Apparently Only So Far

I remember people claiming back in the initial days of COVID lockdowns that stay-at-home orders weren't so much intended as a public health measure but were actually a dry run to see how well they'd work for climate change "emergencies". But if you think about it, climate change is simply a cat's paw for something else as well, just as COVID has been. The real question is whether, irrespective of the specific excuse, the unelected administrative state can impose supralegal measures on the population at large.

After more than two years of COVID controls, the answer appears to be only so far. As I noted on Wednesday, LA County was considering reimposing an indoor mask mandate, but it appears that strong behind-the-scenes opposition has headed this off:

Los Angeles County will not be reimposing an indoor mask mandate for now after COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations appear to be trending downward, and the region may soon move back into the “medium” community level of virus spread, officials announced Thursday.

. . . The county entered the high level on July 14, prompting County Health Director Barbara Ferrer to warn the public about a possible indoor mask mandate being issued to slow the spread.

And while L.A. County remains in the “high” community level based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s indicator, Ferrer said local officials will wait to further analyze data based on its own, more current, metrics.

“Since most of our local data trends have just begun to decline, we decided to take a closer look at the hospital admissions rate using our own data … so that we can get a more precise sense of where we might be headed,” Ferrer said Thursday.

Wait a moment. Up to now, CDC data had been the gold standard. If the CDC says it's true, it's true. This was the basis for Gov Newsom's red light-green light routine throughout 2021, for instance. Nobody claimed they needed to "further analyze data" back in 2021. Back then, if the CDC said you were widespread, you were widespread, and indoor businesses were shut. Now, well, we need to study things more. Maybe it'll get better by itself, let's not overdo things here. At the same link,

The threat of returning to the mandate stirred up controversy. Several cities, including Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Long Beach, and most recently El Segundo, had announced this week they would not enforce any mandate.

Additionally, two [of five] members of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors had indicated they opposed the reinstating of a the region-wide mask mandate.

In an open letter, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said “masking mandates lack empirical evidence to back their effectiveness, are unenforceable, polarizing, and take a huge toll on the social-emotional well-being of children and youth.”

It appears there was a massive back-channel campaign against restoring the mandate, given Supervsior Kuehl's remark about the "snowflake weepies" who were opposing it. Sounds like the snowflake weepies won the day, and I would guess the supervisors put a lot of pressure on "Dr" Ferrer to decide she needed to look more closely at the data before they themselves would be pressured to vote against reimposing the mandate, which would likely put Ferrer's own job at risk.

In other news,

Fox News host Tucker Carlson jokingly announced plans to rename monkeypox 'schlong COVID' after a woke official deemed the existing moniker racist.

Carlson announced the results of a Twitter poll on his Fox News show Thursday night, saying: 'So, monkeypox is about the coolest name ever for a disease.

'But they are changing the name because racism or something.'

'So, we had a vote,' Carlson then said: 'There was no ballot harvesting. You can trust our counting. And the new name for monkeypox is now officially – and we’re declaring it – schlong COVID. That won our audience election result with about 40% of the vote. So, let Rochelle Walensky at the CDC know.'

Public health authorities need to be thinking about the implications if their deliberations begin to be the topic of late-night humor. I think even Drs Birx and Fauci had begun to recognize people were fed up, and the political authorities in deep-blue LA very reluctantly realized it was time to shorten "Dr" Ferrer's leash. At some point, the same authorities need to recognize that they went just a bit too far with COVID, and the current self-parody with monkeypox is threatening long term damage to their credibility.