Friday, May 1, 2020

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May 1, 2020

Governor Grundy puts Orange County, but not San Diego County, on restriction

By Monica Showalter

Just a few hours ago, I got back from La Jolla, a rich and deep-blue enclave of the city of San Diego that's the home of Mitt Romney. The just-after-sunset beach traipse was to see the bioluminescence event. Beach waves turn glow-in-the-dark at night as a result of the red tide, and it's a rare and completely yowza thing to see. Of course it drew a crowd. Street parking was competitive. The cars just kept coming and coming on Coast Boulevard near Wipeout Beach, and visitors bunched up at stoplights to use crosswalks — no slipping across the streets real quick to get to the shore view from the cliffs. Here's a bit of the pre-weekend flavor, and this was far from the most crowded scene I saw. You can see that the groups have masks, look more like friends than families, and aren't socially distancing. You can bet there's going to be more, much more, with the upcoming weekend's bioluminescence viewing.

I decided that this photo was relevant because California's Gov. Gavin Newsom singled out Orange County and none of the other Southern California counties for full beach shutdowns. Newsom claimed that a news photograph of Newport Beach proved that nobody was socially distancing in the O.C. Never mind that Orange County has a far lower rate of COVID-19 infection than the heavily urbanized areas such as Los Angeles. COVID-19 deaths in the O.C. number 45, while deaths in next-door Los Angeles County have hit 1,045.

And never mind that sunlight and fresh air, such as are found on beaches, are a natural disinfectant. More specifically, never mind that beach transmission of disease is extremely rare.

The whole shutdown looked suspicious, vindictive, even — San Diego and Orange County officials all pleaded to the governor not to do it. But only Orange County got it, something that, as I noted earlier, pretty much had the odor of Mrs. Grundy punishing the whole class for something Reggie and Veronica did.

Turns out it was worse, much worse. Newsom let Lumpy and Eddie Haskell get away with even worse because he had favorites. Political favorites.

San Diego County's coastal cities are now reliably blue. Orange County is historically red, but ballot-harvesting has somehow made it blue.

It wasn't that Orange County was the most defiant. Actually, San Diego County was. Both Orange and San Diego Counties had organized angry protests earlier — Encinitas in San Diego County had at least two organized protests, with hundreds of angry surfers and multiple arrests, while Huntington Beach in the O.C. had one small beachgoer protest. But again, only Orange County got the restrictions.

Newsom claimed that it was the news photograph that did them in, supposedly showing Newport Beach visitors supposedly not socially distancing. I disputed whether that was really happening in this item here, and on Twitter, some Orange County denizens argued that news photos could very easily be distorted to make crowds appear bigger than they were.

Newsom's response was creepy: he released a list of all the things Californians were still allowed to do, which included watch sunsets, and he said Orange County officials had been great in cooperating with the state and that his move against the entire county was "just a little tightening."

Now Newport Beach and Huntington Beach are suing, and an emergency protest is being planned for today, in Sacramento and probably locally. The Orange County sheriff, meanwhile, has announced he's not going to play Newsom's beach cop, marching surfers off to the pokey while bona fide child-molesters are being let out in the same county to "protect" them from COVID-19.

Thing is, the Orange County beachgoers can now flock to San Diego and Los Angeles Counties for their fresh air fix. That's not a big problem. They'll get their beach in San Onofre and Vista and Oceanside, in Del Mar and Encinitas and Carlsbad and La Jolla, as well as El Segundo and Venice and Santa Monica and Malibu, making all of those beaches more crowded. But hey, nobody's enforcing in those parts.

The people the shutdown is really going to hurt are all the Orange County small businesses up and down the crowded Orange County coast. Those are the ones who just got the Newsom death sentence — the bike shops, art galleries, surfboard rentals, flip-flop-making companies (hey, Rainbow!), bars, restaurants, and cafés.

It raises questions about what Newsom might be thinking. Orange County is historically right-wing and there's an election coming up. The county has just swung blue in the last midterm, based not on election night returns, but ballot-harvesting, which one by one by one managed to flip every seat in the historically red county blue.

Is Newsom convinced he's got the county in the bad for the general election half a year away? He's just provoked a huge sagebrush rebellion in that country along with lawsuits and likely scenes of street rage. Things like this have the potential to flip elections from blue to red and Newsom knows it.

What gives here? Is he convinced the ballot-harvestors have got Orange County so rigged it doesn't matter how anyone votes? He knows the place is red, he's likely punishing them because they are red, yet he fears no electoral consequences.

If so, one can only hope that he's wrong about this and he'll be in for a surprise. But rigging is evil stuff and this highlights that these beach cities ought to be just as vigilant about electoral corruption in the works, given that Newsom fears absolutely no consequences for his fundamentally unfair act on one politically inconvenient county.

Image credit: Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of public domain sources.

« Fake news media manipulate coronavirus death toll | Governor Grundy puts Orange County, but not San Diego County, on restriction »

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May 1, 2020

Why Dem governors prolong their states' lockdown: Follow the money

By Steve McCann

As each day passes, there is more good news about the Wuhan Virus pandemic in the United States. The general consensus is that the nation has passed the peak and is well on the downhill side of the infamous curve that the media declared "experts" claimed necessitated a national lockdown and 30+ million unemployed.

Recent results of a number of antibody tests in California, New York, Florida, and Massachusetts indicate that the actual death rate is around the same as the seasonal flu, or 0.1–0.5% The World Health Organization is now touting Sweden as the model in handling the virus outbreak without resorting to a national lockdown, raising the question: was the lockdown even necessary?

While a number of states are reopening their economies, many are not. These governors are claiming that the threat in their state is still overwhelming and have extended the lockdowns for another month or more.

Is there, in reality, another reason for prolonging the misery in these states? There is an age-old adage that is always relevant whenever one is dealing with politicians: follow the money.

The state of Maine has a population of 1.3 million and has experienced 52 deaths (from the coronavirus, or 0.004%). Yet Governor Janet Mills (D) has extended the lockdown until June 1. As of the end of January 2020, the state was facing a $525-million shortfall with no solution in sight — until the coronavirus pandemic and a potential bailout from the federal government. The longer the state is locked down, the greater the revenue losses and the more money Mrs. Mills can demand from Washington.

California, with a population of 38 million, has recorded 1,944 deaths, or 0.005%. Its pension and general obligations are overwhelming and were so long before the coronavirus. The same is true for Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut among other states — all of whom are extending their lockdowns through the end of May.

The Wuhan Virus pandemic and the nation's reaction to it have given many states a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to siphon money from a federal government that has cast all caution to the wind and is printing money as fast as the presses can operate.

Now that the original objective of "flattening the curve" has been achieved, there is more to these lockdowns than preventing the spread of the coronavirus. Over the next three to four weeks, as Congress and President Trump are confronted with yet another massive spending bill in order to bail out the states, the demands made by the individual states and their governors will confirm their true motives.

Last night, Tucker Carlson did a segment on Maine's extended lockdown and a restaurant-owner who is defying it:

Photo credit: Grabien screen grab (cropped).

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May 1, 2020

The numbers don’t justify Americans’ willingness to abandon liberty

By Andrea Widburg

America, "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Or maybe not. One of the most unnerving things about the Wuhan virus's appearance on our shores is the speed with which people willingly abandoned their traditional liberties to stay safe. Just last week, a Kaiser Health poll found that 80% of Americans are willing to accept the shutdown for another month. This is a staggering notion, considering that, in California alone, 20% of the population is unemployed.

It's likewise staggering when one considers that the mortality rate is around that of the flu and that, like the flu, it targets the old and the sick, with occasional unlucky young people thrown into the mix. It also targets people in exceptionally virus-rich environments, so they need extra Personal Protective Equipment. The rest of us, though, are pretty safe. In other words, Americans seem willing to accept a police state and the destruction of the American economy to be protected against...the flu. Indeed, it's possible the death rate is even lower than the flu because the Wuhan virus is now the default cause of death on death certificates:

To appreciate what's going on here, both Wisconsin and California provide examples of the way in which the government is taking advantage of what is proving to be a very low-risk disease.

In Wisconsin, the media have been hyping the fact that 52 people who worked on or voted in the April 7 election (the one the Democrats tried to stop) ended up diagnosed with the Wuhan virus. There are two problems with this hype. First, it's impossible to tell whether it was standing in line at the election or working at a polling place that caused these 52 people to become ill.

Second, 52 people is statistically insignificant. Around 400,000 people appeared in person to vote in the election. Even if all those infections occurred because of the election, it's only a 0.013% infection rate.

Indeed, the number of deaths in Wisconsin, while each is an individual tragedy, is also statistically insignificant. As of this writing, 308 people out of a Wisconsin population of 5,851,754 people have died from the Wuhan virus (assuming the death certificates were accurate). That equals 0.005% of the population. Additionally, most of those who died were in their 70s or older.

By comparison, in New York, 84 subway workers have died from the Wuhan virus, and there is a fairly straight line between that specific job and death. Despite this carnage, the subway system is only now, very slowly, beginning to disinfect its cars. Because those deaths cannot be blamed on an election that Republicans said needed to be held, the mainstream media are ignoring them.

Despite that 0.005% mortality rate, some people in Wisconsin law enforcement are on a power trip. The deputies' arrogance in this video should concern us all (language warning):

Things are even crazier in California. Originally, Gov. Gavin Newsom intended to close all the beaches in California after grateful citizens left house arrest and went to the beach. Perhaps Newsom was persuaded to take this draconian step based on trick shots that made it appear people were crowded together, rather than spaced out in household-friendly clumps.

Eventually, Newsom was persuaded to leave some state beaches open and closed only Orange County beaches, overriding local officials to do so. Newsom concluded the order with a threat to close even more places for a longer time:

Newsom said those packed beaches were "disturbing" and makes it more difficult for him to consider relaxing the state's mandatory stay-at-home order.

"The only thing that will delay it is more weekends like last weekend," he said. "Let's not see that happen."

California has more than 49,000 cases and more than 1,950 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Nineteen hundred fifty deaths?! Well, that puts California on par with Wisconsin. The state's population is 39,937,489. Two thousand or so deaths equals 0.005% of the population. Given Newsom's punitive streak and his draconian policies, it's not surprising that even Californians, who are not very liberty-oriented, are getting fed up with him.

While it's clear that the Wuhan virus is really nasty, we are in a better situation than we were six weeks ago. Our hospitals are empty (and going bankrupt). We've learned about treatments that, if given early, seem to work well. We know that the virus fares poorly in the sunshine and is almost impossible to transmit outdoors, for it needs a hefty viral load to infect people. We've seen that the Swedish model of social distance within the context of normal life works. We know that a surprising number of people have had the virus, and South Korea's data establish that, contrary to the WHO's panicky prediction, this creates immunity.

With this knowledge, we should be opening America, not clamping down on it even harder. It would be helpful to know whether it's fear or something more nefarious that is driving the continued shutdown because that would allow us to educate Americans about the risks of disease versus systemic destruction.