In your press conference announcing the Stay Home order, you said the Covid virus would kill 75,000 Minnesotans if we did nothing but only 50,000 if we implemented the strictest lock-down. We needed to do that to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICU rooms wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Two weeks later, you announced we had ramped up ICU rooms from 235 to 3,000 but we still needed ventilators, which were on back-order.
Since then, we’ve been in continuous lock-down and now have the mask mandate but ICU rooms are not overwhelmed with Covid cases; indeed, hospitals are closing their doors for lack of patients.
Your administration gives daily briefings on the spread of Covid cases and daily reported deaths as if these were bad things. But weren’t they part of the plan all along? We locked down to Slow the spread, not to Eliminate the spread. We knew people would die, we just wanted them to die more slowly. Your plan is working perfectly. Why aren’t you happy?
Which brings up the next point: when do you anticipate the lock-down will end? Right now, closings and quarantines seem to be based on case rates, not ICU rates. I understand that in theory, more cases could lead to more ICU admissions which could overwhelm the system; but so far, the statistics show that’s not happening. We have plenty of excess ICU bed capacity.
If all goes according to plan, eventually, everybody in the state will have Covid but most of them will neither display symptoms nor require hospitalization. Is that what you’re waiting for? If so, shouldn’t we speed up the process by lifting all restrictions now?
Last week, Dictator-for-Life Walz assured us rising numbers of Covid cases was due to 18-35 year olds not following appropriate mask and social distance procedures. He issued Executive Order 20-96 which limited gatherings to 10 people for two weeks, then 50 people for two more weeks, then 25 people thereafter. That Order was based on SCIENCE.
This week, he changed it to zero. No gatherings for four weeks. This Order also was based on SCIENCE.
What changed about the SCIENCE? The Governor says:
“I recently issued Executive Order 20-96, which placed limits on the social gatherings and establishments that posed the most serious concern according to MDH data. In the week since, MDH has confirmed over 30 additional outbreaks connected to the gatherings, bars, and restaurants that were encompassed by Executive Order 20-96. Unfortunately, these numbers, our statewide cases, hospitalization rates, and our levels of community spread demonstrate that a temporary dial back on in-person social activity and restrictions on certain businesses are necessary.”
Okay, so we’ve identified the problem and it’s 18-35 year olds going to social gatherings in bars and restaurants. But then what does this mean:
“Minnesota’s rate of “community spread”—meaning those cases that MDH cannot link to another case or a source of exposure—is particularly concerning. At least one third of all new COVID-19 infections in Minnesota have no known source.”
and also:
“Minnesota is currently averaging over 100 cases per 100,000 residents each day. These numbers tell a troubling story. The virus is everywhere, meaning that every interaction we have with people outside of our households poses a risk of transmission. When we cannot effectively trace infections due to community spread, we cannot keep COVID-19 out of our businesses, our schools, or the congregate care facilities that house our most vulnerable residents.”
So . . . last week, we knew enough to leave everything open with some limits. Today we don’t know anything so we must lock down everything even though the virus is everywhere and nothing we’ve tried to stop it, has done anything.
The evidence does not support the conclusion.
I’m starting to get the impression Kevin Roche at Healthy Skeptic is right. The Dictator-for-Life is not a bold leader protecting us from certain disaster; he is an Incompetent Blowhard.
Joe Doakes
He’s a gym teacher, using the tools of his trade – yelling and putting people in corners.
Joe is mistaking “science” – means of focused questioning, observation and analysis – with “science”, a set of memes and commandments designed to exhort compliance.
Governor Walz’ team of experts confidently predicted a Surge of Covid cases so large it would overwhelm hospitals. Patients would die on gurneys in hallways and parking lots, untreated. Bodies would lie in streets, uncollected. Everyone was at risk, from 6-month-old infants to 91-year-old seniors. 75,000 people would die, unless we ‘flattened the curve.’
To prevent that, the Governor declared a Peacetime Emergency and issued a Stay Home order which effectively suspended the United States Constitution, an act never before attempted in this country. Religious worship was banned. Political assemblies were banned. Jury trials were banned. Non-essential travel was banned. And non-emergency medical treatments were also banned, to keep hospital beds open for the Surge of Covid cases.
There was no Surge. Hospitals had on-going expenses for heat and lights, payroll, benefits and insurance amounting to nearly $1 million A DAY for the state’s largest medical providers, but no patients to pay those expenses. Medical providers are still scrambling to catch up. Fairview Health is closing two hospitals in St. Paul – Bethesda (two blocks North of the Capital) and St. Josephs (downtown). The move will save the company money but it will cost the community hundreds of hospital beds and the entire psychiatric care unit. The company also is closing 14 primary care clinics in Minnesota and two in Wisconsin, a total of 900 jobs in all, hoping to slash expenses fast enough to keep the company alive.
Ramsey County is helping out. It’s leasing Bethesda Hospital for $1.2 million to use as a homeless shelter, December through May. Room, board, staffing and security for 100 homeless people will run about $66 per person per day, which is a pretty good rate (slightly cheaper than staying at the Motel 6 on I-94 and White Bear Avenue). The Board of Commissioners didn’t mention where that money was coming from.
To date, rounded to the nearest whole number, Covid has killed Zero percent of Minnesotans. The long-term costs of the Stay Home order have yet to be totaled up.
Joe Doakes
It’s a crisis not to waste. They’re doing a fine job of it – or so the polls tell us.
The problem with democracy today is that just about half the voters are incredulous herd cattle who believe whatever they’re told, and one party makes damn sure they take advantage of it.
Poker players look for the other guys’ “tell,” a facial tic or mannerism that indicates the bid is a bluff. When they see the tell, they know he’s faking.
The security precautions to get into the doctor’s office include standing in line 6 feet apart wearing a mask and answering a bunch of questions. But they’re self-reported answers, unverified. No, I haven’t been out of the country, I don’t have a fever, I haven’t been in contact with anybody who has the deadliest virus known to man. What if I’m lying?
It reminds me of the pre 9-11 security precaution. The airlines used to ask did you pack your own bag? Did anyone ask you to carry anything on board? Has your bag been out of your control? No. But what if I’m lying?
Self-reported security. That’s the tell. It’s all fake. And they know it. So do you. So why do we put up with it?
Joe Doakes
Because you need the damn appointment or the load of groceries, and you just wanna get home and get back to work without a pack of murder hornets…er, Karens descending on you.
Standing on principle is time consuming and emotionally wrenching. Having no boundless supply of either, I pick my battles. I suspect we all do.
Fernandez writes about the urge to escape confinement, and how it’s universal. Even throws in a Shawshank Redemption quote. He labels it “rebellion,” a word that implies the authorities are right and the rebels are wrong.
Close, but no cigar. His analysis doesn’t distinguish the need to escape UNJUST confinement, which was what occurred in that film, and has occurred with all the lock-downs.
“Cases” are skyrocketing despite lock-downs and mask orders, but “deaths” are not, and particularly not among children, teens, young adults and working people. That means universal house arrest is not necessary, never was. We’re being punished for no good reason. That’s unjust confinement.
The urge to escape unjust confinement is not only natural, it’s right and moral and just. It’s not an act of rebellion against lawful authority. The people trying to continue the unjust confinement are in the wrong, not those of us trying to escape it.
Joe Doakes
I’ve got a mother in memory care. I’ll be protecting her (and/or going along with her facility’s plans for taking care of her), whatever it takes.
Steve Cramer, the president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, says only 15% of the typical workforce population works downtown right now.
Several businesses in the Skyway are closed at least temporarily due to COVID-19. Cramer couldn’t specify how many.
“We probably will see a few less of those establishments when things kind of bounce back, but when things bounce back, that will create new opportunities for growth so we’re looking for that hopeful day as well,” Cramer said.
In theory, yes – if Governor clink ever “allows“ things to go back to normal, it’s hypothetically true that all those empty skyway store fronts will provide a world of opportunity for the next round of merchants.
Provided, of course, that people come back – that working from home doesn’t gut the commercial real estate market – and that the public safety situation downtown doesn’t keep businesses away
The pandemic is beginning its eighth month – and the lockdown is well into seven months of devastation America’s economy, mental health and well-being.
And you’re starting to see Big Left hopping up in down with glee – the case numbers are starting to move upward in “Red” America, justifying their almost onanistic, millenialistic desire to see the infidels pay for their impudence.
But how’s it really going out there?
I took the stats from Worldometers as of October 13th, and broke them down across a few different statistical groupings:
Grouping
Covid fatalities per capita as of 10/13, 2020
National average
666
“Blue” state average
713
Red State average
362
“Purple” state average (“red” states with major, usually Democrat-controlled, metro areas)
Through the spring and summer, as President Trump essentially ignored the coronavirus, @NYGovCuomo played a kind of alternate-reality president for information-hungry liberals nationwide. He spoke with @dwallacewellshttps://t.co/TFzIrXd6aZ
New York still has a per capita death toll triple the national average. New York City’s economy – off Wall Street, anyway – is in the tank. It’s school system is saved from being a shambles only by having been a shambles before the epidemic. Fredo Cuomo and Ratzo DiBlasio spent the last six months playing out petty intra-party political squabbles as New Yorkers died in box lots.
Progressives do, indeed, exist in an “alternate reality”.
Who’s got two thumbs, and is the only person in the world who can’t call Donald Trump’s Twitter feed “an ill-advised mass of ready/fire/aim malaprops?”
Why, that’d be Representative Ryan Winkler, if he were pointing two thumbs at himself:
50-90% of Covid patients are asymptomatic. For many others – myself included – it felt like the chest cold I get nearly every spring; if it weren’t for a strange rash on my hand, I wouldn’t have even gotten an antibody test, much less a serology test.
So – now Ryan Winkler is Covid-shaming. Seems he knows as much about epidemiology as he does black history.
A majority of Americans are not only worried about violence after the election – they’re doing something about it:
When asked about just what sort of violence they expected to see, those polled responded with “riots,” “looting,” “burning” as some of their predictions. “Trashing of cities” was another response.
The YouGov poll was completed between October 1 – 2, 2020 and used 1,503 respondents.
It followed another poll released October 1 that found 61 percent of Americans agree with the concern the U.S. could be on the verge of another Civil War.
Additionally, 52 percent of consumers have also stockpiled food or essential goods in anticipation of social unrest tied to a resurgence of coronavirus in the coming months and/ or the election.
Unmentioned – they’re also gunning up numbers that crush all previous records.
This could be good news for conservatism in the long run; genuinely self-reliant people tend not to vote “progressive”.
I used to drive to work, half-an-hour each way. I listened to Sirius XM in the car. They sent me a renewal reminder: $160 for another year.
I called and told them to let it lapse. I work at home, I don’t listen to the car radio. Oh, but they can offer me a promotional rate. And expand my package to let me listen on-line. And . . .
No. If you hadn’t tried to gouge me, maybe I’d have let it renew. But teaser rates and short-term promotions won’t lure me back; they only serve to prove you could have offered me a better deal earlier, but chose not to.
I suspect there will be a raft of business failures in the next year or two, prompted by similar experiences.
Joe Doakes
I’ve got my own beeves with Sirius’ way of doing business. A company whose technology is that expensive and whose service is nonetheless that expendable needs to be a lot smarter than Sirius is.
Hi, I’m from the CDC and I’m here to ask you to take a free Covid test. If we detect Covid antibodies, you will be forced to skip the next two weeks of work, banned from restaurants and stores, your kids’ school be closed, and everyone you know will be under the same quarantine. Would you like to take the test?
No, get the hell away from me.
It’s because I identify as Black, isn’t it? Hater.
Joe Doakes
Why, it’s almost as if those expeditions were testing for social compliance more than Covid.
The flotsam and jetsam of the left’s social media legion of the invincibly depraved has legs so tingly this morning at the news the POTUS and FLOTUS have Covid, they had to drag themselves hand over hand to the kitchen to make their avocado toast.
Of course, they were in Duluth before the news broke, so the Twin Cities media has jumped into high gear to investigate, not ballot harvesting (oh, good heavens, no) but just how close Minnesota’s GOP congresspeople and candidates actually were to the President.
Strib columnist Jennifer Brooks:
Should we boil Duluth? I think we might need to boil Duluth.
If the FCOTUS recover without complications – fingers crossed, prayers being prayed – I’m almost tempted to send all these “journalists” sympathy cards.
Do I have this right? The pandemic has reduced commuter travel as employees and students work from home. The buses all say “essential travel only” and are not allowing the crowds they once had. Honestly, they probably don’t even have the crowds- fewer people are using the bus right now. I haven’t been on a bus lately, but I still get the texts about reduced service. Several times a day, buses aren’t running for all sorts of reasons.
Yet, despite all of this, Metro Transit employees were set to get a 2.5% raise and a $1500 bonus? The hospital where I work cancelled raises, eliminated CEU money, and cancelled the Holiday parties and meals because elective surgeries were cancelled for 2 months. Yet, these transit employees think their bonus and 2.5% raise are “crappy offers” and rejected the offer, voting for a strike?????
I rarely use such language, but seriously, WTF is wrong with these people? I mean, look around- they ought to be happy with being employed, let alone a raise this year.
If Metro Transit struck now, who would know?
Other than the people the DFL and their public employee union enablers want to keep miserable anyway?
Eighty-seven percent of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and event spaces in the five boroughs could not pay their full August rent, according to data from 457 businesses surveyed between Aug. 25 and Sept. 11, in a new study released Monday by the nonprofit NYC Hospitality Alliance.
It’s a 7 percentage-point increase from June and a four-point jump from July, darkening the dire picture for eateries desperately seeking relief following six months of partial — and in some cases total — closure due to COVID-19 shutdowns.
Some 34 percent of this group said they could not pay rent at all last month, and only 12.9 percent were able to meet full payments.
With winter coming up, and an administration of Karens running things, NYC’s restaurant and night life scene may just start looking like the proverbial “cold Omaha”.
Holidaymaker Michael Richards, 41, bought the tube of salt and vinegar Pringles on board the easyJet flight and nibbled on one every two-and-a-half minutes.
I don’t think per-capita death rates is the correct measure.
Covid does not strike all age groups equally. Minnesota had zero Second Graders die of Covid under a strict lock down, Wisconsin had zero Second Graders die of Covid under no lock down. Does this tell us anything about lock downs? No, because Second Graders don’t die of Covid. They are not the at-risk pool. Old people are the at-risk pool.
Also, nobody retires from Florida to move to New York, it’s the other way around. Comparing state death rates per capita fails to take into account that a larger percentage of the population in retirement states are old people, which gives those states a larger at-risk pool.
A fair comparison is the result of policies in high-death-rate-per-at-risk-pool states versus low-death-rate-per-at-risk-pool states. It takes a fair amount of math.
Minnesota has 5,600,000 people of whom 16% are over 65 [1].
Florida has 21,500,000 people of whom 21% are over 65. [2]
Deaths by Covid are broken into Age and Sex by State. [3] Yes, all the numbers are phony, but they’re equally phony.
Doing the math:
Minnesota has 695 Covid deaths in Men aged 65 and up; 816 Covid deaths in Women aged 65 and up; total 1,511 Covid deaths in the at-risk population. 1511 -:- 5,600,000 = .0002698.
Florida has 4,177 Covid Deaths in Men aged 65 and up; 3,701 Covid deaths in Women aged 65 and up; total 7,878 Covid deaths in the at-risk population. 7,878 -:- 21,500,000 = .0003664
Florida is doing worse than Minnesota, which I did not expect. That doesn’t mean our strict lock-down made any difference, since college kids partying on the beach generally have little contact with Grandma in the nursing home, but the statistics don’t help our case as much as I thought they would.
Unless I made a mistake, which is totally possible. Check the math yourself.
Fatalities per capita may not be ideal – but it’s the closest thing to a measurement that is simultaneously common enough to be a mathematical lingua franca and compares apples to apples, as it were.
TrendMacro, my analytics firm, tallied the cumulative number of reported COVID-19 cases in each state and the District of Columbia as a percentage of population, based on data from state and local health departments aggregated by the Covid Tracking Project. We then compared that with the timing and intensity of the lockdown in each jurisdiction. That is measured not by the mandates put in place by government officials, but rather by observing what people in each jurisdiction actually did, along with their baseline behavior before the lockdowns. This is captured in highly detailed anonymized cellphone tracking data provided by Google and others and tabulated by the University of Maryland’s Transportation Institute into a “Social Distancing Index.”
Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown, which range from April 5 to April 18, it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns — DC, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts — had the heaviest caseloads.
It could be that strict lockdowns were imposed as a response to already severe outbreaks. But the surprising negative correlation, while statistically weak, persists even when excluding states with the heaviest caseloads. And it makes no difference if the analysis includes other potential explanatory factors, such as population density, age, ethnicity, prevalence of nursing homes, general health or temperature. The only factor that seems to make a demonstrable difference is the intensity of mass-transit use.
The whole thing is worth a read and a critical evaluation.
But as this thing progresses, it seems more and more that the public health response was largely political posturing, and that the scientifically supported response was to promote responsible personal behavior (not just wearing masks and washing hands, either – losing weight, quitting smoking, managing diabetes and blood pressure all have outsized importance), aggressively protecting the extremely vulnerable, and investigate treatments (ideally free of politically-motivated interference).
We are in times in which the conservative approach (i.e., science) is pretty radical.
As I read it for the first time ever, I am amazed at how similar his statements are to almost every other elected leader, regardless of party. President Trump tells us here that he recommends social distancing, limit gatherings to 10 people, avoid restaurants, bars. Choose take out. Choose distance learning if possible. And he states, way back in March, that this is going to be going on for a while, maybe past August, he suggests. These are his prepared statements. What I mainly heard reported at the time was his off the cuff responses to the media. He is a wild man with his words when he’s not reigned in. Everyone knows it. The media is now complaining that Trump knew the whole time how dangerous this was and “minimized” it. Yet, here, on March 16, his prepared remarks do not minimize it. In fact, he even asks us Americans to make sacrifices. He reminds the young that they will have milder cases, but can easily spread it. Think about the vulnerable elderly around us. It is all there. But, the media chose to focus on other things, chose to portray this as political- Republicans versus Democrats. Now, the President’s rallies in some counties in Nevada have been cancelled. The media again wants us to believe that Trump is not on the side of protecting citizens by reporting a faux conflict between the President and the Governor of Nevada. Yet, the White House guidelines recommend smaller gatherings due to current virus spread in those areas where the President would rally. As the Press Secretary said, no one is forbidding a spontaneous gatherings. But, the President cannot host a large gathering himself. These distinctions are important. It shouldn’t take research to read between the lines. When can we hold the media responsible for the public reaction to the virus?
I think we are holding them responsible.
Problem is, the people who aren’t inclined to trust the media can’t disdain them more, and the Legion of the Invincibly Ignorant who still do aren’t going to be convinced no matter what.
Let’s assume Governor Walz’ response to Covid-19 is not part of a larger Democrat hoax, not an attempt to frighten voters into believing President Trump has failed them, not a coordinated attack on the American way of life.
Let’s assume Governor Walz truly has Minnesotans’ best interests at heart. That’s why he declared a Peacetime Emergency. That’s why he implemented one of the strictest Stay Home orders in the nation. That’s why he implemented the mask mandate and why he refuses to relinquish his emergency powers. Assume that’s all true.
What’s his end game? When does the Peacetime Emergency end – when the virus is defeated? How will we know when we’ve won?
Walz was on television September 3rd reminding viewers that masks are mandatory to prevent the spread of the virus. But his own Health Commissioner admitted days earlier that we cannot stop the spread, we can only hope to manage it at some unspecified level of transmission. Oh, and if you are sick, wearing a mask doesn’t protect the people you interact with.
So we know the virus will continue to spread and that’s okay, just not as fast as it’s presently spreading. Why does that matter? The curve is flat. No hospital is overwhelmed. There was no surge. The refrigerated warehouse bought to store plague corpses, sits empty. We’re at fewer than 2,000 deaths – even crediting the phony numbers – which is 72,000 deaths short of the computer model prediction. No child has died, no teen, but schools are closed. Daily deaths are in the single digits which is indistinguishable from the normal death rate (123 Minnesotans die every day, from all causes).
“Cases” tell us that people are carrying the virus in their bodies, but people carry around lots of viruses. The rhinovirus causes the common cold. Herpes simplex virus causes cold sores. Everybody has them and they flare up occasionally, but we don’t count “cases” of them because . . . nobody cares. People don’t die of a cold sore.
And they’re no longer dying of Covid-19, either. The vulnerable population has died off. The hardy survived, same as every epidemic throughout the history of humankind. We don’t need to keep fighting the virus. We’ve won.
Time to declare victory and move on.
Joe Doakes
All of those assumptions at the beginning of the article were for purposes of argument. I will give Governor Klink the benefit of no such doubt.
