In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

As of this week, LA County has qualified to leave the California "red" tier of COVID restrictions, and as of Monday, April 5, it will be placed in the less restrictive "orange" tier. From the time Gov Newsom imposed the multi-colored COVID tiers last August 28, LA County had been in the most restrictive "purple" tier. Its performance during the late 2020 surge had been a virtual Mt Everest on the chart, as shown above. But for reasons that aren't completely clear, the county's numbers began a precipitous drop in mid-January 2021 and, contravening trends in places like Germany, Canada, and the US northeast, have continued to plummet. The county left the "purple" tier, where it had been for over seven months, just on March 14, when it was placed in the "red" tier. However, it has blown through the "red" tier in the minimum time it was required to wait there, three weeks, and yesterday the state declared that it qualifi...

In a bizarre and weepy statement to the media yesterday, Dr Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, departed from her prepared statement and, close to tears, said I'm going to lose the script, and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared. The first reaction I had was that leaders don't break into panic in prepared public remarks. Instead, leaders, even when things look bleak, outline a positive course of action. Think we shall fight on the beaches. But in fact, she's outlining no course of action at all, and indeed no serious understanding of the particular problem. And of course, if she thinks a spike in COVID "cases" is "impending doom", what word does she use for ebola or bubonic plague? I'll get to the over-the-top below. Like Dr Fauci yesterday, she looks at a national t...

Yesterday on Sunday talk, Dr Fauci said US COVID-19 cases were rising again "because of infectious coronavirus variants, people traveling more, and states easing restrictions too soon." More than 11 states have eased restrictions, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning that "now is not the time." As far as I can tell, an uptick in US cases is due almost entirely to New York. Here's the New York chart: But here's California: New York's population is 18 million. California's population is 40 million. California's COVID statistics, with LA County a key factor, have actually been plummeting in recent weeks, as I noted here yesterday. But according to the New York Post, New York and New Jersey now have the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the country. The Empire State has averaged 548 cases for every 100,000 residents over the past 14 days — only surpassed by the Garden State with 647 ...

I was surfing the COVID charts yesterday when I ran into the one above on the LA County health department site. The bottom line is that, as of a week ago, the 7-day average county COVID testing positivity rate was 1.60%. But putting this in the context of Gov Newsom's lockdown tiers, if the system were reimposed today with these statistics, the county would not be in the "red" tier, which is only a little less restrictive than the horrible "purple" tier. With a testing positivity rate of less than 2%, it would be in the lowest, "yellow" or "minimal" tier. As it is, the county is still in the three-week waiting period to move down from the red, "substantial" tier to the orange, "moderate" tier. I assume that once it reaches the orange tier in a week or so, the waiting clock in orange will restart, and we'll have to wait another three weeks to move from orange to yellow, when, however, masks, social distancing, and cap...

Via The Federalist , I learn that US District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered Washington, DC Mayor Bowser to cease enforcing a 250-person and 25 percent capacity restriction on church attendance. Via the graphic above, which is already out of date, this was the last jurisdiction to have imposed a "maximum x and y percent, whichever is lower" type restriction, which was extremely common as of late last year. This is a continuing indication of how quickly COVID restrictions are being lifted in the US. The suit was brought by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington. This is another indication that the successful US legal fight against limits on religious observance is being conducted entirely by Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and radical Protestant Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Main Line Protestantism is nowhere to be found, reflective of the trend Frederick Kinsman observed a century ago. It reflects similar developments among Jews. Quasi-Christian cults like Mormons, Jehovah...

A visitor sent me a heads-up to a story on Gavin Newsom that broke in local media yesterday, and it's developing only very slowly this morning. Here's the latest, still from California local media : Will the “worst-kept secret in Sacramento” blow into public view? It’s hard to say. The secret? That Gov. Gavin Newsom was engaged in multiple alleged extra-marital affairs over the course of 2020, a time where many of his orders shuttered nearly all personal and economic activity across the nation’s largest state. Sources on K Street and within the Capitol complex peppered The Sun with corroborating rumors of infidelity by Newsom during the pandemic year. One such instance allegedly occurred with a high-ranking official within his own office, K Street sources told The Sun. The original source the visitor sent me took me back to Newsom's past history. I've got to say I wasn't paying much attention at the time, simply because Newsom was the foreordained choi...

The chart above shows the trend in COVID "cases" for California since the start of the pandemic. As I noted yesterday, the authorities' response to this remarkable reversal of the disease has been extremely timid and bureaucratic, with counties moving very slowly from "tier" to "tier", each move giving very minimal relaxation: this month indoor dining at 25% capacity, masks, and social distance; next month (maybe) 50%, masks, and social distance. The most the state plan envisions for many sectors, including restaurants and churches, is under the "yellow" tier at 50% capacity, masks, and social distance. There's no threshold in the plan for ever leaving yellow. I guess we'll just have to be grateful for the 50% they'll let us have. By comparison, here's the same data over the same period for Texas. Although the trend in California is even more favorable than Texas, Texas is the one to say "we're done". No mas...