In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I think it's worth focusing on California lockdowns, which are oppressive in themselves, but as they say, what starts in California spreads to the rest of the country, and as we'll see below, there are rumbles to that effect. On December 29, when an initial double secret set of restrictions expired, California extended its effectively statewide regional stay-at-home order until mid January. These were based on an entirely new criterion, ICU capacity, and overlay an existing color-coded set of restrictions on individual counties. The bottom line is that in most parts of the state, schools are closed to in-person instruction, school athletics are suspended, restaurants are closed except for takeout, barbershops, hair and nail salons, and gyms are closed, and retail is limited to 25% capacity. The status of churches is in litigation, with indoor worship prohibited in most areas and outdoor worship subject to numerical limits depending on civil jurisdiction. (Los Angeles Coun...

A visitor sent me an e-mail reacting to recent posts on COVID, ERs, and hospitalizations About ER waits: We have a friend whose son is an ER nurse at Kaiser. The waits in ER are ridiculously long because people who test positive for covid are showing up BECAUSE they tested positive. No symptoms but the media has convinced us that we are all going to die of this virus that testing positive is a death sentence. Another reason waits are long at ERs is that some people can't get regular medical care from their docs so they end up at the hospital sicker than should/would have been. True stories I've been told: A young boy is feeling crummy. He goes to his pediatrician who tests him for covid (the only reason to feel sick, right?). The test is negative so the doc does nothing. Days later his parents are awakened with him vomiting uncontrollably & he's rushed to ER. His appendix has burst. Due to the misdiagnosis he is sicker than most with ...

The only detailed account of a COVID hospitalization I've found is by a YouTuber in the Bakersfield, CA area named Mark Clay McGowan. McGowan is a retired railroader who normally posts on railroad subjects and local history, and he's a bit of a cousin in style to Mike Rowe. I followed him for that reason. However, on November 18, he put up a YouTube post from his hospital bed explaining that over the prior weekend, he'd been to the ER, diagnosed with viral pnseumonia and sent home. But the following Monday, his family, feeling he'd worsened, took him back to the ER, where he was diagnosed with COVID and admitted. He's been in the hospital ever since, posting YouTubes of his experience avery few weeks. I tried to link his November 18 post directly here, but YouTube won't let me do it. It is in fact harrowing. Above is a screen shot, and if you have the fortitude, you can watch the whole thing via this link. I've been hesitant to post on this, because un...

At right is the latest table showing LA County COVID case mortality rates from the county health department site . Click on the image for a larger copy. One story that's come out over the slow holiday news cycle is Boris Johnson's extension of Tier 4 lockdowns in the UK and the French closing their border with the UK due to some sort of "new" COVID strain . British officials have now estimated that “VUI – 202012/01” is as much as 70 percent more transmissible — a number that is based on modeling, but not yet confirmed in lab experiments. A later study, published on December 23, suggested a smaller, but still dangerous number: that the British mutation is 53 percent more contagious. Though there is no evidence to-date that the strain causes a more intense illness or leads to a higher fatality rate, faster transmission does mean more cases, which can lead to a higher hospitalization rate. Where is Peter Sellers when we need him? ...

California's problem is simple: it has at this point the strictest COVID measures in the US, but this has done absolutely nothing to control the spread of the disease. Gov Newsom and Mayor Garcetti have been making noises about even stricter lockdowns after the holidays, but barbershops, hair salons, gyms, bars, and restaurants have been closed, social gatherings forbidden, with 10 PM curfews in place, since roughly Thanksgiving. Newsom assured us at that time that these measures would "flatten the curve" but the curve just contnues to shoot upward. This means that about the only thing the state and counties can do more is to close all "non-essential" retail, which is already at a 25% limit. LA County has allowed churches to worship on its initiative, but it could revoke this at any time, subject to court action. Closing "non essential" retail would put California with the UK's Tier 4, the strictest i n the world. I assume this would have exactly ...

He has a history of misspeaking, but every time he's caught at it, he does what narcissists do -- he tries to convince you that he didn't tell a lie, he was actually doing you a favor, but you just didn't see it. Just before Christmas, he explanied that his latest whapper was because we aren't ready for the truth. Dr. Anthony Fauci has long cited 60% to 70% as the level of COVID infection/vaccination the country would need to achieve herd immunity — for the disease to fade and life to return to normal, writes the New York Times' Donald G. McNeil Jr. "I n a telephone interview," McNeil continues, "Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goalposts." "He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks." Fauci's confession: "When polls said only about half of all Americans would...

Notwithstanding, the Heritage Foundatioin has a constantly updated page with links to stories covering all known incidents of moral entrepreneurs and politicians violating their own orders. Merry Christmas to all!

I mentioned yestrday that the bad-clown-in-the-day-care moral panic, which began about1983, didn't end until the Waco massacre ten years later. This is because Janet Reno, who was Bill Clinton's attorney general from 1993 to 2001, built her career as Florida state attorney by bringing well-publicized day care toddler rape cases, and she approved the FBI's disastrous final raid on the Branch Davidian compound when she was told children were being abused inside. The McMartin preschool case in California sticks most prominently in memory of that period, but the moral entrepreneurs and prosecutors in that case never prospered. Janet Reno was a different matter. According to Wikipedia, During Reno's tenure as state attorney, she began what the PBS series Frontline described as a "crusade" against accused child abusers. Reno pioneered the "Miami Method,""a controversial technique for eliciting intimate details from young children and in...

News of new regional lockdowns in the UK has begun to reach US outlets . I'm even less able to talk insightfully about the UK than I am about Canada, so I don't intend to go into detail, except insofar as the UK situation gives what I think is a comparative view of the global moral panic. But as a distant observer, it does seem to me that the UK public throughout the 20th century was willing to take a lot more abuse from its political class, from the First War, through the Depression, Second War rationing, and postwar socialist austerity than the US public would ever have allowed, and apparenly this now continues. Just sayin'. A vistior forwarded to me a message from someone in the UK who isn't with the program: Greetings from Tier 4. We had the body bags delivered yesterday with instructions. We have to hang a white sheet out of the window when someone dies and they will be collected. Another 5 neighbours died yesterday. The rest have left for the co...

After mass yesterday, I asked our pastor if, in response to the LA County relaxation of its prohibition on indoor worship, there were any plans afoot to resume it at our parish. (There had been no announcement about any change at mass itself.) It turns out that he was completely unaware of the situation, which is partly understandable, since the press release was issued only late Saturday. But he also said, "There's been nothing from the archdiocese." That strongly suggests to me that the process was anything but consultative. Our pastor said, "We keep lobbying, but. . ." This seems consistent with remarks by Abp Cordileone in San Francisco that his archdiocese keeps submitting plans for safe reopening but never gets a reply. So it seems safe to assume that the county revised its decree without any sort of discussion with religious leaders, and it apparently gave them no heads-up about the change. So they could plan for Christmas, after all. Does "Dr...

Buried in a hysterical press release yesterday on "soaring" COVID hospitalizations, this appeared midway down: The Los Angeles County Health Officer Order will be modified today to align with recent Supreme Court rulings for places of worship. Places of worship are permitted to offer faith-based services both indoors and outdoors with mandatory physical distancing and face coverings over both the nose and mouth that must be worn at all times while on site. Places of worship must also assure that attendance does not exceed the number of people who can be accommodated while maintaining a physical distance of six feet between separate households. LA County's has been among the most stubborn lockdown regimes, but it's becoming plain that the US Supreme Court's Diocese of Brooklyn order is forcing civil authorities to pull back. The wording in yesterday's modification is vague, saying that churches "must also assure that attendance does not exceed the...

Liberty Counsel has announced that the State of Colorado has dropped its suit against Andrew Wommack Ministries, which I covered as the case was under way on the old blog, back in October . This came in the wake of Gov Polis's, removal of numerical caps on worship services, which in turn was a direct result of the US Supreme Court's action in the Diocese of Brooklyn case on November 24. On December 16, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser relaxed the attendance cap on churches in the District following the Archdiocese of Washington's suit. On Wednesday D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser removed the 50-person limit for religious gatherings and allowed houses of worship to welcome up to 250 people or reach 25% capacity. The Mayor’s office made the adjustment five days after the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington sued the mayor over attendance caps. While the order eases restrictions on religious gatherings, its language emphasizes the increasing severity of the cor...

In a development that's drawn a great deal of attention, San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil on November 11 granted a request for a temporary injunction that stops “any government entity or law enforcement officer from enforcing the provisions of the cease-and-desist orders” filed against two establishments — Pacers Showgirls International and Cheetahs Gentlemen’s Club — provided both locations follow extensive measures designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on their premises. At the time, this was a temporary restraining order pending the outcome of a hearing scheduled for December. Since the order, Gov Newsom issued more restrictive regional orders that closed both indoor and outdoor dining, limiting restaurants to takeout only. On December 16, Wohlfeil issued his final order : In the nine-page ruling, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the cease-and-desist order from being enforced on...

I've been looking for good data on COVID for quite some time, and the more I look, the harder it is to find. For instance, I went looking for a rolling 7-day average of COVID deaths in the US nationally, and what I find in CDC data is at best confusing. For instance, the CDC appears to combine "deaths due to pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 (PIC)" in its reports -- but naturally, that's not what I'm looking for. I want to know what the numbers are for COVID specifically. and I'm not sure if this is ever broken out. A site called the COVID Tracking Project has charts that provide 7-day rollling averages for tests, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. If I google "US daily COVID deaths", I get a google site that lists one total (3611 for December 16), while the COVID Tracking project site gives a different total (3400 for December 16). The last 7-day average on the COVID Tracking Project site was 2400 on December 15. The last rolling 7-day aver...

This must be COVID related, as the whole headline on Yahoo News reads, "Los Angeles Covid-19 Update: Ambulances Waiting 4 Hours To Offload Patients As L.A. Has Just 56 Adult ICU Beds Left, Orange County Has None" The story actually makes no other mention, and gives no details of, 4-hour delays. The first thing that puzzles me, though, is that most people with COVID don't go to the hospital in an ambulance. I follow a YouTuber sho gave, from his hospital bed, the only first-person accunt I've seen of a severe case of COVID. His experience was harrowing, but his family brought him to the ER, not an ambulance. Those who watch Live Rescue know that people are informed consumers, and they know that ambulance rides cost thousands of dollars, and they aren't covered by medical. People go to the hospital in an ambulance only when they have absolutely no other choice --for instance, if they're in cardiac arrest or bleeding uncontrollably. Otherwise, they'll...

On Friday, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington filed suit and moved for an injunction against the District of Columbia to force it to allow indoor church attendance consistent with other indoor activities in the District. The lawsuit argued the 50-person limits in any house of worship constitute “arbitrary” coronavirus restrictions. The suit alleged that the rules “violate the rights of more than 650,000 D.C.-area Catholics, who — at the end of this most difficult year — now face the chilling prospect of being told that there is no room for them at the Church this Christmas.” As of this morning, I can find no updates on the progress of this case, though the archdiocese is plain that as Christmas fast approaches, the District has imposed arbitrary 50-person caps on Mass attendance — even for masked, socially-distant services, and even when those services are held in churches that can in normal times host over a thousand people.” Based on remarks by San Franci...

California issued a revised and more restrictive stay-at-home order that closed restaurants and reduced capacity at many other businesses and activities over most of the state, effective November 21. According to medical.net , . In the case of coronavirus, the incubation period is estimated to be 5 – 6 days; however, the exact recommended range is 1 - 14 days. November 21 was more than three weeks ago, and we might expect many incubations since that time to emerge as full-blown cases -- but with the new restrictions, wouldn't we expect to see some effect in the number of new cases since that time? On December 2, when it had been ten days since the order, I went to that day's data from the LA County Health Department to see what the actual effects of the newest restrictions might be (Click on the image for a larger copy). The data leads to several questions. First, although we might expect to have seen the newest restrictions begin to show a clear reduction in cases a...

Whatever the eventual outcome of Trump's legal efforts -- and they don't look good at all -- the biggest issue for most of 2020 was the most egregiouis human rights violation in recent times, the worldwide COVID lockdown, a phenomenon that's continuing to do incalculable economic, emotional, and psychological damage but has been feckless to control the disease. There's simply been no proportionate payoff to the human sacrifices that people have rendered in most countries -- the disease is if anything more prevalent now than it was in March, though it's much less fatal -- but my guess is that with the new year, the authorities, seeing no effective remedy, will simply try to reimpose exactly the same lockdowns as last spring, with the same effect. Trump, and Trumpism, were irrelevant to this problem. If Trump had been re-elected by a landslide, we'd still be facing the Cuomos, the Newsoms, the Whitmers, the Wolfs, the Boris Johnsons, the Doug Fords,with exact...

Now and then, my wife and I go up to Solvang, a Danish-themed tourist town north of Santa Barbara. It does a lot of Christmas business, while the temperate climate there has always allowed outdoor dining and beer drinking. Gov Newsom's order last weekend to shut down outdoor dining over most of the state threatened the town's existence, so its city council promptly voted to except itself from the ban and requested that local law enforcement not enforce it, which of course California sheriffs have generally announced they will not do. There's another particular twist to Solvang's situation, because Newsom added an entirely new level of regional COVID enforcement based on hospital ICU capacity, over and above an existing county-level color-coded enforcement based on COVID statistics. The problem is that Santa Barbara County, where Solvang is, has been lumped into a new Southern California region for ICU capacity. Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo...

Via the New York Post , The US topped 15 million cases of COVID-19 this week, but that number is likely exponentially higher — by as much as seven times, a top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Thursday. . . . “The total estimated number of infections is likely two to seven times greater than reported cases,” [CDC Suit Aron] Hall said, adding that the evidence was based on seroprevalence surveys and models. So let's take this official's highest estimate, that the number of infections is as much as seven times greater than the 15 million reported. I brought up my calculator and found that 7 times 15 million is 105,000,000, Later, the same article says there have been 289,000 deaths to date. So I divided 289,000 by 15,000,000 and got a case fatality rate of 0.0027 of 1%. If 105 million people have been infected in the CDC's worst case scenario, but only 289,000 have died, then we definitely don't have mass graves in public parks the way they sa...