Shot in the Dark

Safety First

King Walz the First announced new emergency measures to combat the coronavirus.

Effective immediately, anyone entering a store to purchase groceries must stand on one foot and flap their arms like a chicken. The evidence proves that no person has died from the virus while doing that; therefore, it is the only sure guarantee of safety. That, plus washing your hands,

wearing your mask, and avoiding religious worship services, will save your life and the lives of others.”

When pressed for the details, King Walz’ press secretary admitted there was no scientific evidence flapping your arms like a chicken would work, but it would amuse the governor and therefore was mandatory. Failure would be prosecuted by $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail.

Republicans in the state legislature were too embarrassed to seek to overturn the order. Instead, they were working on a bill to repeal the crime of adultery. “We have to get our priorities straight,” the Minority Leader said.

Joe Doakes, reporting live, from the capitol.

It’s only satire if it’s pretty much not true.

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Mitch Berg

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33 responses to “Safety First”

  1. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    The governor is not a king.

    The Great and Wonderful Walz is a wizard. One who hides behind a curtain of jargon as he “twists knobs” and “spins dials”.

    He even looks like Frank Morgan (Wuppermann), the actor in the 1939 film.

  2. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Menards and Costco now require wearing a mask to enter their stores.

    Free market business decisions 😷

  3. This chopper for official use only Avatar
    This chopper for official use only

    About two-thirds of Americans say they don’t believe the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus outbreak is in line with publicly reported numbers, with Democrats more likely to suspect an undercount and Republicans more likely to think that there are fewer deaths than the official tally.

    This is all about damage control. The degenerates know the blame for the Dempanic will land squarely on the humps of their Gov’s & state and Fed legislators.

    Independents will be well represented among the financial casualties in the coming months…on who’s side do you think they’ll fall?

  4. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Good, Emery, you understand. Governor Walz issued Executive Order 20-48 which “strongly encourages” everyone to wear a face mask at all times, even though the Order admits there’s no evidence it will save you from the virus.

    That’s what I was making fun of: a requirement that has no practical value, like flapping your arms before entering the store. But everyone must do it, to show how caring and virtuous they are.

    Menards and Costco know who their customers are, and what they expect. So they have adopted masks-wearing today, arm flapping soon to come. And everybody who shops there will do it, because otherwise WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.

    That’s okay, Ace Hardware is nearby and for things they don’t have, it’s not that much farther to Home Depot or Lowes. I like Sam’s Club better, anyway.

  5. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    JD;
    Exactly! I prefer Menards to any of the other Big Box home improvement stores, but after hearing this, I will be going up to the Frattalone’s Ace about half a mile from my house to buy my lawnmower today. Besides, being a Bloomington guy, I’m buying another Toro and the prices on those must be set by them, because across retailers there isn’t ever more than a buck’s worth of pricing. Plus, they will deliver it for me, set up and ready to mow.

  6. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    Me too, JD and Boss.

  7. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    The Trump administration has approached this from the outset as a political issue not a health issue and that has guided their response throughout. The communications have been driven by political expediency at every turn. It has been about saving political backs.

    They have drained the reservoir of trust to cover their own ineptitude and incompetence. And they have been aided and abetted by the supine right wing press which, more than in any other country, infantilizes a significant proportion of a wilfully uninformed public. The population of other countries have been treated as adults. Their governments have approached COVID-19 as a health crisis. And they do not have a rabid right wing tabloid press owned by non dom billionaires to whom they are in hock.

  8. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Huh, Emery once again fails to address the topic. Why is that? Is he aware of the old phrase “one trick pony”? And “supine right wing press”; um, you mean the one that votes 90% Democratic Party or worse, Emery? Come on, buddy, reality matters here.

    One thing that strikes me here is that COVID deaths and hospitalizations correlate very well with age, metabolic syndrome (diabetes/blood pressure/overweight/etc..), and smoking. We might wonder whether we could take the wind out of the sails of the lockdown if a huge portion of people would simply drop 5 or 10 pounds of fat and reduce/quit smoking, taking them out of the risk categories.

    For the 80% of victims who were already in nursing homes, probably not the easiest thing to achieve, but it strikes me that the U.S. is uniquely vulnerable to this simply because we are uniquely fat. Maybe this ought to be the wake up call that would help us deal with this well.

  9. BobbyRay Avatar
    BobbyRay

    Did EI forget the sarcasm tag?

  10. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    What happened to it magically disappearing in April?

    The end of the stay-at-home orders doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. It means they currently have room for you in the ICU.

    And the morgue — With additional refrigeration trucks on the way……

  11. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    No, no, the Surge of Covid cases is coming to overwhelm hospitals in late May – June – possibly July. Didn’t you listen to Governor Walz’ presentation? His computer model predicts it with a 95% confidence level. Any day now. It’s still coming. Not in other states, or any other nation, they don’t have a Surge: but here, for sure, we’re getting one. Aaannny day now.

  12. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    Empirical data shows that the projections made by the IMHE models with a 95% confidence level were wrong 2/3 of the time.
    Somebody is blowing smoke.

  13. This chopper for official use only Avatar
    This chopper for official use only

    A pale, moist, legless insect chirped: And the morgue — With additional refrigeration trucks on the way……

    Leftist degenerates and mindless insects are looping a Monty Python skit in their heads. “Bring out yer deeeeead! Bring out yer Deeeeead!”

  14. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    That term “95% confidence level” is such a load of bollocks. The politicians are using it for the ignorant rubes and they’re lapping it up.

  15. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    The US (outside New York) has yet to peak.
    That’s because many of the daily new cases are flaring up in parts of the country that ignored the warnings.

    What is sadly missing everywhere are graphs of hospitalizations/deaths by state. That’s what this is all about, right? We know testing is lacking so cases are far from accurate. Watch for MInnesota to have sharp case numbers increases as testing improves.

  16. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    The people who who are predicting a “second wave” are the same people who predicted that we’d see 50,000 dead each day in mid-April.
    Unlike Emery, I believe in evidence-based policy making.

  17. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    What is sadly missing everywhere are graphs of hospitalizations/deaths by state.

    What planet are you on?

  18. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    MP, making up shit by being afraid (or pretending to be afraid to bolster the fortunes of your party) is the same as data.

  19. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    There are two types of tests: a swab test for the virus itself and a serology test for the antibodies.
    People who blather on about the need for “testing,” w/o even specifying which test they are talking about, are mindlessly echoing opinion articles written by idiots.
    The swab test is given under medical order only in my state. You can’t just walk in and get one.
    They stick a q tip about six inches up your nose.
    Many people say that they want to be swab-tested, but they change their mind when the procedure is described to them.

  20. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Testing confirms existence, not severity. If I test Positive for the virus, but have no symptoms at all, then I don’t matter because I will not be overwhelming any hospital resources.

    You don’t need a graph to tell you how many people are hospitalized with Covid in Minnesota. You need to look at the beds, see how many are full, how many are empty. The Governor carefully avoids telling us that, in his daily briefings. That’s a dog that isn’t barking – if we were overwhelmed, he’d lead with it.

    Of course, you could just Google “Minnesota health care worker layoffs” and read the Star Tribune article from last week, noting that 10,000 Minnesota health care workers have been laid off because the hospitals have so few patients. If there was a huge surge of hospitalizations, the hospitals would be calling back staff, not laying them off. They aren’t – which means there is no surge.

    Or you could Google “Minnesota hospital capacity” and see the article on KARE 11 from April 27 telling us 300 people were hospitalized by the virus, 120 of them in ICU, leaving 2,880 ICU beds sitting empty, waiting for Covid patients. Again, no need to test people to tell us what we already know – the hospitals are not being overwhelmed, the lock-down is unnecessary.

  21. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    You will look in vain for correlation between a state’s covid-19 deaths/100,000 and the strictness of its social distancing laws. It simply isn’t there.
    Remember back in March when DeSantis refused to shutdown Florida during spring break? It was going to lead to mass carnage, the MSM told us. “Public health officials” were horrified.
    Well, as of today, Florida has fewer covid-19 death/100,000 than Minnesota.
    The strongest correlations with covid-19 deaths are remarkably consistent across the 50 states, whether the state is seeing a high or a low number of covid-19 deaths, or has strict or loose social controls: advanced age, one or more co-morbidities, and residence in a long-term care facility. One third of Florida’s covid-19 dead were residents of long-term care facilities. I reckon those people weren’t out frollicking on the beaches in March.

  22. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Half-measures will only prolong the problem. Go big or stay home.

  23. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    What is sadly missing everywhere are graphs of hospitalizations/deaths by state.

    Really? Took me 30 seconds to find this: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

    And this: https://idph.iowa.gov/Portals/1/userfiles/61/covid19/05042020_Hosp_Deaths_by_Race_Ethnicity.pdf

    And this: health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/situation.html

    @Emery: The data’s there. The states are sending their daily case, hospitalization, and death data to the CDC. What I’ve linked to is just a sampling of just the stuff that’s publicly available. Isn’t it likely that even more data is available to the governors and departments of health for each state? Data that shapes policy and is used to balance considerations for limiting the spread of COVID-19 with other things like unemployment, other health issues, etc.

    We know testing is lacking so cases are far from accurate. Watch for MInnesota to have sharp case numbers increases as testing improves.

    A sharp increase in positive cases without a corresponding increase in deaths. Wouldn’t that be good news? Wouldn’t that bolster the arguments made by the Stanford researchers, that COVID-19 is on par with more common flu viruses in terms of lethality?

  24. Emery Incognito Avatar
    Emery Incognito

    Hey, Woolly — how about we test everyone and see which models are correct?

  25. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    Emery calls for unobtanium, again.
    All you really need is a random sample.
    But you can’t get a random sample swab test for the virus, they are only testing people who are already sick from something, and who go to their doctor, and for whom the doctor believes a test is necessary..
    You could, maybe, do a random sample blood test for the presence of the antibodies.
    But you would have to collect & process the samples for either test over no more than a few days.
    Like I said, unobtanium.

  26. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    And the “scientist” behind the horrendously pessimistic Brit pandemic models has resigned, after he was found to have violated the strict social distancing policies he helped design & impose on the country:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

  27. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Regarding a blood test, I just donated and asked whether they test the blood for COVID, and the response was that they had no evidence the disease could be transmitted that way. Hope they’re right. I feel great.

  28. jimf Avatar
    jimf

    The early models for this sound like they were created by the same clowns who made the models for Arctic Ice. It was to be gone in 2008, then 2012, then 2013, 2014 and 2018. Now, we’ll just say it’ll be gone sometime after we retire…..

  29. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Emery,
    You are so worried about testing, so call your doctor and tell him that you need to come in for a test. Tell him that you are a nervous wreck and scared that you’ve got it. After he’s done laughing, I’m sure that he’ll tell you to take two aspirin and mail in your office visit co-pay.

  30. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    jimf on May 5, 2020 at 5:05 pm said:
    The early models for this sound like they were created by the same clowns who made the models for Arctic Ice. It was to be gone in 2008, then 2012, then 2013, 2014 and 2018. Now, we’ll just say it’ll be gone sometime after we retire…..

    Nial Ferguson, the disgraced UK epidemiologist, has a history of overstating the fatality count of epidemics by at least a factor of ten, often by a factor of a hundred.
    Ferguson’s model of UK deaths and ICU use for covid-19 is the model used by UK officials to create their draconian lock down regime.
    I hope that this fiasco will mean an end to the cult of experts.
    Wrong about Trump, wrong about Brexit, wrong about covid-19, and, of course, wrong about “global warming.”

  31. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Unobtanium. Good word. Except in Georgia, where I read the state government is going to start “randomly” approaching people in their homes (where they’re supposed to be) and asking to test them to determine the extent of disease. All strictly voluntary of course, to which I would have a very strict response, and an invitation for the official to attempt some actions on themselves – strictly voluntarily, of course.

  32. Mammuthus Primigenius Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenius

    Night Writer, is that true?
    You wouldn’t get a representative sample.
    For one thing, you would only be sampling people who were at home when the testers knocked on the door.

  33. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    MP;
    Funny story about, “Professor Lockdown”.

    https://americantruthtoday.com/left-news/2020/05/05/professor-lockdown-resigns-after-breaking-own-lockdown-rules-to-meet-lover-report/

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