Monday Meanderings

I actually got on a plane and flew round trip for a business trip today.  I have to get on a plane again tomorrow.  Almost feels like old times, just a little weird at the airport and on the plane.  My week is obviously disrupted, so I may be a little slow getting posts out.

More inanity at the daily briefing, which I just listened to, what a tremendous way to end a long day.  Mostly a lot of serious talk about nursing home visitation policy.  The highlight, however, was the ridiculous double-talk on masks.  They were asked when we will see the effects of the mask mandate and how we would know.  After all the lies, and that is what they were, when the mandate was announced about how that single step would make a huge difference and studies showed how it would cause a substantial reduction in cases; today what we got was the weaseliest of weasel answers, the Commissioner with a straight face said that, well, you know, when you change just one “environmental factor” it is hard to “tease out” the impact, so it may be hard to tell the effect.  What!!!   The effect was supposed to be so huge you wouldn’t have to tease it out; it would smack you right up side the head and try to pull your nose off.  It would hit you like a peaceful protest (riot) in Minneapolis.

Here is what is happening–once again the dunderheads have talked themselves into a corner.  The actual median incubation period from exposure to symptom development is around 5-7 days.  If the impact were that massive, we would have noticed a case reduction by now.  You can see by just eyeballing the case data that there isn’t a change.  (Don’t worry, I am tracking this very carefully now and I am giving them the three weeks that they said would be the time to see an effect.  So next weekend, I will give you some actual numbers and analysis on what has happened with cases, because the state certainly won’t.)  They know too that there isn’t going to be a reduction, so they are already starting the backtracking and hoping we forget what they said when the mask mandate was announced, but unfortunately that press briefing is right up there on YouTube and you can see it anytime.

I haven’t forgotten a lot of the things they told us, things that the media never follows up on or calls them out on, so I am sure they believe they can get away with any amount of lying.  Worthington is a disaster.  St. Cloud is a disaster.  We have a plan to fix long-term-care facilities.  Young people are transmitting to older, vulnerable people.  We are being balanced.  Everyone is in the same danger, so in one of the biggest states by area in the country we need a one size fits all policy.  We are being very balanced in considering all the benefits and harms of our policies.  The mask mandate will cause a huge fall in cases.

You get the picture.  Meanwhile in the real world, this is not even the biggest current public health threat facing Minnesotans.  That would be the loss of life and decrement in health status caused by the lockdowns and terrorization leading to people avoiding health care.