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An Epidemic of Misrepresentations, Shaming, Blackmail, Terrorization & Lack of Transparency

By August 31, 2020Commentary

Today’s Minnesota coronavirus briefing was the peak (so far) of disgraceful official behavior.  Over 40 minutes of misrepresentations, shaming, blackmail, spreading fear and lack of real data and analytic transparency.  It literally made me ill to force myself to listen to this.  What kind of horrific, authoritarian government have we brought upon ourselves.  Where to start.

We got a 20 minute lecture at the beginning from the Commissioner and the Director of Infectious Disease.  Tedious and insulting to the audience in tone, nothing but scolding and berating people, like we are children.  Fortunately almost no one listens to these briefings, but the media dutifully repeats the message. The public who do listen would grow weary of the message quickly and likely begin to ignore it, which is the opposite of the behavior they are seeking.  Supposedly this hard line was prompted by a visit from Dr. Birx, who was concerned about case growth in the Midwest.

Supposedly the good Doctor is concerned that we are going to see a case explosion in the Midwest like occurred in the south and southwest.  I am sure the Administration doesn’t want anything to interfere with their election game plan.  The virus will do what the virus will do, we should have learned that by now if anything.  So I looked at the data from our surrounding states.  Nothing alarming that I can see, slight rise in cases in a couple of places.  No dramatic change in hospitalizations or deaths.

I will get to some specific misrepresentations in a minute, but a newly emphasized tactic today was blackmail.  They have hinted at it before, but never so overtly.  Here was the pretty direct message–If you the people want schools open, want businesses open, want nursing home visits, etc., you have to behave, do exactly what we tell you.  I have news for these lame-brained officials, it isn’t the fault of anything that citizens do that we have cases, if they really are cases, and a very low level of cases at that.  Like all respiratory viruses, this one is going to infect some number of people.  You can’t stop that.  It sickens me that we are living under one person rule backed up by all the worst tactics of Nazis and Soviet and Chinese communists.

So here are some specific misrepresentations:

Cases are rising alarmingly; this was repeated multiple times.  No they aren’t.  There has been some rise, but we aren’t much higher than the May levels and there was far less testing then.  Speaking of cases, not one of the intrepid reporters asked about the New York Times story or asked what cycle number was used for tests in Minnesota.  Most important revelation in weeks and no one asked.

Private social events are responsible for a lot of the transmission.  Later the director had the chutzpah to say that they had identified a gigantic, whopping 500 cases since June that were due to this setting.  That is not even one day’s cases in over two months.  And their own weekly report does not show outbreaks as a changing source of transmission.  Stop guilting people for making a modest attempt at trying to enjoy life.

CV is a very serious disease, you should be very scared.  So is a bad case of flu.  So is dying of a heart attack because you were afraid to go to the ER, or of cancer because you missed your infusion, or Alzheimer’s because you were isolated.  CV is a lot less scary than any of that.  For the average Minnesota, it is truly a non-existent risk of serious illness.  The issue isn’t whether CV might cause serious disease in less than 1% of the population; it is that mitigation measures are being taken with a complete lack of balance and consideration for the harms caused.

Sturgis is a nightmare, up to 49 cases now and 2 hospitalizations. Gee, only 200 cases to go and we catch up with the riots (protests).

In response to a mask mandate question, the usual weaseling about hard to separate effects of various factors.  I posted on this last nite.  Any justification for the mask mandate is toast, especially if we really had a rise in cases, like to 1500 a day or more.  The new line is “people aren’t complying in private”.  What a load of crap, and again, not what was said to justify the mandate.  And not supported by any data I have seen.

Young people spread to old.  This is now officially a lie.  There is no study supporting this assertion.  The state has contact tracing data, show it to us.

If things are so alarming, why aren’t hospitalizations and cases rising, was another question.  Answer, another misrepresentation.  Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator.  They aren’t that much of a lagging indicator.  I have done and posted the analysis.  The cases are largely non-cases.  They aren’t serious, so we aren’t getting hospitalizations and deaths.

And so it goes, another waste of time and brain cells, but more misery for Minnesotans who have to live under this regime, hopefully only til November.

Join the discussion 7 Comments

  • Erik says:

    Thank you for all of your research work & thoughtful analysis. I wholeheartedly agree with you — what these politicians and so-called leaders are doing is infuriatingly irresponsible. How do they live with themselves? And, frankly, what the media is doing (or not doing) is perhaps even worse.

  • Lee says:

    I’m in SD and our cases have been going up, but based on the counties that are rising, appears to be the college group. Deaths and hospitalizations are low. Hospitals are NOT overrun. I’d expect more cases now that the K-12 crew has started back. I just feel it has to run it’s course. Thanks for all your work

  • Chuck says:

    The usual monologue is 5 minutes. This 20 minute sermon was insufferable. Do these ladies know they are lying? Or do they actually believe their own drivel? KrisE got shorted from her normal number of questions to answer so only compiled 37 “Umm’s” and 10 “ya know’s”. I’m thinking these are KrisE’s poker face tells… Pinocchio hid his lies better than KrisE. Ummmmmmmm, Ya Know = a whopper of a lie is coming… Also, every answer starts with an “Umm” which reminds me of Joe Mauer watching each first pitch go by for a strike.

  • Harley says:

    So the message is, with regard to the mask mandate, “People aren’t complying in private.”

    So how do they know? Fiber-optic cameras? Drones? Did they drop off a HIPAA rights notice when they allegedly did this research?

    And how do you refute the claim? Maybe that’s the cleverness of their assertion, that it can’t be refuted in any legal or verifiable or honest way.

  • researching says:

    Do you have any data or clear explanation as to how MDH is counting Hospitalizations and ICU?

    Are the people counted in these categories in the hospital or ICU with the primary reason being CV?
    Or do the MDH counts *also* include people who are staying in hospital or ICU because of a condition or procedure
    that has nothing to do with CV, and then while in hospital, they get a CV test, and test positive, *and* yet are *asymptomatic* while in hospital?

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