political freedom

(Dark humor alert:  Sarcasm is not a healthy form of humor. Sometimes though, a healthy dose of ridicule accompanied by pointing and laughing is necessary to emphasize the ridiculousness of something. So, check out the following research…)

 

Breathtaking reports on social media claim there is scientific proof that the Sturgis motorcycle rally was a massive super spreader event.

Solid evidence.

Incontrovertible proof I tell you.

Study is described at Wall Street Journal on 11/21/20: CDC Study Links Sturgis Motorcycle Rally to Covid-19 Spread in Minnesota. Hosts of other news sites are doing their own re-write of the story.

Guesses are somewhere around 460,000 people attended the huge motorcycle rally held every year in Sturgis, South Dakota. This year it ran from August 7-16.

The lack of mask usage, the closeness of the event, and massive number of people was dangerous I tell you.

Coverage at the time and headlines now say this was obviously a super spreader event that would obviously cause 7 or 8 gazillion infections and just over half a bazillion deaths.

CDC research shows there, uh, weren’t, um, quite that many infections.

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Our political leaders have led us to believe they have incredible knowledge about the coronavirus, including how we get sick, how many are sick, transmission vectors, spread rates, etc. etc. As time passes there is an increasing amount of data that suggests the understanding of the virus is fuzzier than we have been told.

Merely a few of the recent articles pointing out the uncertainty surrounding the virus:

• Officials across Europe (and New York City) are not able to figure out how most people catch the bug.
• Estimated 1/5th of New York City residents were infected by early March, at the very beginning of the pandemic.
• Estimated 1/8^th of Orange County, California residents were infected by the end of the summer, far higher than the reported positive test rate.

11/15/20 – Wall Street Journal – As Covid-19 Surges, the Big Unknown Is Where People Are Getting Infected – Health authorities are having difficulty figuring out where people are catching the coronavirus.

Statistics on the percentage of cases that can be traced to a source:

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Details keep emerging about the governor’s $500 a person dinner with six households present which was held inside even though the governor said it was outside.

Previously it was disclosed that a longtime friend who is a heavy hitter lobbyist was also at the meal. One article said what a deal for the lobbyist – the entire world knows he has the ear of the governor of the state of California. Superb advertising, huh?

New info is tumbling out. Photos of the meeting emerged Monday showing the meal was served inside.

News yesterday was names of two of the other diners.

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Previous post explained that while you and I are prohibited from having more than three households gather for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, and our gatherings must be in the backyard, and we must provide turkey, potatoes, and dressing in single serve containers, and we can only let guests use the bathroom if we sanitize the bathroom regularly, the governor of California attended a lavish private dinner party with at least 12 people present, meaning there were likely six or more households present. The governor, the lobbyist whose birthday was being celebrated, and the restaurant all say the meal was outdoors.

Well, turns out the “outdoor” dinner wasn’t quite so outdoor.

If your idea of outdoor dining consists of a room that’s enclosed on three sides with a ceiling and chandelier, along with sliding glass doors on the fourth side that can isolate your party from the rest of the dining room, then the meal was outdoors.

For us unwashed masses unable to rise above our lowly submissive serf status, that sounds like an indoor meal.

A more deadly issue than the hypocrisy

Before we explore the increasing depths of flaming hypocrisy in this story there is a severe side issue.

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Indications are starting to emerge that the answer to the question may actually be no.

Previously mentioned one analysis which found a weak statistical correlation between weaker lockdown requirements and lower infection rate. The study found no correlation between the date that states started releasing the lockdown restrictions and subsequent infection rates.

 

The rate of infections accelerates rapidly and then hits an inflection point where the rate of infections either plateaus or the rate slows dramatically.

The following study suggests the lockdowns have no correlation to when the infection rates hit that transition point. In fact, the inflection point normally is reached before the lockdowns could have had any impact.

10/4/20 – National Review – Stats Hold a Surprise: Lockdowns May Have Had Little Effect on Covid-19 Spread –

Authors pulled the daily infection rate for 13 states and graphed the data on a logarithmic scale. Seeing infections on a log scale makes it easier to see trends. There are visible transitions in every state from rapid acceleration to a flattened or greatly reduced infection rate.

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