Other stuff

Stats on infection coronavirus rates not showing what you would expect. Time to open the economy.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

We have been locked down long enough for the volume of statistics to build up to the point of allowing deeper analysis. As is always the case, the statistics can also be manipulated to give whatever answer you want. Deeper, honest analysis is starting to show surprising results, for example, the lack of correlation between infection rates and lockdown policies.

Surprising results on the low correlation will be mentioned after some game playing is described.

Wall Street Journal – 9/9/20 – The Sturgis Statistical Misfire – For this story remember the old saying

  • Figures don’t lie, but liars figure

The annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota routinely draws huge numbers of people to the town, whose population is only 7,000 people. Attendance at the 10-day event this year was lower than usual with an estimated 460,000 motorcycle enthusiasts hanging around.

Frightening news reports at the time said this would cause massive numbers of Covid infections leading to massive numbers of deaths.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More churches resist shutdown of worship; one concedes. Pr. John MacArthur is open to starting a jail ministry.

May be a beautiful sanctuary, but in California the government won’t let you use it. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

In news over the last few days, Rev. Dr. John MacArthur said he would start a jail ministry if County officials toss him in the slammer, the Archbishop of San Francisco stands up to de facto shutdown of Masses, and one church concedes to the severe pressures from Santa Clara County.

Pastor John MacArthur open to a jail ministry.

Christian Headlines – 9/17/20 – John MacArthur Says He’ll Start a “Jail Ministry” if Arrested for Worshiping Indoors.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Destruction in the educational world caused by the lockdown.

Education today. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Growing indications point towards ongoing damage to learning at all educational levels due to the shut down. From kindergartners to college students there will be losses of learning time and knowledge.

Older students will be able to catch up. Motivated students will get through. I fear youngsters in particular and unmotivated students in general will suffer permanent damage from the lockdown.

Consider all the damage described in the following articles is a result of a public policy choice made by a host of state and local officials.

The Dispatch – 9/10/20 – The sad realities of virtual learning. – Looks like kindergartners are disappearing from schools. Enrollment in Los Angeles Unified School District is down 14% from a year ago.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

The shutdown is killing people. Some estimates of ‘excess deaths’ from the lockdown.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The comment that shutting down the economy represents a trade-off of lives versus jobs is an invalid comparison.

The real trade-off from a shutdown is lives versus lives.

People are dying because of the shutdown. The shutdown is killing people.

It is time to open the economy.

I don’t have time to summarize all the articles I have read making this point. Here are just three examples.

The pandemic is killing dementia patients

Washington Post – 9/16/20 – Pandemic isolation has killed thousands of Alzheimer’s patients while families watch from afar – The Washington Post, the Post, studied data from CDC to identify there have been 13,200 excess deaths from Alzheimer’s and dementia since the shutdown started. Excess deaths are the extra deaths over the number that would otherwise be expected because of some particular situation.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Check out these requirements in Los Angeles County for a church to worship, then give a one word summary. Perhaps repression?

Check out the lengthy list of specific requirements imposed by the County of Los Angeles before a church can worship on campus. Pastor John MacArthur describes the requirements placed on Grace Community Church.

After I go through the requirements ponder how you would summarize these restrictions.

Ponder whether the net effect is to strangle worship.

Then ponder whether the net effect is an intentional strategy.

9/14/20 –HillFaith –Faithful Disobedience: Here’s The Absurdly Detailed California Covid Orders to Prevent Churches From Meeting to Worship Indoors – A video embedded at the link gives the first four minutes of Dr. MacArthur’s sermon on 9/13/20. He received a rousing round of applause at the beginning.

He mentioned a few of the requirements placed on the church in order to hold any worship services. The following comments aren’t exact quotes, but are close:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Devastation from government ordered shutdown of the economy – 3 of 3

What the California economy might look like by the time it is allowed to reopen. Photo of abandoned farm in North Dakota by James Ulvog.

This is the third in a series of posts describing the damage caused by shutting down the economy. First post discussed recent news on economic damage. Second post described ongoing health damage.

Some things are *not* going wrong

Just under half a million people attended the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota from August 7 through 16.

9/1/20 – PJ Media – OH THE HORROR! Sturgis Motorcycle Rally COVID-19 Numbers Are in and They Are Shocking

Half a million. Official tally is 462,000.

In one small town.

Check out any of the pictures from the rally and you will notice a distinct lack of masks and social distancing.

Expectations in most media sources were for this event to produce massive amounts of infection.

Half a million people. In one town.

The tracking results are in from the massive numbers of people who were infected and the resulting fatalities from this massive event.

It is shocking. Amazing. Head-shaking. Astounding.

Best info available is that:

  • 196 people tested positive for COVID with results linked to attending Sturgis.
  • 4 people died.

To put that in context, 5 people died of motorcycle accidents in Sturgis during the rally.

Growing awareness something is wrong with lockdowns

8/24/20 – Wall Street Journal – New Thinking on COVID Lockdowns: They are Overly Blunt and Costly – Article has a massive amount of information on the course of the pandemic, wide range of strategies by national and state governments, and large volume of statistics. The story is told basically scrambled egg style with no pattern or trends or storylines that I can easily summarize.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Devastation from government ordered shutdown of the economy – 2 of 3

What the California economy might look like by the time it is allowed to reopen. Photo of abandoned farm in North Dakota by James Ulvog.

This is the second in a series of posts describing the damage caused by shutting down the economy. See previous post for economic damage.

Damage to health across a society

8/18/20 – British Office for National Statistics – Coronavirus and depression in adults, Great Britain: June 2020

Study by the British organization compared data from July 2019 to June 2020.

They found 19.2% of adults were experiencing depression in June 2020 compared to 9.7% in July 2019. That is a doubling as a result of the pandemic.

Severity of the rise can be seen by 6.2% of the population that had ongoing depression, 12.9% developed moderate to severe depression during the pandemic, and 3.5% some improvement during that time.

Is there any doubt that the overwhelming portion of that increase is due to the isolation and economic damage caused by the government ordered shutdowns?

An interesting exercise is to put that data into table as follows:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Devastation from government ordered shutdown of the economy – 1 of 3

What the California economy might look like by the time it is allowed to reopen. Photo of abandoned farm in North Dakota by James Ulvog.

Over the last several weeks I have accumulated a number of articles describing the economic and health damage caused by the government ordered shutdown of the economy.

I’ve been wanting to post these for a while. In light of the California government imposing more severe constraints on when the economy will be allowed to start functioning again, it is now time to publish.

Economic damage

7/30/20 – Wall Street Journal – US Economy Contracted at Record Rate last Quarter; Jobless Claims Rise to 1.43 million – The preliminary estimate of the collapse in the US economy for the second quarter came in at an annualized 32.9% drop. Again, that is annualized. In addition, it will be revised in each of the next two months as additional data is gathered by the feds.

That follows an annualized drop of 5% in the first quarter.

8/25/20 – CNBC – American Airlines to cut 19,000 jobs when federal aid expires in October – (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago