So, What Happened?

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" Barbara Ferrer, the county health director whose portrait is above, look like someone who'd want to help churches plan for Christmas?

So this leads me to that strangely passive-aggressive press release from late Saturday. It begins with the usual hysterical headlines:

L.A. County Surpasses 600,000 COVID-19 Cases as Hospitalizations Continue to Soar

60 New Deaths and 13,756 New Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County

Then three full paragraphs follow saying

L.A. County is experiencing the fastest acceleration of new cases than at any other time during the pandemic. . . . Today, Public Health has confirmed 60 new deaths and 13,756 new cases of COVID-19. . . . Hospital capacity across the county is limited, and healthcare workers are hard-pressed to keep up with the need for care. And the only means available to improve the situation at the hospitals is to reduce the number of people becoming newly infected with COVID-19.

Then there's a paragraph favorably noting the appeals court's overruling the San Diego judge's injunction against the state and county for enforcing the restaurant closure.

A recent decision by the Court of Appeal affirms Los Angeles County's duty to prevent disease transmission and protect public health through existing Health Officer Orders, and the suspension of outdoor dining remains in effect. Public Health reminds all sectors and businesses that all other requirements, safety directives, and temporary business closures also remain in effect.

In other words, the county health department's ability to govern by decree continues unabated. Except when it doesn't. Finally, after four paragraphs, the release gets to the heart of the matter:

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.

Ferrer most definitely did not want to issue this modification. You can tell from the tone and the need to preface it with paragraphs full of hysteria -- everybody's dying, but the Supreme Court does this???

We can be pretty sure that this decision didn't come from consultation with Catholic authorities, or any other religious leaders. Those people are the enemy. Nor did it come from any particular court order. The federal judge in the Harvest Rock case is slow-walking the process in his court, and in any case, the city of Pasdadena, which is in LA County, has its own health department enforcing separate orders and is not under Ferrer's jurisdiction. Although Grace Community Church is a thorn in the city and county's side, there's been no major court action in recent weeks in its case.

So the county health department is responding to domething that isn't so specific. But whatever it was, it made Ferrer do something she didn't want to do.

My guess is that it was pressure from Mayor Garcetti, the county supervisors, and even Gov Newsom, who nevertheless are all blue and bluer. And I would put it to the Recall Newsom movement, which is gaining enough traction that it's made national news.

LA County Relaxes Church Restrictions; Pols Send Newsom A Message

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 number of people" who can social distance indoors. I'm assuming that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will be developing policies to implement the revised order, maybe even by Christmas.

Luckily, the weather so far has been mild. Our parish installed propane heaters on its patio for outdoor masses, but it hasn't always had to use then.

Meanwhille, two California political veterans, Democrat Willie Brown and Republicn Darrell Issa, have warned Gov Newsom that a recall petition will succeed, and he'll be removed from office, unless he finds a solution to the COVID crisis. Brown said,

Right now, Newsom’s chances of survival are tied to the pandemic. If California can get the coronavirus under some semblance of control and counties can lift economic restrictions — and here’s the big if, if Newsom can lean on teachers unions and school districts to reopen classrooms — he’ll survive any recall and all but guarantee his re-election.

If not, Newsom will be in a fight for his political life.

Brown has been pretty accurate in calling elections over the past couple of decades. Certainly schools are a big issue, as Brown says, but right now, bars and resturants are closed, and you can't get a haircut. Churches will now let you inside out of the rain, but you still can't sing or exchange the peace. As with the Viet Nam war, the only viable strategy to end it is to declare victory and get out. Since the COVID crisis is essentially a moral panic manufactured by moral entrepreneurs like Dr Fauci and maintained for the benefit ot media and politicians, Newsom's path is fairly clear.

He basically needs to announce, "The science, the data, and the models say we've beaten this thing, thanks to my foresight and leadership" and declare an end to the lockdowns. The media will then find much encouragement in the bending curves and declining case mortality.

Free Exercise Updates

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 coronavirus pandemic and discourages large gatherings.

“The larger the gathering, the more the exposure,” the order reads. “A recent lawsuit appears to insist on a constitutional right to hold indoor worship services of even a thousand persons or more at the largest facilities, which flies in the face of all scientific and medical advice and will doubtlessly put parishioners in harm’s way.”

The problem continues to be that with mask and social distance orders in place over much of the US, and other draconian restrictions like restaurant closings, COVID cases increase notwithstanding. Yet the experience of California megachurches, which defy health orderw with thousands of people each week, has been that infections are minimal, and no symptoms are reported at all.

On December 15, the US Supreme Court handed down a writ of certiorari before judgment in the case of SSPX priest Kevin Robinson and Orthodox Rabbi Yisrael Knopfler, who had been attempting since last May to remove New Jersey Gov Murphy's restrictions on church attendance. I covered the original case on the old blog here. As reported here,

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the petition for an injunction and ordered the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the case in line with a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court issued in late November in a New York lawsuit.

In that case, the court barred authorities from enforcing attendance restrictions at churches and synagogues in the midst of the pandemic.

The ban on religious gatherings in New Jersey has been a contentious one going back to before Easter. One gathering broken up in Lakewood during the initial days of Murphy's stay-at-home order in March was of a group of men who gathered for religious studies. Knopfler was arrested in mid-May following a religious gathering that drew about 20 men, in violation of what was a 10-person limit at that time.

Also on December 15, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

ruled in favor of two Nevada churches that say the state’s COVID-19 restrictions violate their First Amendment rights.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agrees with the churches in Las Vegas and rural Lyon County that the state's limits are unconstitutional because they place harsher attendance limits on religious gatherings than casinos and other secular businesses.

. . . It instructed the district judges to preliminary enjoin Nevada from imposing attendance limits for churches stricter than those for other gatherings or businesses.

However, as reported here on December 8, on December 3, the US Supreme Court sent the case of Harvest Rock Church back to the Ninth District and the circuit court for recnsideration based on its order in the Diocese of Brooklyn case. But this left room for delay.

At this point, the circuit judge appears to be slow-walking the process.

On Saturday, December 5, the district court set a hearing for December 8. However, the court then granted Gov. Newsom more time so he could file yet another brief on December 14, followed by a hearing on December 18.

As I reported in the earlier post, it could take months to get the case back to the Supreme Court.

So far, there's been no news in the case of South Bay United Pentecostal Churches' petition for writ of certiorari before judgment, which I reported here on November 29.

The reality is -- and this will be the case no matter who is president -- the moral entrepreneurs are out to extend lockdowns indefinitely. Dr Fauci is now saying things could possibly get back to normal by Christmas 2021, or maybe 2022. This is going to be a long and difficult fight.

San Diego Judge Lifts Restaurant Closings

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 strip clubs and "San Diego County businesses with restaurant service" from operating.

The order, effective immediately, still requires businesses to adhere to COVID safety protocols.

The county, not clear on the scope of Wohlfeil's order, requested that he clarify:

A California judge said Thursday that all restaurants in San Diego County can resume on-site dining with safety protocols, marking a setback to the governor’s stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil said his ruling Wednesday that also protected two strip clubs extended to the thousands of eateries in the county of 3 million people.

County officials had suspended enforcement of restrictions barring indoor and outdoor dining and live entertainment on Wednesday and requested the hearing to get clarification from the judge about the scope of his ruling.

Wohlfeil's ruling parallels that of Judge James Chalfant in Los Angeles County, in which Chalfant found the county health authorities could not provide evidence that anyone had contracted COVID from a church service. According to ABC News,

Wohlfeil cited the lack of evidence from the County that proves the two live adult entertainment venues would increase the risk of exposure to patrons or that the establishments have impacted ICU bed capacity throughout Southern California, “much less in San Diego County.”

“Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have been devoid of COVID, have done nothing to contribute to the spread of COVID, and have honored their representations to Dr. Joel Day and the County,” said Wohlfeil, according to court records.

Wohlfeil said the order applies to both California state and San Diego County restrictions. The county health department would normally enforce the state lockdown in any case.

Media in San Diego have generally been hysterical, insisting that "skyrocketing", "surging", and "record-breaking" COVID cases mean Wohlfeil's order is somehow irresponsible. But the problem is that, as with the non-conforming megachurches, nobody has been able to prove that strip joints or restaurants, even those like the megachurches that don't apply ocial distancing, have been the source of any COVID infections.

Although the county is not enforcing its lockdown for the moment, both the county and state will appeal Wohlfeil's order. And Wohlfei's order does nothing more than place the county back in social-distancing conditions as they'd existed in early fall. Those in themselves are an annoying charade, but at least some people in San Diego can go out to eat, and some can work for a living.

Numbers Behaving Badly

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 average case total I could find on the COVID Tracking Project site was 209,307 for December 11, But dividing the December 15 rolling average deaths of 2400 by the December 11 rolling average cases gives a US case mortality rate of 1.1%, which is consistent with various calculations I've made from different sources over the past several days. This is down by about half from the 2% case mortality rate several months ago and still generally reported. And if we take the latest 5-day rolling death average of 2400 and multiply it by the remaining 14 days in December, we get 33,600 deaths remaining for the month, far below the 250,000 Joe Biden predicted the country would have by January.

While figures like Gov Newsom continue to insist their predictions are based on "models", nobody seems to give out hard numbers since the Imperial College model predicted 2 to 4 million US deaths. Instead, the closest we've had is Biden's "dark winter" 250,000 by January, while Dr Fauci is simply telling people not to celebrate the holidays -- but the fog of numbers prevents any real ability to calculate whether the holidays have led to "surges" in statisticcs or not. For instnace,

Data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) days prior to the holiday showed more than three million people traveled through airports despite guidance suggesting otherwise.

However, nearly three weeks later, there so far appears to be no post-holiday surge in numerous cities and states.

“We haven’t seen something significant to talk about now,” Illinois Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We’ll see for sure in this coming week … We’ll keep our fingers crossed that maybe we’re not going to see a big bump.”

Nevertheless Dr Fauci is warning us against Christmas:

". . . But that’s just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time."

Fauci, noting that many Americans ignored health guidelines over Thanksgiving, warned that Christmas cannot be "business as usual."

The problem is that the data to support his position is hard to find and unreliable, and people's experience on the ground takes away from official credibility. For instance, thousands of people attend the non-conforming California megachurches each week without masks or social distance, but almost none even test positive, much less get sick. Individual states differ wildly in their COVID regimes, but there's little difference in their actual outcomes, with the states that have the strictest regimes experiencing the worst statistics.

This is one part of corporate media's ongoing failure.

"Ambulances Waiting 4 Hours To Offload Patients"

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 drive themselves, get someone to drive them, or forego the visit. The Yahoo story doesn't go into why, or where, the four-hour delays are taking place, but I can't imagine they're for COVID.

The next question is the hysterical assertion that LA has just 56 adult ICU beds left. I first covered this a week ago. Hospitals run near full ICU capacity every winter due to ordinary flu. I found another story on the same subject from last March 26, during the first COVID moral panic runup:

Many hospitals across the United States regularly operate with most of their beds taken by patients, limiting their ability to handle a sudden influx of folks sick with COVID-19, a new study reports.

"All indications show if the curve is not flattened, hospitals across the country will not have the capacity to deal with the surge in hospitalizations associated with COVID-19," said study author Fredric Blavin, a principal research associate with the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center.

Let's recall that in response to this initial wave of hysteria, Trump ordered two hospital ships and a field hospital to cities that would be hardest hit, only to see them go unused. Somehow the hospitals that ran near capacity, as they routinely do in the winter, weren't overwhelmed by COVID.

A San Diego reporter actually spoke up and asked the county health officer there about this very issue:

During Wednesday’s San Diego County Health press briefing, Dr. Wilma Wooten admitted that she does not even know what our hospital capacity is normally at this time of year.

Saturday via text, KUSI News asked what ICU capacity our hospitals normally operate, since Governor Newsom’s used ICU capacity to issue another lockdown.

San Diego County Health responded saying, “We will get back to you with the number. Don’t have that handy at the press conference.”

KUSI News reached out multiple times since Saturday to get the answer, but San Diego County Health never responded, so we asked again during Wednesday’s County Health Briefing.

KUSI’s Hunter Sowards asked if Dr. Wilma Wooten could compare ICU numbers to last year’s numbers at this time.

Dr. Wooten responded saying she doesn’t know. “I don’t have before me right now any data to compare where we were at the same time last year.”

No matter, it's just a good idea to shut down restaurants and barber shops no matter what. The problem is that, with the occasional exception of the San Diego news station, the media just continues to inflame the panic.

Free Exercise Updates

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 Francisco Abp Cordileone in the wake of the Diocese of Brooklyn order in the Supreme Court, the US bishops appear to be proceeding based on mutual consultation. What they're asking seems to be conservative and consistent, the right to hold masked, socially-distant masses indoors under the same capacity constraints as secular indoor retail and similar activities. Abp Cordileone in his remarks implied the likelihood of similar suits. I'll report on further developments as they take place.

According to the Thomas More Society's website, a Kern County, CA superior court judge issued an injunction against the county for restricting SSPX masses there.

On December 10, 2020, a California Superior Court issued a preliminary injunction protecting Father Trevor Burfitt and his Catholic parishes. . . . The court specifically singled out the provisions of Newsom’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy and his Regional Stay at Home Order as failing to treat houses of worship in a manner “equal to the favored class of entities,” meaning “[e]ntities permitted to engage in indoor activities – also known as ‘essential businesses’ or ‘critical infrastructure’ – includ[ing] big-box retail stores, grocery stores, home improvement stores, hotels, airports, train stations, bus stations, movie production houses, warehouses, factories, schools, and a lengthy list of additional businesses.”

California county judges are clearly beginning to lose patience with state and local COVID controls. Kern County is a mountainous, partly desert, and largely rural area north of Los Angeles. Fr Burfitt us based in Los Angeles County, and it isn't clear if the judge's order applies to his parishes there and in other counties.

Although court rulings are beginning to trend in the direction of free exercise, it isn't a uniformly smooth process. According to Liberty Counsel's website,

Liberty Counsel has filed another emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry. This quick return to the High Court follows an Obama-appointed district court judge's refusal to follow the Supreme Court's [Dec 3] order.

. . . The High Court already granted cert, vacated the lower court orders involving the emergency petition of the churches and directed the district court to reconsider and apply the High Court's [Nov 25] decision granting an injunction for churches and synagogues in New York.

However, after Wednesday's hearing in district court, the Obama-appointed judge failed to abide by the High Court's instructions.

At 5:00 PM Eastern Time, December 8, the district court held a ten-minute hearing, refusing to even address the requested relief. Instead, the district court accepted the request of Gov. Newsom to kick the can down the road so that the governor could file yet another brief followed by a hearing on December 18.

I'll report on developments in these and other cases as they occur.