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Final week, the L.A. County Division of Public Well being responded to an uptick in COVID-19 circumstances – that’s, an uptick in optimistic check outcomes – by asserting that Public Well being is now “strongly recommending” that the ten million residents of L.A. County put on masks in indoor public areas.
In current months, the division had stated indoor masking was a matter of “particular person choice,” however now masks are “strongly advisable for all people.”
The issue with authorities suggestions is that authorities isn’t within the enterprise of giving recommendation. As George Washington noticed, “authorities is pressure.” The masks “advice” is a sneeze away from a masks “mandate.” As a result of California remains to be in a declared state of emergency over COVID-19, native public well being officers can challenge “well being officer orders” and implement them with fines and even shutdowns of companies.
On what’s their dedication primarily based?
“Indoor masks carrying guidelines and suggestions in Los Angeles County change primarily based on federal, state, and county necessities and the LA County CDC COVID-19 group stage and transmission charge,” the general public well being division states on its web site. “L.A. County’s present CDC group stage is LOW however our transmission charge is greater than 100 circumstances per 100,000 individuals within the earlier 7 days.”
That actually sounds alarming, and no one does “alarming” higher than L.A. County Public Well being, the place press releases often announce deaths “as a result of” COVID in scary headlines. The division has acknowledged that “as a result of” doesn’t truly imply “attributable to” in the way in which a dictionary would outline it, however is predicated on a definition of “related” deaths crafted by an Atlanta-based group of epidemiologists to trace the trail of a pandemic.
The division’s media relations proceed to encourage scary, horror-movie information protection. One publication reported the brand new “strongly advisable” masks steerage with {a photograph} of two ladies viewing a cherished one in an open casket.
A calmer evaluation of the scenario in L.A. County could be discovered within the weekly worker townhall assembly at LAC+USC Medical Middle. “Soothiness Wednesdays,” as chief medical officer Dr. Brad Spellberg calls the classes, often function a show of three charts displaying countywide COVID case numbers, optimistic assessments on admissions to LAC+USC, and admissions with optimistic assessments together with admissions as a result of COVID or to the ICU. All three charts present that COVID infections at the moment are negligible.
Though there was an uptick two weeks in the past, Spellberg stated final Wednesday there have been solely “three or 4 admissions as a result of COVID within the final week, principally delicate.”
That’s an necessary change from what was seen within the winters of 2020 and 2021. Because the third winter of the pandemic begins, the severity of COVID sickness may be very completely different. And the rise in circumstances that was seen two weeks in the past didn’t develop right into a surge. “It plateaued,” Spellberg stated, “The speed of rise actually to date has blunted, which is completely different than the prior two winters, and type of soothy.”
It’s actually time to ask whether or not the L.A. County Public Well being Division, and public well being departments usually, have adopted COVID alarmism as a everlasting a part of their funds advocacy.
On Monday, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies issued a report declaring that masking and social distancing needs to be inspired and even mandated once more with the intention to help individuals with “Lengthy COVID,” vaguely described as a “set of situations” with imprecise estimates of what number of people endure from it. The report requires extra funding of extra public consciousness campaigns, extra monetary assist for employees and college students, extra well being advantages, and funding for “Lengthy COVID” help teams.
Lacking from the report is any proof that masking and social distancing forestall the unfold of the virus.
The county’s newest “advice” requires high-quality, well-fitting masks, an acknowledgment that paper surgical masks and varied material masks by no means did a lot, if something, to guard anyone from the COVID-19 virus. So the real-world consequence of the advice is just extra corrosion within the social cloth as individuals with completely different views about COVID stare daggers at one another, every considering the opposite individual is destroying life as we all know it.
In different phrases, completely happy Thanksgiving from the L.A. County Division of Public Well being. Cover the knives.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and comply with her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley
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