Thread by @the_brumby

Another Potpourri COVID Thread
1/20

1. A reminder that the people who brought us "lockdowns" are not our friends and do not share our values. This should have been obvious from Day 1.

2. Los Angeles reinstated its indoor mask mandate on July 18 and, as usual, is trying to credit it for the decline in case growth. As with every "successful" intervention, however, it came well AFTER the R had already peaked on Jul 3

3. Lockdowns caused NYC rents to decrease for the first time since 1958. In Boise, Idaho, where people burned their masks at the State Capitol, rents are up 40% since Mar 2020 - the largest increase in the nation.

4. Remember when Asia conquered COVID via universal mask wearing and obedience? Me neither.

5. To those suggesting masks do not inhibit learning (remarkably including the AAP), consider that a teacher in the UK lost her job for wearing a niqab while teaching English to kids. It was decided that being unable to see her face prevented children from learning effectively.

6. With regard to the eviction moratorium, keep in mind that the vast majority of landlords are individuals that own 1 or a few properties, not "Wall Street"

7. These kind of surveys illustrate a major problem w the pandemic, which is seeking someone to blame & overall moralization of illness. Perhaps, as always before, shit happens and life goes on. If anything, where is the option to blame the CCP?

8. One overlooked aspect of vax mandates for govt jobs is the degree to which this will produce an even more ideologically homogenous workforce comprising our administrative state.

While I may or may not agree w their personal risk calculus, I respect diversity of perspective.

9. Periodic reminder that Delta already came and went in most of the world without everyone losing their damn mind and forcing masks on children.

10. Leisure & hospitality is the only sector that has seen an increase in real wages & quit rate is at all time highs because (rightly) no one wants to work in an industry where the govt can take away your job/business whenever they feel like it. Such roles now demand a premium

11. Is anyone ever going to apologize for the outdoor masking, child swing removals, extreme sanitization, school closures, plexiglass and all the other nonsensical theater we have quietly abandoned or are we just going to pretend it was necessary?

12. After a lockdown induced spike, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey now shows the % of respondents citing "poor sales" as the most important problem reaching an all time low. This as "cases" soar. The virus did not close the economy...people did.

13. For the first time in history, Gallup's world poll now shows more people saying the economy is getter worse rather than improving. This is what lockdowns do and the damage will continue to be felt for decades.

14. See if you can piece together how these two charts may be related

15. People who are at ~zero risk from COVID will never be able to afford a lifestyle remotely comparable to those who have stolen their futures.

16. "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it" – Laurence Peter

17. As someone with an economics/finance background, I can't help but observe that one of our greatest challenges of escaping "the pandemic" is that the demand for panic-inducing material vastly exceeds its actual supply. This leads to counterfeit product.

18. Per CDC, RSV causes 58k hospitalizations of <5 yr olds every yr. By contrast, this CDC pub analyzed 75% of COVID cases in that age in 2020 & found 4,294, implying 5,725 hospitalizations or about 1/10th RSV. And we know child COVID overcounted by ~40% cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…

19. This study found that 35% of ppl who delayed "elective" valve replacement surgery had a "cardiac event" (death or emergency heart surgery) between March 23 and June 6, 2020 (just 2.5 months) jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…

20. Keep this chart in mind the next time you hear about "remote learning"