.”

That isn’t good news for the Party of Control, the Party of Big Government, the party that’s been beating us over the head for the past year and a half about getting vaccinated and getting those boosters. And so it’s trying to scare us anew. Take Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, for example. As Fox News continues:

In recent remarks, White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci called for the virus to still be “taken seriously” and warned that Americans who want to put the pandemic in the past must realize it is not gone yet. Fauci appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday to recommend viewers continue to mask up indoors and get their second booster shot to combat the spread of the BA.5 variant, though he admitted it would be a “hard sell” for the American people. “Everybody wants to put this pandemic behind us and feel and hope it doesn’t exist. It does,” he said.

Don’t get us wrong: This new BA.5 variant, which we in our humble shop have taken to calling MT.22, the midterm 2022 variant, is out there, and it’s spreading. But as is the case with viruses as they mutate, they tend to become more contagious and less lethal.

Johns Hopkins’s Dr. Marty Makary reports that BA.5 is causing a bump in cases but is resulting in “a mild common-cold-like illness.” He added, “We’re watching the preview of BA.5 in Europe and it does appear to be passing, and it also is not resulting in hospitalizations that are meaningful.”

Thoughtful, reassuring, evidence-based words like that are not what the Democrats want you to hear right now. So, again, they’re sounding the alarm. As CNN put it in a recent headline, “The worst variant is here.”

“The worst”? In what way? On May 17, U.S. COVID-19 deaths reached one million. Does CNN think this new variant will bring with it a million more deaths? Of course not. But that isn’t stopping CNN alarmists and their leftist fellow travelers from hyping it.

“Covid-19 is circulating widely as the BA.5 Omicron subvariant elevates the risk of reinfections and rising case counts,” reports The Wall Street Journal, “spoiling chances for a summer reprieve from the pandemic across much of the U.S.”

We don’t know about you, but we’ve quite enjoyed this summer so far. And those we know who’ve gotten COVID recently seem to be rolling right through it, as if they have a common cold.

And yet there was CNN senior producer Eliza Mackintosh, shamelessly scaremongering:

Nearly two-and-a-half years since the coronavirus pandemic began, the most infectious and transmissible variant yet has arrived. Repeated Covid-19 waves have left millions of people dead, with only vaccines helping to blunt the toll. Now the virus is spreading again — evolving, escaping immunity and driving an uptick in cases and hospitalizations. The latest version of its shape-shifting, BA.5, is a clear sign that the pandemic is far from over.

The Chicken Littles at The Daily Beast have taken to calling BA.5 “the ninja” COVID variant, which we’re sure makes our Japanese friends happy. They went on to call it the “most dangerous yet” and “unstoppable” and a “preview of the months and years to come.”

Good grief.

Be smart, be safe, but dig for the facts. And know that the data regarding serious illness and lethality for this new strain simply aren’t living up to the Leftmedia’s hype.