So, as Wonkette subtly points out in Gavin Newsom: Better Part Of Valor Is SHUTTING CALIFORNIA THE F*CK BACK DOWN, we’re putting the brakes on our brief dalliance with reopening public gathering places in the midst of a pandemic.
So, well done Gavin I guess?
See, the problem with congratulating Governor Newsom on this choice is that he’s the one who made it necessary in the first place.
That would be the “BACK” part of the headline up there.
Because we shoud never have started opening things like restaurants and bars back up, because we never managed to get SC2 actually under control.
And if you don’t actually have the disease under control, well, reopening everything is just a really, really bad idea.
So now we’re getting to re-live the 1918 pandemic’s resurgance as well.
I posted this graph back in May in Return to Normalcy: So, There Is Such A Thing As “Too Soon”:
That shows how the death toll of the disease was doubled by trying to end countermeasures and get “back to normal” too soon.
And here’s a graph of deaths in the U.S. from the current pandemic:
The scales are different, so the curve in the upper one is a bit compressed (which makes it look more abrubt) but the basic shapes are the same.
As they should be, since they show the same thing.
They show a society that got too antsy with being cooped up to stay the course and reduce the case numbers down low enough to control the disease and reopen things safely.
And (in California, at least) this largely happened because Governor Newsom didn’t stick to the plan long enough, and spoiled all the effort everyone put into staying closed down through the spring.
And we knew in advance that this was almost certainly how it would turn out.
So, yeah: thanks for noticingg that your reopening wasn’t going well and maybe pay more attention to history when you’re deciding what to do next?
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