May 14: Ken Martin, chair of the DFL, makes a bold prediction and a really dumb statement:
Fast forward nearly a month: as of June 12, Wisconsin’s death rate per million is half that of Minnesota. Its active cases are a solid 40% lower than Minnesota’s.
And that was after Wisconsin started out “leading” Minnesota in both categories.
The problem?
I don’t suspect it’s that Ken Martin believed anything he wrote in his May 12 tweet (least of all about the useless and idiotic Steve Sack).
The problem is that Martin can count on his DFL voter base – bovine herd animals with the critical thinking skills of a Teen Vogue reader – to know the difference, or care if they can.
as of June 12, Wisconsin’s death rate per million is half that of Minnesota
That’s because people in WI hate old people and haven’t built enough old-age homes into which those infected with Kung flu can be installed. The higher death rate in MN is a sign of love. Or something.
So, anything new on Sen Housley’s questions for Commissioner Jan Malcolm on just how many were installed in old-age facilities? Last I heard, there was talk of a lawsuit.
They will never admit that they — the “expert” epidemiologist and the politicians who listened to them — wildly overestimated the lethality and the communicability of the covid-19 virus. Yet even a few minutes spent examining the data show that this is true.
And, no, you don’t need a degree in epidemiology to see that they’ve screwed the pooch, anymore than you need a degree in atmospheric physics to see that the sky is blue. Their own data condemns them.
This is a failure of the leadership class, especially the Democrat leadership class, because they are Worshipers at the Altar of Experts.
If their experts on epidemics can’t accurately predict the course of a minor pandemic, and instead wreck the economy, who has confidence that their experts on climate can predict the average global temperature a century from now?
Do you think that the state climatologists’ predictions will be far too pessimistic, that their predictions will be used to justify rule by decree and attacks on your civil rights, and that a supine media will refuse to ask them the hard questions?
Can’t blame you.
A more accurate cartoon would show an elderly, bed-ridden personified map of Minnesota surrounded by Walz and his grisly crew wearing deaths-head masks.
Along with jdm, I have to wonder whether a big part of the difference is to what extent Wisconsin protected their nursing homes. Earlier in this whole debacle, I’d wondered what could actually be done to protect nursing homes while allowing the rest of us (including nursing home workers) to conduct business as usual. Obviously I did not know the fact that no less than the CDC and state departments of health were sending live cases back into the most vulnerable populations.
Another big difference; not as many city buses and light rail trains to help people catch the disease in Wisconsin.
This isn’t as bad as the guy who dressed as the grim reaper and taunted beach goers in Florida as the state began to re-open in late April.
Fast forward 5 weeks, this same jackass advocates for being among a crush of people protesting the George Floyd killing.
I’ve shared this before, so I’ll be brief. The nursing home industry projects annual resident mortality at just under 32% (2018 study). MDH says there are 40,000 nursing home and care center residents in the state. 32% mortality in that population would be 1,000 deaths a MONTH in normal conditions.
Now, I’m not saying Gov. Wiltz wanted a high body count to justify his crisis, but if he DID, his actions would just about guarantee that, right?
Republicans: “Walz isn’t evil, just incompetent.”
Walz: “I’m not evil, just efficient.”
Efficiently killing oldsters, anyhow . . .
Drudge sub-headline:
” . . . outbreak in Tulsa week before MAGA rally!”
Which takes you to a Fort Worth Star Telegram story titled “Days before Trump rally in Tulsa, city’s Whirlpool plant closes for COVID-19 outbreak.”
In the story, the numbers are not quantified or qualified. We don’t know how many people this outbreak affects, or whether it affects them by making them ill, or merely making them test positive. No hospitalizations are mentioned.
The story also says that all contact tracing has been completed (so you know the numbers aren’t huge), and the plant will reopen next week, before Trump’s rally.
By digging into the covid-19 stats reported for Tulsa County (pop. 643,000), the story’s writer are able to estimate that the people who tested positive and caused the plant closure are about 80 out of 1,600 workers.
Looking at the daily Oklahoma numbers between June 1 and June 11, the # of positive tests each day fluctuates in a similar range as the positive rate the rest of the pandemic; the lows are lower, and the highs aren’t as high as they’ve been. Generally between 70 and 150. Hospitalizations since June 1 range from 0 to 20; usually in the low teens. Deaths per day are in the low single digits. Per capita deaths are 9, which is in the lower third of U.S. states.
I’ve learned that when the MSM talks about a “hot spot” they are talking about a place where there has been a sudden uptick in positive tests. These are localized and usually happen in a tight knit community, like workers at a meat packing plant or in this case a Whirlpool factory.
The number need not be particularly high to qualify as a “hot spot.” In most places around the country, the death count is so low that a minor bump in positive tests — not hospitalizations or deaths — counts as a “hot spot.”
No black faces in the background. So Steve Sack is a racist.
Hawaii had a “spike” in covid-19 positive tests today. Fifteen, when the past one or so it’s been one or two new cases today. The state explains:
13 of 15 new cases of COVID-19 being reported on O‘ahu today are all related to four known cases or ongoing investigations. Ten (10) of the cases are part of a family cluster in the same household and all the family members were previously in quarantine when someone in the family tested positive. Also, three (3) of the positive cases are in communities where DOH is actively canvasing door-to-door to provide educational information and to offer testing. Of the new cases, nine (9) are adults and six (6) are pediatric cases. Yesterday DOH reported seven (7) additional coronavirus cases bringing the statewide total to 706. One case has been removed from the count due to retesting as a negative case.
So, no real “spike,” ten of the fifteen were family members sharing the same household & were already in quarantine, and three more positives were scrounged up by going door-to-door and offering free tests on the spot.
The number need not be particularly high to qualify as a “hot spot.”
Example: Prior cases – 1, new cases – 2 (in a relatively large population). That’s a 100% increase! This ain’t a “hot spot”, it’s a sun spot according to methodology! One… additional… case… As usual, fun with numbers devoid of any context, only pretext.
The Democrat plan to fight the pandemic:
Close all businesses.
Take away guns from the citizens
Make evryone stay at home
Empty the prisons
Send infected people into old folks homes