A service called Worldometers has been keeping track of coronavirus infections and deaths, disaggregated in a number of ways.
The latest report from Sweden counts 1,182,471 infections and 15,051 deaths.
The latest report from Illinois counts 1,744,508 infections and 29,032 deaths.
It's really very simple. Scandianavia has reopened. A recent report notes, "No one has seemed to notice in less than a year Sweden is now 40th in population adjusted death rate." That report also provokes a question. "Why are we looking at COVID-19 infection rates with a disease that is overwhelmingly asymptomatic?" I'm going to be provocative. How many people walking around with "asymptomatic infections" ought properly be understood as "false positives?"
It's really very simple. Scandianavia has reopened. A recent report notes, "No one has seemed to notice in less than a year Sweden is now 40th in population adjusted death rate." That report also provokes a question. "Why are we looking at COVID-19 infection rates with a disease that is overwhelmingly asymptomatic?" I'm going to be provocative. How many people walking around with "asymptomatic infections" ought properly be understood as "false positives?"
The indoor mask mandate and Chicago travel advisories went back into effect just before Labor Day. Over a thousand Illinoisans have died with coronavirus since our last report. Illinois is the only state east of the Mississippi River with a mask mandate, for all the good it's doing.
But after the latest COVID-19 data revealed daily hospitalization rates across the state have plateaued ahead of winter, the governor cautioned Illinoisans he would not let them take off their masks anytime soon.That's right, despite the Chicago travel advisories and the state mask mandates and other ukases from the governor, "Illinois public health officials on Wednesday announced 5,044 new cases of COVID-19, marking the state’s highest total in two months and raising concerns about a rise in infections heading into the holiday season." I'm not hearing the governor or any of the functionaries suggesting that the infections and deaths would be higher still but for the ukases.
“New hospitalizations are flat. That is not a good sign. That’s not what’s happened in previous dips from surges,” Pritzker said after receiving his coronavirus booster shot Nov. 2 in Chicago.
As of this afternoon, the state counts over sixteen million doses of the various vaccines administered; they're still not disaggregating among finished and partial vaccinations, and the state's total count of the scary variants includes maybe fifteen thousand Delta, up from around eleven thousand a month ago, and still under three thousand Gamma infections diagnosed.
I repeat, because repeat I must, bet on emergence. Including the emergence of more civil disobedience.
If the politicians had been honest with themselves, they might have foreseen what would happen. For just as American politicians were constantly caught drinking alcohol during the prohibition, their successors were caught 100 years later breaking precisely the restrictions they had imposed on everyone else. The mayors of New York and Chicago, the British government’s top advisor, the Dutch Minister of Justice, the EU Trade Commissioner, the Governor of California all broke their own rules.
It isn’t easy to control other people’s lives. It isn’t easy to dictate desirable behaviours in a population via centralised command. These are lessons that many dictators have learned. During the Covid pandemic, many democracies have learned it too. The lesson has perhaps not yet sunk in, but hopefully it will eventually. Then perhaps it will be another 100 years before we make the same mistake again.
These posts will continue, less frequently, as long as update information is available.
At Leif Erikson Day, the governor trailed by 13,101.
At the start of the professional football season, the governor trailed by 12,307.
At Roller Coaster Day, the governor trailed by 11,502.
At Bastille Day, the governor trailed by 11,187.
At Flag Day, the governor trailed by 10,944.
Note the time series: a margin of terror that used to be growing by hundreds in a week was growing by less, that is, until the ukases went back into effect. The details for the past seven months are on page 2.
As of 7 June, 10,887.
As of 1 June, 10,810.
As of 24 May, 10,645.
As of 17 May, 10,520.
As of 10 May, 10,417.
As of 3 May, 10,310.
As of 26 April, 10,216.
As of 19 April, 10,167.
As of 12 April, 10,169.
As of 5 April, 10,167.
As of 29 March, 10,125.
As of 22 March, 10.095.
As of 15 March, 10.070.
As of 8 March, 10,017.
As of 1 March, 9,933.
As of 22 February, 9,857.
As of 15 February, 9,693.
As of 8 February, 9,623.
As of 1 February, 9,662.
As of 25 January, 9,739.
As of 18 January, 9,727.
As of 11 January, 9, 860.
As of 4 January, 9,595.
As of 28 December, 9,057.
As of 21 December, 8,414.
As of 14 December, 7,815.
As of 7 December, 7,049.
As of 30 November, 6,201.
As of 23 November, 5,706.
As of 16 November, 5,040.
As of 9 November, 4,516.
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