In economics, religion, and politics, the moral path is freedom.

Initial steps to impose another hard lockdown are underway. Oh, more flaming hypocrisy from our overlords.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Get ready for another lockdown. The warning signs are everywhere.

Oh, another round of hypocrisy from our esteemed Governor here in California.

Warning signs

About a week ago, the state of California announced when school resumes this summer, all school children will be required to wear a mask during the entire school day. Vaccination status is irrelevant. Past infection is irrelevant. The exquisitely low infection rate among children is irrelevant. The infinitesimal fatality rate it is irrelevant.

Over the past weekend the state of California and federal Department of Veteran Affairs announced they will require all employees to prove they are vaccinated or get tested weekly and show a negative result.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Stream of reports describe minimal benefits and serious negative consequences from actions taken during pandemic lockdowns. 2 of 2.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is covid-lockdown-adobe-1-scaled.jpeg
Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

More of the recent reports describing the damage from the lockdowns:

  • Alameda County rolled back death count from coronavirus, having overcounted by one third.
  • Looks like coronavirus was loose in the U.S. before the first cases were reported.
  • Suicide attempts by teens increased during the lockdowns.
  • Economic shutdown hurt poor people worse than rich people.

6/6/21 – The Last Refuge – If Sunlight Continues, Expect More of This – Alameda County, California, Significantly Lowers Covid Death Toll After Review of Records – There are plenty of reports around, I will not link to them, of public health people counting people who died “with” Covid as if they had died “from” Covid. There is a massive difference.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Stream of reports describe minimal benefits and serious negative consequences from actions taken during pandemic lockdowns. 1 of 2.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

There is a constant stream of reports covering new studies and analyses which indicate steps taken during the pandemic had minimal or perhaps no impact on halting the spread of the disease but caused severe side effects. I cannot possibly summarize more than a small portion of the articles I am reading. Here are a few:

  • Plexiglas shields might increase infections.
  • Kid’s facemasks had lots of horrible bugs that cause all sorts of sickness (but none of them were Covid).
  • Study can’t find any benefit from shelter-in-place orders to reduce the spread of infections.

6/16/21 – Behind the Black – New studies: Plexiglas does nothing; masks carry diseases; lockdowns destroyed 40% of all small businesses – Article has discussion of the following three reports pointing to problems from the shutdown. Referenced articles include:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Emerging hints of serious pushback to the economic/ social/ educational shutdown by politicians and public health officials.

Sign Petition Here by Paul Swanson is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

There is a hint, a whiff in the air, of a strong pushback emerging against the destruction caused by politicians and public health officials during the pandemic.

Everyone knows about the recall effort underway attempting to remove California Governor Gavin Newsom from office.

Did you know there are lots of other recall efforts in the state?

Did you know over a dozen state legislatures are moving towards placing limits and restraints on the currently unlimited and unrestrained power of public health agencies to destroy at will?

Perhaps, just perhaps, we may see some accountability for the widespread destruction caused by a host of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats responsible for public health care issues.

Two articles point toward the emerging pushback:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

California will mostly, kinda’, sorta’ open up on June 15.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

We are finally getting back to normal next Tuesday. Mostly. Sort of. Certain mask requirements will stay in place on June 15, 2021. Importantly, the emergency is not over and all of the emergency orders issued in the last year stay in place for another few months.

It also means public health officials and the governor can reinstate any restrictions they want or impose new restrictions they want and can do so anytime they want.

The good news portion of changes on June 15 is the four level color-coded system is gone. No more of the purple, red, orange, and yellow grading based on arbitrary numerical targets (which as we have seen the state can unilaterally shift as desired). The stay-at-home orders will officially end.

Best part of the good news is the capacity limits and physical distancing requirements are gone.

Now on to the remaining and new restrictions.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

On the willful damage inflicted by our leaders in reaction to the pandemic. 2 of 2.

Destruction from earthquake. Visual description of what lockdowns did to the economy overall, public health in general, and mental health in particular. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Even though all the statistics in all the locations I’m tracking are showing a decline from the peak counts in the range of 95% to 98%, we urgently need to pay attention to constantly emerging reports of the destruction caused by government edicts.

This two-day series is mentioning only a minor fraction of the articles in recent weeks describing the devastation.

Today’s post will discuss:

  • Severe damage has been caused, only in part yet still a big part, by the inability to comprehend there are tradeoffs in every decision that has ever been made. This applies even more so to the pandemic.  As another wag pointed out: there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
  • Yet another research analysis shows lockdowns had minimal impact on death rates yet caused extensive unemployment.

Saturday’s post described:

  • Destructive and death-causing policies continued even after evidence emerged that policies were causing harm. Liberty has been shredded.  Financial damage is widespread.
  • Educational, psychological, and social damage to children has been severe. It will take a horribly long time for kids to recover.

Behold the emerging legacy of the public health sector and our so-called political leaders:

4/19/21 – Wall Street Journal – An American Epidemic of “Covid Mania” – Op-ed by an associate professor of medicine at UCLA uses the phrase “Covid mania” as a catch-all for the loss of any semblance of risk assessment, elevation of Covid fear above every other factor, damaging the reputation of scientists and public health officials, and stating as an absolute certainty what was a mere hypothesis.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

On the willful damage inflicted by our leaders in reaction to the pandemic. 1 of 2.

Visual description of what lockdowns have done to the emotional and educational wellbeing of children. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Now that the economic and social shutdown rationalized by the pandemic is slowly fading away, we need to stay focused on the damages caused by intentional policies.

I have been citing a lot of coverage from the Wall Street Journal, but I am seeing the same issues covered by multiple other news outlets and a host of commentators.  There is massively more coverage of the devastation caused by the shutdown than I could possibly take time to write about.

Here is merely a tiny sample of recent reports. Today’s post describes:

  • Destructive and death-causing policies continued even after evidence emerged that policies were causing harm. Liberty has been shredded.  Financial damage is widespread.
  • Educational, psychological, and social damage to children has been severe. It will take a horribly long time for kids to recover.

Monday’s post will discuss:

  • Severe damage has been caused, only in part but a big part, by the inability to comprehend there are tradeoffs in every decision that has ever been made, especially in terms of addressing the pandemic.  As another wag, whom I will not cite, pointed out: there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
  • Yet another research analysis shows lockdowns had minimal impact on death rates yet caused extensive unemployment.

3/11/21 – Wall Street Journal – Lessons of the Long Covid Year / Lockdowns made the pandemic suffering far worse than necessary –

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

What does the economy wide staffing shortage look like?

Status of many restaurants. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

What does it look like from the customer side when businesses cannot find enough employees? My wife and I found out a few days ago.

After relaxing on Memorial Day, pondering the ultimate sacrifice by so many to provide the freedoms we enjoy, and exercising those freedoms, we decided to go out to eat. We went to Victoria Gardens, a large shopping center near our home.

Since the tradition for the day is cooking cheeseburgers on the grill but we don’t have a grill, we picked a ‘50s style café where we could get a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. Yum!

Normally they would be open until 10 or 11 o’clock. Walking up to the restaurant we saw a paper sign taped to the door announcing they were only open until 8 PM.

Odd.

The door was locked. There were a few staff inside who appeared to be going through their end-of-day cleanup routine.

It was a few minutes after 6 p.m.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago