Other stuff

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

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

Two more settlements for religious discrimination cost the state of California $2 million in reimbursed legal fees for total of $3.5 million and counting.

What the state of California will be doing twice within the next 60 days to reimburse churches for legal fees incurred due to the state’s religious discrimination. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Well, $2,150,000 to be precise.

The state negotiated a settlement to reimburse legal fees of $1,600,000 for religious discrimination efforts against South Bay United Pentecostal Church and $550,000 for religious discrimination efforts against Father Trevor Burfitt.

Both settlements also come with a permanent injunction forbidding the state from imposing religiously discriminatory rules on any houses of worship anywhere in the state anytime in the future.

If you recall, South Bay Pentecostal had to go to the United States Supreme Court three times, three times, before the state finally realized they were not allowed to engage in blatant, intentional, irreparable religious discrimination against people of faith.

Running total of legal fees

This is on top of a permanent injunction and $1,350,000 in legal fees to attorneys for Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Governor of Michigan has scored 4 points in the competitive race for Worst Hypocrite.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Looks like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has run up the highest score amongst the many Covid hypocrite politicians in the country.

Let’s count the number of times she has flouted the executive decrees everyone else is required to follow but from which she is exempt.

To start, let’s go back to last June: 6/9/20 – Michigan Capital Confidential – Whitmer Skirted Her Own Executive Orders Twice Before Blowing Them Up.

Article points out she was on the cover of Newsweek (yes, like you, I was also surprised to hear it is still around) featuring her efforts to save lives with strong rules.

Score in the hypocrisy race between the Michigan and California governors

In the race for biggest hypocrite, I’m embarrassed to say that my governor, Gavin Newsom, only has 1 flagrant hypocrisy on the scoreboard.

He has been far out distanced by the Michigan governor who is at 4.5 by my count. I’ll explain shortly how she only earns half credit for one incident.

So, the current score?

  • 4.5 – Michigan governor
  • 1.0 – California governor

Time is running out to even the score of 4.5-1

Governor of my state doesn’t have much time to even up the score. Several weeks ago he ordered by executive decree that the pandemic will end on June 15, 2021. On that exact date the state color-coding rules will disappear because he knows they won’t be needed anymore.

He only has two weeks to run up the count if he wants to be the hypocrisy champ.

Back to the current front runner…

Hypocrisy One

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Have masks done any good?

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

More research is emerging that suggests the answer is no, masks have not helped reduce spread of infection.

5/26/21 – Town hall – Masks Didn’t Slow Covid Spread: New Study – Study cited in the next paragraph calculates “mask mandates and use not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states.” In other words study finds there is no correlation between the level of mask use and infection rates. Their research does not support the idea that higher use of masks results in lower transmission rates.

5/18/21 – medRxiv – Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level Covid-19 containment – Using proper statistical methodologies, study finds there is no difference in infection rates between states that mandated masks and states that did not require masks.

Infection rates are “comparable” for the states with early adoption of mas requirement and states with late adoption.

The research paper uses technical language, which is exactly what you would expect, so it is difficult to read. I will still quote the abstract, which says:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago