THE PROCONSUL DEIGNS TO EASE HIS UKASES.

Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker, who seems to think he has the powers of Tiberius Caesar, sheds more crocodile tears while announcing that the shutdown theater will continue.  "'Bars and restaurants have carried an extremely heavy burden throughout this public health crisis through no fault of their own,' Pritzker said." A real leader might say something about how it was his fault, e.g. Robert E. Lee in the aftermath of Pickett's Charge, or say something like "Thank you for your service, we've been asking a lot of you lately."  With this amateur politician, it's more like the floggings will continue until Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer send me some money.  "'Clearly, some progress has been made to combat this virus across our regions, but I want to stress that it’s incredibly important for Illinoisans to not let their guard down,' Pritzker said."  There has been less progress made in thickly settled areas than outside Chicago, and the amateur mayor of Chicago is losing her patience.  At least I think she's losing her patience, she probably sounds exasperated saying "good morning."

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday she’s seeking to reopen Chicago’s bars and restaurants for indoor service as soon as possible.

“If we look at the various criteria that the state has set, we are meeting most, if not all of those, so that’s a conversation that I will have with the governor,” she said.

“We are at the point where we need to be talking about when and not if.”

Easing restrictions on indoor service would provide a safer outlet for people to socialize and possibly cut down on underground parties where attendees do not social distance or wear masks, she said.

Indoor dining was suspended in November during a COVID-19 surge.

That's about the same time the Bears started sucking, but I digress."How come it seems like government officials who have said 'follow the science' the loudest have had edicts that have made the least sense?" Never, dear reader, attribute to malice that which might better be understood as stupidity. Donald Trump was not on the ballot in Great Britain or Germany or any of the other lockdown-obsessed European social democracies that our incoming Political Masters seem to think of as exemplars.  Rather, focus on that unintended consequence the mayor noted, namely the "underground parties" that she's no longer able to sic the remaining police officers on because there are fewer police officers.  Reason's Eric Boehm elaborates.

As the shutdowns devastated the city food service industry, they also created a black market for socialization. Lightfoot told a local CBS affiliate today that city officials now are seeking ways to cut down on private underground parties.

"People are engaging in risky behavior that is not only putting themselves at risk, but putting their families, their co-workers, and other ones at risk. Let's bring it out of the shadows," Lightfoot said. "Let's allow them to have some recreation in restaurants, in bars, where we can actually work with responsible owners and managers to regulate and protect people from COVID-19."

Read on, and discover why "trust the science" really ought to be understood as "seek corroborating evidence."

It turns out that shutting down wide swaths of the economy was neither smart nor safe. Even with the lockdowns, the United States is currently seeing record levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. California and New York are experiencing the worst outbreaks despite have imposed some of the strictest rules.

Individuals and business owners have every incentive to take precautions. But people will judge their level of risk and act accordingly, no matter what the government tells them.

Bans on indoor dining have been popular since last fall, when public health experts fingered restaurants as particularly dangerous vectors for spreading COVID, based on a Centers for Disease Control study of COVID infections in 10 states.

But contact-tracing data released by the Cuomo administration in mid-December showed that just 1.4 percent of the state's COVID cases in the previous three months were connected to bars and restaurants. In Minnesota, where both indoor and outdoor dining were banned for weeks during the holiday season (and where indoor dining was still off-limits until this week), only 1.7 percent of cases have been traced to restaurants.

A real scientist will revise his priors. A politician, not so much, although the consequences for the politician might be more final.  Mr Boehm concludes,  "In fact, we're long past that point [where the politicians admit their error and lift their ukases]. But it's good to see some politicians catching up."

Not yet, though, for Proconsul Pritzker.  In order for even limited indoor seating to take place, these are the conditions he has issued (which, as far as I know, the legislature has never validated.)

1. A test positivity rate below 8% for three consecutive days, as measured by the seven-day rolling average.

2. Greater than or equal to 20% available staffed ICU and medical/surgical hospital beds for three consecutive days, on a three-day rolling average.

3. No sustained increase in the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 for seven out of 10 days, on a 7-day average

As I understand it, those field tests for infection come close to torturing the data, amplifying sample concentrations of what might be the Wuhan coronavirus until even people with simply trace amounts of old cold viruses might test as positive.  Hospitals cannot sustainably operate with lots of reserve capacity in the emergency room, the intensive care unit, and the surgery, which makes the kind of idle capacity the order envisions unlikely.  Then "sustained increase" might be whatever the public health official thinks it ought to be.

Where the legislatures are too cowardly to act, is anyone surprised that people might be behaving in the way Victory Girl Nina Bookout advocates?  "It’s long past time for Americans to take back the reins [from their tin-pot dictator governors] and become WE THE PEOPLE once again."