It seems that Santa isn’t happy with California voters. After failing to recall Newsom in September, California “Health Officials” have issued a new mask mandate, to take effect on Wednesday that will last through the New Year, until January 15th. However, this move proves Newsom’s lifting of the mandates in June was nothing more than political posturing leading to Newsom’s recall in September.
From NBC News
Amid rising Covid-19 case numbers and fears that the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus could spark a new wave of infections, the country’s largest state is reimposing its indoor mask mandate, officials announced Monday.
California’s mandate, which resumes Wednesday, will last at least a month, when the state Public Health Department “will make further recommendations as needed,” officials said in a statement.
You can use it regardless of your vaccination status.
The state health and human services secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said an anticipated wave of gatherings during the year-end holidays — muted by last year’s pandemic restrictions — influenced the decision to bring back the mandate.
Although the state claims that there has been an increase in the number of people who support the mandate to reinstate the mask, they have not provided any numbers. State officials also suggest that holiday-lovers who want to return to normality after last year’s opportunities for theft are another reason. Dr. Mark Ghaly stated that this was ExpectedThese cases could arise because of holiday gatherings.
But if you take the time to look at data about new cases, they tell a different story from what California officials want to say. Primarily, it is alleged that the state used three factors in order to restrict cases: Hospitalizations and deaths. This new mandate for masks is not being implemented with the same urgency as before. The facts show that one or both of these numbers are insufficient.
If we use their own standards to judge this, it either shows that a mandate should have been implemented in August due to a much higher and more significant rise in COVID numbers, but didn’t because of Newsom’s pending recall, or it show that the current implementation of the mask mandate is completely and totally unnecessary.
The first picture shows that cases back in August when there was no mask mandate, were much higher than now but no mandate was issued.
According to the CDC, only 63 per cent of hospital beds in Pennsylvania are currently occupied. This level is lower than that recorded during August’s spike. COVID positive patients make up only 11% of state beds. This does not necessarily mean that patients are receiving COVID-19 treatment. It simply means they have COVID-19 and are occupying hospital beds. California ICU beds remain vacant at 64.5 per cent, still below the August spike. There was no mandate for masks at the time.
Even though the Daily New Mortality Rate has fallen, it is still significantly lower than that of August.
What could explain these two strategies? Simple: Politics.
You can see four distinct points of the caseload timeline in the above image. This is the date in June that the initial mandates were removed by the state. I had thought at the time that Newsom’s actions were related directly to the fact that COVID restrictions were unpopular and that Newsom didn’t want those restrictions hanging over voters during a recall.
This is second, and it’s the point at which COVID incidences reached their peak. It was, in comparison, much greater than the initial wave of COVID patients that emerged early in the epidemic. A few days later, the third point refers to the date of recall, on September 14th. At the moment, a new mandate is ordered. Notice how, despite August’s caseload being twice as high now, there was no mandate ordered.
As many people, I’m tired of pretending it has any connection with science and data. It is so divorced from anything even approaching either, that you cannot begin to debate the merits of “the science” with which they make the determination. There is an urgent need now. Why don’t we have an urgency there? And if there isn’t an urgency then, why an urgency now? Absent a data-driven answer, there’s only one potential: It is political.
Newsom knew exactly what the new mandates would do for his recall prospects, so he prohibited any further action. As I’ve already mentioned, mask mandates don’t stop COVID-19 from spreading, and data supports this. The data could show that mask mandates have lower rates of hospitalization, death, and case numbers if they were. The correlation has not been established.
Fearmongering about the Omicron variant’s existence is also completely false. The Omicron variant is statistically less transmissible than other strains, as I’ve already mentioned several times over the past few weeks. It is absurd to suggest that Omicron might overwhelm hospital resources, given the South African data. South Africa is the worst affected country by Omicron. However, there has been a 1,100 percent rise in COVID-19 deaths, but only 9 percent in cases.
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