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Proof? What Proof?
It’s not March anymore. I feel like that’s something we need to keep reminding ourselves of. We have endured eight months of this pandemic, and we’ve learned a lot about how the virus spreads, how to treat those made seriously ill, and what the economic and social effects of lockdowns are. But not only that, we also know how wholly ineffective lockdowns are in slowing the spread of the virus.
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, and we apparently are still living in March, where we know none of those things, but especially not the last. As the virus is peaking nationwide and our own numbers are creeping uncomfortably upwards (though nowhere near the dangerous levels we’re seeing in the Midwest and in the central part of the country) our county executive has decided to roll us back to “Phase 1” of our reopening, effectively writing a death sentence for any number of businesses like gyms and restaurants who now pushed back to 25% occupancy from the 50% they were at before this week. Statewide, we were rolled back from 75% capacity to 50%.
BREAKING: Wednesday at 5pm: MD @GovLarryHogan says statewide capacity at bars and restaurants will be reduced from 75% to 50%. #FOX5DC #COVID19
— Jim Lokay (@LokayFOX5) November 10, 2020
What I don’t understand is this: Why is it government officials can write these death sentences for countless businesses without bearing the burden of proof that these establishments are behind our jump in positivity rates? The burden of proof should be on the government before such draconian regulations are passed, and yet, they can just enact them, and worse, there isn’t a deafening outcry from the public demanding evidence from contact tracers.
From what we know from contact tracers, the jump in cases is coming from private, indoor gatherings. Not from restaurants, gyms, or houses of worship (which have also seen their capacity reduced). This is an anti-science action that will have one effect: crushing businesses. Our numbers will creep ever higher, though we’ll feel like government is doing something, even if they can’t do anything.
One of my favorite accounts tackling the pandemic from a data perspective is this one, and he asks an important question we need to be asking of our local officials:
I feel like there needs to be a very very big discussion about exactly what the appropriate responses to a COVID surge are and (importantly) for how long
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) November 11, 2020
I don’t see that happening anytime soon here in the Socialist Republic of Montgomery County. But it’s one that freedom-loving Americans should be asking, and should have been asking starting in April of this year. “Why do you need these emergency powers, what will you accomplish with them, and for how long do you need them?”
The state of emergency in New Jersey has been extended eight times. That should be illegal; an “emergency” cannot last for eight months outside of wartime. If you need to exercise extralegal powers, you need to gain approval for those powers from the citizenry. The fact that no politician has tried to do so and that no large group of people have protested to demand it over the course of this pandemic does not bode well for liberty.
Published in General
The critical number would seem to be critical care capacity. The fact that we see positive test counts everywhere (I refuse to call them “case” counts, given how often they’re asymptomatic and how often they’re likely to be false positives or insignificant PCR positives.) but rarely see numbers about the impact on critical care capacity is telling.
After all this time, there should be a standard set of data and assumptions provided with any tightening of COVID restrictions. As it is, we’ve simply handed our bureaucrats a blank check and said, in essence, “we trust you.”
I don’t trust them.
Same in Minnesota. Gov Walz just “turned back the dial” (his catch phrase for keeping his emergency dictatorship powers for the 8th straight month) so bars and restaurants have an evening curfew, indoor & outdoor private gatherings are limited to 10 people, and weddings and funerals have new, more limited restrictions. I don’t see this ending anytime soon.
Thank goodness we have sanity in Florida with Gov. DeSantis. Our numbers are climbing, too, but it’s highly unlikely that we will see major lockdowns again.
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Since the early 1990’s, the American people have been inside this conundrum where the experts who sit in positions of power issue proclamations and laws based on science-y stuff. Then if those laws are detrimental, and enough people start pointing that out, the experts begin to issue more laws based on science-y stuff.
Should people rebel, then the laws begin to have serious fines and penalties like jail time attached to them.
Why is this?
Because modern day science is handled by Corporate America, and Corporate America demands profits.
Now once upon a time, we actually had a Fourth Estate. When such situations arose, the press then took care of the problem by having reporters investigate the situation. The reporters’ finding became part of articles in newspapers and magazines, and entire mini series in print and on TV. But by the 1990’s, that was happening less and less.
And now through the tremendous advances of Corporate control over media, it happens rarely if ever.
Bethany, if you have ever been merrily participating in shutting down intelligent people over any issue by claiming that the “officials” of any industry should simply be believed because of “science-y stuff,” then you have helped promote the understanding among members of the society that it is of upmost importance to sanctify the officials who have “science-y stuff” on their side. Any time people shut down those who disagree with them, even people who have independent studies on their side, and you are suggesting that debate is for conspiracy theorists, then the idea that officialdom is an official religion is further promoted.
The strengthening of the idea that some issues are simply too important to have any debate at all is exactly what has convinced 42% of our population to now firmly and righteously be holding up their hands over their eyes, ears and mouths, just like the three monkeys of old.
When its a choice between stupid and malicious, pick malicious.
But the majority of the population does trust them. The Dictator of Washington State was just elected to a third term of dictatorship by a large margin. I predict that this will never end.
I want to see lawsuits over these arbitrary emergency powers. They should have threshold criteria for imposing them, limitations on the extent, and exit criteria for ending them. “No more deaths” is unacceptable …
He may be the most important person in the United States right now. He is daring greatly. I think he’s right. I would do what he is doing.
Our Dictator’s criteria for removal of restrictions are: A vaccine that is approved, widely available, and the majority of the population vaccinated. With a population that has a significant number of people who have already stated that they will refuse vaccination, what does that tell you? Restrictions will never end.
Notice how rarely the subject of entire nation-state economies collapsing due to COVID restrictions even makes the various news shows:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/half-of-worlds-workers-at-immediate-risk-of-losing-livelihood-due-to-coronavirus
While the media has been slamming our brains with the terrifying facts that new cases are surging, little mention of the economy as experienced by normal people is ever brought forth.
Suicides in Placer County Calif are three times higher than COVID deaths.
Yet Biden, if elected, will help governors like Gruesome Newsom bring back the over the top restrictions.
Stad,
On Nov 2nd, Kevin Kiley and James Gallagher have received a tentative victory in court, with the judge ruling that the governor in Calif has exhibited an unconstitutional overreach by establishing mandates and dictates that the legislature has never ruled on.
So hopefully that judge will not reverse her wise decision now that Biden is being touted as the President elect.
Bethany and Stad: These arguments do not make any sense to me.
Before whom are the “government officials” to bear “the burden of proof”? Why would you think that “lawsuits” are the answer?
Do you think that judges should make all decisions? Judiciary uber alles, or something like that?
Within the zone of executive power, it is the proper role of an executive officer to make decisions. He is the decision maker who passes upon the evidence. Judges should not be second-guessing such decisions.
Some such executive officers will make bad decisions. The answer is political pressure in the short term, and the ballot box in the long term.
Personally, I agree with your conclusions about the apparently unwarranted nature of these restrictions.
Here is the actual Montgomery County executive order:
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/exec/Resources/Files/orders/EO122-20AM.pdf
…the only legal authority that it states, as far as I can tell, is that derived from the governor’s statewide order (which is linked). But from a quick reading, I can’t see any reference to *legislative* authority in the governor’s order, either.
And the State order also says:
“The effect of any statute, rule, or regulation of an agency of the State or a political subdivision inconsistent with this order is hereby suspended to the extent of the inconsistency. ”
Really? Where does THAT authority come from?
I lived in Montgomery County years ago but got out. May I suggest you do the same while you still can.
My next trick: escape from California. That may prove more difficult.
So would things be much different with a Democrat governor?
…
I personally don’t know why anyone would want to eat inside a restaurant. The only thing I miss about going inside restaurants is that when I am traveling I have to the bathroom somewhere, and some gas stations are rather filthy.
You nailed it – never. Notice the leeway he left himself:
A vaccine approved – by whom?
Widely available – how wide? Dispensed from soda machines?
Majority of the population vaccinated – how many, and are you going to wait for other states to go first to reach this number? (Leaving your own citizens unprotected until then.)
What a grassmole . . .
Whoa. What do the numbers look like nationwide, and from state to state in particular?
But will Newsom appeal, and ask for a stay pending the appeal. There’s no end to what this . . . sorry, almost called Newsom by a bad name . . .
How else are you going to expose wrongdoing and punish the offenders?
In court, yes.
These executives (talking about Democrats here) have no desire to look into their own state’s potential for hanky-panky. And evidence is what we see presented in court, so we’re back to judges again.
And court when they make decisions to not investigate vote fraud.
Whew! I was worried you disagreed with me on everything! Time for a beer . . .
I just escaped from the DMV and couldn’t be happier in Texas. While I miss my friends, I still get to talk to them and hear them complain about the lack of standards and accountability for reopening schools in the area. Some have kids attending schools in Montgomery Co and have just been switched to virtual after going back for a few weeks. The thing is, even my friends who hate what’s happening aren’t going to be a vocal opposition for various reasons (largely potential professional blowback, but also just personality). The exception to this is the recent groundswell of parents pushing back against the cancellation of winter sports in Arlington County.
Many friends pulled their kids from public schools in favor of sending them to religious schools in person. I can’t say that’s a bad thing for them, although I think the kids from lower-income families are and will be bearing the brunt of the public school closures.
As a bonus, my kids are happier in school in person here in Texas, and my youngest even tells me that her new school is better than her old school.
With new COVID-19 cases well over 130,000 a day, my office has stopped going out to eat. We pick up “take out” and eat in the office.
6, 12, 18 months from now people are going to start noticing the many, many cases of mental illness, depression, and despair that are developing now, but are currently hidden from view. These cases are now being ignored, and they perceive that they have no mechanism to seek help.
Despite the increase of positive cases and even an increase in numbers of hospitalizations, the vast majority of deaths remain among residents in long term care facilities. These are people who are social distancing like none of us would want to do and have to wear a medical grade mask 24/7 and they are still dying. The virus is now everywhere among us. Get over it and get back to life.
But I would recommend supplementing Vitamin D, selenium and zinc while we wait for this to run its course.
Smartest thing you’ve said all year.
Hidden from view?
A lot of things are hidden these days, but mass psychosis isn’t one of them.
How do we organize class action lawsuits? Is there a network?
How do you know what goes on in the minds of the millions of people who are told they can’t work or attend school, they are to stay away from other people, to hide their faces, and are kept away from anyone who might notice a problem? One or two or three million extra depressed and despairing people in a population of 330 million may not qualify as “mass psychosis,” but it is a heavy price for many families. Some places are already seeing suicide rates 2, 3, 4 times normal. Early this summer, more than 10 per cent of a surveyed sample of the general population had contemplated suicide in the preceding month. 25% among young adults. [I do not know what a “normal” or baseline rate is, so I don’t have the ability to quantify any change. But I doubt that suicide consideration is normally anywhere near that high.]
I tell people that the new COVID cases are wonderful news. These positives are overwhelmingly in healthy, asymptomatic people and the faster the bug spreads without adverse consequence in that group, the faster the bug will hit a wall and stop spreading. And the death rate and hospitalization rate are vastly lowly than when the bug first hit.
Look at Sweden and NYC. Almost no cases anymore precisely because the bug ripped through those populations at a great rate and is now out of targets–and they did it while arriving at a low incidence of the antibody (probably less than 20%) which means the theory that T-cells remembering other COVID variants over time provide significant resistance is very likely valid.
What frightens me are the numbers of healthy people (most much younger than I) who now live in such fear of COVID that they wear masks on empty park pathways, alone in the car with windows rolled up, or in other exceedingly low-risk environments. They will be the social enforcers of the coming climate emergency, the systemic racism emergency, and whatever else keeps us looking to Big Brother for guidance. I fear that COVID was just a drill.
NY now has a classification of micro-clusters as yellow. These areas are assigned a low threshold of 2.5 cases per 100.
Schools meeting in person in these yellow zones now have mandatory random testing of 20% of students staff per week.
#F@kCuomo
So glad I don’t live in NY anymore. Just hope that NY’s mandates are coming soon to the entire U.S.