The COVID Grifters Won't Quit

A week ago yesterday, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the CDC chief, made her teary prophecy of "impending doom" from a new wave of COVID. Almost on cue, as shown above, the New York statistics, which had been leading so-called national totals, peaked and appear to have resumed a decline.

There's nothing new about this. The Imperial College model in March of last year predicted that,

by October [2020], more than 500,000 people in Great Britain and 2 million people in the U.S. would die as a result of COVID-19.

The model also predicted the United States could incur up to 1 million deaths even with “enhanced social distancing” guidelines, including “shielding the elderly.” Imperial’s modeling results influenced British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose a nationwide lockdown and influenced the White House as well.

I don't mean to minimize the effects of the pandemic. On the other hand, at this point, we can be confident that COVID is neither the Black Death nor ebola, and the continued projections of disaster we hear from the same moral entrepreneurs at the top of the public health establishment are damaging its hard-won prestige and undermining its ability to control future disease.

Just yesterday, in researching that post, I ran across a new public health grifter who seems to have gained credibility by hitchhiking on Dr Walensky's efforts to spread panic, Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. He went on this past Sunday's talks to spread the bad news:

A leading epidemiologist from the University of Minnesota says he believes the United States is in a fourth wave of a COVID-19 surge.

Dr. Michael Osterholm appeared on FOX News Sunday, where he said the spike in cases right now is due to the coronavirus variant first found in the U.K. — B.1.1.7. — which is now spreading here. It’s much more contagious and can be more serious.%;">

. . . “We are the only country in the world right now experiencing this increasing number of cases due to this variant, and at the same time opening up, not closing down. And the two basically are going to collide,” Osterholm said.

He says the good news is the vaccines in the U.S. protect against the variant B117.

As I noted yesterday with the remarks he made on an upper-midwest COVID spike that simply isn't taking place, the guy isn't in touch with the facts. The UK, home of the terrible UK variant, is actually reopening, despite his claim that the US is the only place that is. But Osterholm's record goes beyond this -- the UK variant has been his hobby horse for a while. On February 4, more than two months ago, he said on CNN

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm compared a UK coronavirus variant to a “Category 5 hurricane” churning off the coast, saying some strains could cause a “major surge” in new cases in the US.

A mutation that could allow Covid-19 to escape antibody protection has now been found in samples of a rapidly spreading strain in the UK, according to a report. Experts say it's too early to predict whether this development will impact the trajectory of Covid-19 around the world.

“I think amongst my colleagues, they would agree that this variant from the United Kingdom, which is now beginning to circulate much more widely in the United States, poses a huge challenge to us. And that in just a few weeks, we could be seeing case numbers increase very dramatically,” Osterholm said on CNN’s “New Day.”

But "a few weeks" after his February prediction of an impending category-5 hurricane, nothing of the sort took place. In fact, with several states loosening or eliminating restrictions since then, from California to Florida, cases in those and neighboring states have oontinued to decline.

I'm not sure what the payoff is for any of these figures, Walensky, Fauci, Osterholm, or Birx. Birx in fact ended her career, forced to retire after it surfaced that she'd traveled to a vacation home to celebrate Thanksgiving with extended family after telling the plebs not to do this. Fauci, Walensky, and Osterholm have probably peaked in income, all likely making well into six figures with perks, benefits, and honoraria without the appearances on the talks, and given their age and demonstrated incompetence, they probably won't advance in the future, even if people will say nice things about them at their retirement dinners.

So why keep spreading panic instead of telling people it's time to get the shot and go back to life? My guess is it's narcissism, fed by the media, which explots them for clickbait.

Why Is Michigan Such An Outlier?

I'm continuing to look at the COVID trends for individual US states, because it's plain that the claims of people like Drs Fauci and Walensky that there is a "national" surge in cases are highly misleading. Any national increase is actually driven by a minority of states whose patterns don't reflect those of most others. Michigan's case, shown above, is a good example. CNN reports

Michigan reported 8,413 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the state's total pandemic case count to 692,206, according to the state's health department.

Saturday's daily case count is the highest the state has reported since December 7, when the reported case count was 9,350, state statistics show.

Just eight weeks ago, state data showed the daily reported case count was as low as 563 cases.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said the Upper Midwest is beginning to see its fourth surge.

But Dr Osterholm doesn't seem to be looking very carefully at the statistics. Here's the performance of Michigan's neighbor to the south, Ohio;

And here's its neighbor to the west, Wisconsin:

Both states reflect what I'm finding is actually the most common pattern among US states, a surge in late 2020, followed by a turnaround in mid-January of this year and a fairly rapid descent to moderate or minimal levels, with no significaant upticks since. California is the best example, but the performance of many other states, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, the Dakotas, and Iowa is very similar. Michigan is in fact the big exception in the upper midwest.

The LA County health department's account of its experience, which I discussed last week, suggests that even with the small initial quantities of the vaccine that were available last December, targeting their distribution to the most critical areas -- elder and long-term care facilities and their staff -- produced dramatic results within weeks. California also incentivized distribution to zip codes where the outbreak was worst, which again has produced remarkable results in places like LA County, where daily statistics are actually in the state's "minimal" range.

The LA County health department' experience has also been that the vaccines are highly effective, so that even when quantities are limited, distribution to places that produce the most statistical bang for the buck brings a very favorable outcome.

So it puzzles me that COVID hucksters like Dr Osterholm in Minnesota seem to claim there's a new surge, when in fact efficient use of the existing vaccine supplies produces very positive results.

I would even question whether political or health authorities in places like Michigan are possibly slow-walking measures that have proven extremely effective in many other areas. It's also puzzling that I've seen no mention of the acutal US state p[atterns in any media.

UPDATE: It looks like Dr Osterholm has becme the next Dr Walensky.

Fooled Ya!

I must confess that, with a surname like Bruce, I have some Scots DNA, though it comes from a single great-grandfather who seems to have been an unpleasant guy who died young. Generally I don't take to that side of the family. But I once knew a Scots-Canadian professor who was extremely fond of a story about a Scotsman who would persuade himself to eat his oatmeal by promising himself that if he did, he could have shot of whiskey when he finished it. But once he finished the oatmeal, he'd tell himself, "Ha! I fooled ya!"

He told this story so frequently, and with such loving attention to detail and accent, that I was convinced it reflected some deep part of his character, maybe Scots, maybe Canadian, maybe both.

Anyhow, a Canadian visitor sent me a link to the Archdiocese of Vancouver, BC website that seems to reflect this side of what may be the Canadian character:

As of March 29, all indoor worship has been suspended again.

B.C. health officials had introduced a one-time variance on health restrictions to allow limited indoor gatherings for religious holidays between March 28 and May 13, but they have since withdrawn that variance.

With the short notice and a flurry of communication, it can be confusing to discern exactly what is happening.

However, the provimcoal authorites have graciously permitted the following, notwithstanding:

A variance introduced March 23 allows for outdoor religious services to be held with 50 cars and their passengers and another 50 people. Those in cars must remain in them during the whole Mass.

This is a continuing problem with the whole red light-green light system of pandemic management. The short notice and confusing communication that the archdiocese noted contribute to it and enable it.

The US has been much more successful in pushing back at this sort of thing.

Obtuseness At The Washington Examiner

While the Washington Examiner isn't quite legacy media, It's more Never Trump Republican, and I don't normally follow it. But yesterday I ran into a remarkably obtuse story on a supposed "new wave" of COVID by David Hogberg. Hogberg, I see, is a regular talking head and adjunct-freelance-whatever with a PhD in PoliSci.

I spend about three hours a day writing and researching this blog, and I don't get paid a penny. I assume Hogberg supports himself with his variouis gigs and has convinced people he's an expert, with his PhD and all. But as a retired amateur, I'm a far better writer and researcher than Hogberg. Here's what he has to say about the current state of COVID play:

The bad news is that the United States appears to be on the cusp of another wave of coronavirus infections. The good news is that hospitalizations and deaths may be much lower this time around.

Daily confirmed cases had been dropping since January, when they reached a seven-day average of almost 260,000. By March 22, that had dropped to just over 54,300. Now, the seven-day average stands at 66,000, an increase of 21% in a little over a week.

While cases may continue to rise, it is not likely to result in the same number of hospitalizations and deaths as experienced in previous waves.

“I agree that the number of hospitalizations and deaths proportionate to the number of cases will be less for this wave because the demographics of the people getting sick will be different,” said Dr. Manoj Jain, an infectious disease physician at the Rollins School of Public Health.

. . . On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky warned that the United Kingdom variant, known as B.1.1.7, is becoming the predominant strain in the U.S. Thus far, 11,569 cases of the U.K. variant have been confirmed in the U.S., although that number is certainly low as the genetic tracing needed to identify variants is not widespread in the U.S. The U.K. variant is 40% to 70% more transmissible than the original virus, according to Imperial College London.

Really? He's citing drama queen Dr Rochelle Walensky and Imperial College, the authors of the famous model that projected millions of dead within months in 2020? In the course of part-time research for this blog, I've discovered that the CDC itself says that as far as they can determine, the vaccines are effective against all the variants, and in the LA County health department's experience, the vaccines "provide significant protection against transmission even in very high-risk settings".

But, apparently paid by the word, he blathers on with on-one-hand-on-the-other without recognizing that there are successful COVID strategies outside the northeastern US. He leaves out the case of Texas, for instance.

Nearly a month after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), announced he was lifting the state’s mask mandate, new daily cases in the Lone Star State continue on a downward trend, once again beating “expert” predictions of dire consequences.

When Abbott announced the end to the mask mandate, Texas’ 7-day average for new cases was at 7,259 — it’s now roughly half that. Daily cases have also declined by about half since the mask mandate was lifted. Deaths also continue to drop.

Writer Drew Holden pointed out the statistics on Twitter, noting that “when you look at mainstream media coverage about how Texas’s decision was going to be a disaster, for some reason nearly all the stories are from the first week of March, and there haven’t been really any since mid-March, before the predictions came due.”

In other words, we have a very clear situation where doing nothing was actually more effective than the policies advocated by the CDC. And this leaves out the question of why the vaccine regimens employed by the northeastern states aren't working, when California has employed a successful strategy with the same vaccines. What's different? In a few hours a day over the past week, I've found a productive line of research that's utterly eluded the beltway types.

All this is somehow eluding poor Hogberg as well. Hs Facebook profile says that while he's single, he lives in Washington, so I assume he's got at least rent and a BMW payment. If he stepped outside the one-one-hand-on-the-other mold, he might not be able to make them.

So, What Is California Doing Right?

My own takeaway from yesterday's post is that, faced with a COVID surge as bad as has taken place anywhere, California somehow turned things around in a way that few other jurisdictions have. The question of why has been pestering me for some time. I was originally gonig to post on some Canadian craziness that a visitor sent me, but I found a discussion in an LA County health department press release we received in an e-mail that goes some distance to help me understand what's happened here.

One direction my thinking had been taking was that, indeed, California vaccination policy had been aimed from the start at vaccinating the most vulnerable populations, where the outbreaks were most severe. My original sense was that this was just politcal correctness, but on reflection, while it was politically correct, it was also just good project strategy: fix the problem where it's both easiest and most visible. The press release indicates that this was in fact what the county did:

Public Health is tracking outbreaks where many people have been vaccinated at healthcare settings, skilled nursing facilities, and other long-term care and residential settings. When the surge began in late October and early November, outbreaks at long-term care facilities, skyrocketed 1,300% from 13 outbreaks the week of October 25 to 189 outbreaks the week of December 6. Skilled nursing facilities experienced a 234% increase in outbreaks during the surge, from 26 outbreaks the week of October 25 to 87 outbreaks the week of December 6 outbreaks. Healthcare settings also saw more outbreaks during the surge, from 13 outbreaks in late October to 31 outbreaks in early December.

When the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved for emergency use in mid-December, the County prioritized staff and residents at long-term care facilities and frontline healthcare workers as the first to receive the vaccine. Once Public Health began administering the vaccine, outbreaks at these settings plummeted, with outbreaks at long-term care and residential settings dropping from 189 outbreaks in early December to just 7 outbreaks in mid-February. Outbreaks at skilled nursing facilities also dropped significantly, from 87 outbreaks in early December to only 10 outbreaks in mid-February. Outbreaks at health care facilities dropped from 31 in early December to 1 by mid-February.

This data provides a real-life example of the power of the current vaccines; while outbreaks do decrease with less community transmission, the magnitude of these declines most likely indicates that vaccines provide significant protection against transmission even in very high-risk settings.

Just looking at the curve in the chart I posted yesterday, we see that LA County's reversal began in mid-January. The health department account above shows they had data that supported the impression given in news accounts, that the outbreaks were worst in elder and long-term care facilities. There would have been a combination of people with compromised immune systems in close quarters, with care staff in a position where they would transmit infections, whether they themselves had symptoms or not.

These populations were a very large percentage of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, and in fact, they were the 500-pound gorilla that drove the statistics.. If you attack a problem like this first, you change the statistics very quickly. In a normal project management world, this is called "going after the low-hanging fruit". (I would be criticized by bosses for doing this when I worked for a living. They'd say, "This just looks like you're fixing the problem, but you aren't. You're just going after the low-hanging fruit.")

Up to today, I'd been thinking that the peak of the COVID curve in mid-January was the result of factors other than the vaccine, but here, LA County has been saying for the past couple of days that in the real world, the vaccine has been extremely effective, and giving even small amounts of it to the most vulnerable population in mid-December had a dramatic effect within weeks. This is simply one more example of a fairly well-known project management strategy and an indication that if professionals know what the low-hanging fruit is, things can change quickly.

This is borne out by the current map of California counties by color-coded COVID tier (click on the image for a larger copy). What is remarkable is that counties like Los Angeles and Alameda, which includes Oakland, that had been among the worst-hit thoroughout 2020, have reversed course and are now in the less restrictive "orange" tier. The vaccination map shows the most effort took place in LA County, but vaccination has clearly improved the situation in both the south and the counties around San Francisco Bay.

This anwers my question of what California did right. I'm still wondering what New York, Canada, Germany, and other places are doing wrong, if it's so clearly possible to get things right. But this leaves out a separate question of why some jurisdictions like Sweden and Florida weren't hit as hard throughout the pandemic, and I'm still working on that one.

Los Angeles County News

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 qualifies for the "orange" tier. The "red" tier allowed most indoor functions like restaurants and churches to operate at 25% capacity with masks and social distancing. The "orange" tier extends this to 50%, again with masks and social distancing.

However, these restrictions continue to be among the most severe in the US. In New York, outside New York City, restaurants may operate at 75% capacity; inside the city, 35%. But in New York, these restrictions are producing nothing like California's, or LA County's results, as shown at right. Instead of riding a snowboard down the slopes of Mt Everest, like California, New York seems to be climbing a new Mont Blanc. And New York has vaccinated 15% of its population, while California has vaccinated about 20%. It's difficult to reconcile the very different outcomes from the data we have.

A working theory I have is that California began to develop conditions of herd immunity at some point just prior to the introduction of vaccines, and the vaccines simply accelerated the improvement -- but of course, I'm an English major, not an epidemiologist. And this simply doesn't explain New York's performance even with the vaccine.

Even more puzzling is an LA county health department press release from yesterday:

In a study released yesterday of about 4,000 health-care personnel, police, firefighters and other essential workers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the vaccines reduced the risk of infection, both asymptomatic and symptomatic infection by 80% after one dose, and that protection increased to 90% following the second dose. Different from the clinical trials, which are tightly controlled, and showed that the vaccines are highly effective preventing hospitalizations and deaths, this study shows just how effective the vaccines are in preventing infections in real-life conditions. The findings of this study are significant and provide evidence that the vaccines can both reduce transmission and save lives.

Looking at California's results alone, I'd simply say hooray. But if so many people are also being vaccinated in New York and the rest of the northeast, why are their results not consistent?

And beyond that, why have states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona either explicitly or de facto relaxed all restrictions and with, at best, a vaccination rate equivalent to New York, achieved so much better results?

I think the data basically suggests that California could easily relax restrictions much mote quickly than it's doing now, but at least the restrictions, still among the most restrictive in the US, are being relaxed. And so far, the weepy appeals of Dr Walensky. and the woozy appeals of Joe Biden, for states to pause their loosening, haven't had an effect. Pray this continues.

"I'm Ready For My Close-Up, Mr DeMille!"

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 total of cases without asking what the total reflects. In many highly populous states, most of which are the ones that eliminated controls, COVID cases are continuing to decline. The increases are taking place almost entirely in the northeastern US, led by New York-New Jersey. If I were CDC Director, or indeed if I were the president, I'd be asking my staff to give me serious answers for why there's such a difference in outcome between, say, Texas and New York.

The next question, which nobody pushing this current narrative brings up, is what effect vaccination is having. Just to be sure the curve wasn't suddenly turning around here, I visited the LA County health department site, and cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are continuing to decline here. Vaccination must be an important part of the trend, though as I've been saying, the sharp decline began right after the holidays and before the vaccine was distributed.

So something good is happening in California. Exactly what is it? Dr Fauci says in recent remarks, with which I assume Dr Walensky concurs, that factors in the northeastern US spike include travel, COVID variants, and states withdrawing their COVID restrictions. Are the COVID variants more severe in the northeast? According to the CDC, the vaccines should work against these as well as the common type:

Researchers are monitoring new COVID variants closely. This includes research to see whether new variants may change the protective effects of the current vaccines. So far studies suggest that antibodies gathered through vaccination with the current authorized vaccines do recognize new variants. (source – CDC) (2.8.20) Mar 15, 2021

So if authorities simply proceed with vaccinations, shouldn't this curb the "impending doom"? Neither Dr Fauci nor Dr Walensky will say. But all I can think is that Dr Walensky referred to trends in the northeast over the past several weeks, which smply aren't reflected in the continuing dramatic improvement in California, where every indication is that the population is enthusiastically getting the shots, and the authorities are capably making them available. At minimum, shoudn't her public remarks have stressed the need for people to get vaccinated? But they didn't.

In fact, I take the subtext of Dr Walensky's panic to mean that masks and social distancing aren't working. She's clearly blaming the plebs and certain unnamed reprobate governors for backsliding on the program -- except that the states that see continuing improvement are, with few exceptions, the ones that have eliminated said program, while the ones facing impending doom are precisely the ones retaining it and urging it on the plebs the more forcefully.

I think this is the source of the panic, and it's plain that there's an agenda afoot. Following Dr Walensky's peformance, President Biden went before the cameras to try to say the same things, more or less:

Joe Biden delivered remarks today in which he begged Americans to continue wearing masks. Most are; compliance is above 90% and has been for a long time.

. . . As Biden was walking away from the podium, a member of the lapdog media helpfully asked him if he wanted states that are reopening their economies to pause.

Biden paused from putting a mask on his blank face, turned, and answered “Yes.”

It's worth pointing out that dire predictions from Dr Fauci and others of post-holiday surges haven't been reliable. The early 2021 improvemeent in statistics in places like California began within ten days or so of the New Year holiday, when one would have expected the next big surge. Subsequent predictions of surges after King's Birthday, Super Sunday, and President's Day didn't take place. The current prophecies of impending doom anticipate Easter brunches, it would appear. Do not go to brunch next Sunday, people!

The panic is because the narrative is collapsing. A contributing factor is that Dr Walensky is feeling upstaged by her subordinate Fauci. But as I've said, we seem to be entering the "morning after" phase of a moral panic, and I think it will keep playing itself out. This won't end well for the moral entrepreneurs like Fauci and Walensky.