Search Results for: coronavirus in one state

Coronavirus in one state (146)

Featured image The Minnesota Department of Health held its first and only press briefing of the week yesterday morning. It was also the last briefing of 2020. It is difficult to overstate the servility and compliance of the press in toeing the lines peddled by MDH throughout the epidemic. Yesterday’s briefing serves as a good example. One would have to be a fool to miss the obvious fact that the virus has »

Coronavirus in one state (145)

Featured image Minnesota state Rep. May Franson has compiled her own review of COVID-19 death data in Minnesota. She discussed her review with retiring state Sen. and Dr. Scott Jensen in the video at the bottom of this post. Anthony Gockowski of Alpha News (on whose board I sit) posted the video and reported on it on December 19 in “State lawmakers call for audit of COVID-19 death certificates.” Rep. Franson’s findings »

Coronavirus in one state (144)

Featured image The Minnesota Department of Health favored me with the courtesy of a reply to my six pending questions submitted on December 15 (1-3 below) and December 21 (4-6 below). I asked questions 2, 3, and 6 at the suggestion of Kevin Roche. Check Healthy Skeptic for comments Kevin may have on these responses. I asked question 5 at the request of Center of the American Experiment’s John Phelan. John will »

Coronavirus in one state (143)

Featured image Governor Walz convened yet another press briefing yesterday afternoon. I have posted the audio below. I certainly have overdosed on these events, but I have found them useful in tracking the mix of politics and public health issues that has usurped our freedoms since this past March. Through the lens of the briefings and my own ordeal with the Minnesota Department of Health we can also throw the performance of »

Coronavirus in one state (142)

Featured image The Minnesota Department of Health conducted another of its regularly scheduled press briefings yesterday afternoon (the audio is at the bottom). MDH Commissioner Malcolm noted in her opening summary that trends continue to move in the right direction, but she insists that we remain at “high risk” with the epidemic out of control. This is necessary to justify the incredibly destructive shutdown regime imposed by Governor Walz. At 8:45 of »

Coronavirus in one state (141)

Featured image The Minnesota Department of Health held its final press briefing of the week yesterday. While most of the briefing was devoted to vaccine distribution, the first question (from Jeremy Olson) addressed the the shutdown of indoor service at bars and restaurants throughout the state. I have posted the audio below. Olson’s question comes at about 12:00. Olson’s question is premised in part on the obvious recession of the current wave »

Coronavirus in one state (140)

Featured image Yesterday Governor Walz rolled out E.O. 20-103 — that’s the 103rd executive order of 2020 — to give citizens their marching orders for the immediate future. If you seek to enjoy a beer outdoors here in the coldest months of the year, as of Saturday you’re golden. If you seek to celebrate Christmas with your family, not so much. The whole thing reeks of the madness of the Central American »

Coronavirus in one state (139)

Featured image We have passed the peak of the current wave of the epidemic in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The surge was regional in nature and has receded regionally regardless of the varying approaches taken by the authorities in these states. That’s the way it appears to me (tweet below). It has now been 4 weeks since "cases" peaked in the northern Great Plains states; they have now »

Coronavirus in one state (138)

Featured image I believe that our current wave of the epidemic in Minnesota peaked around the time Governor Walz imposed the current shutdown regime on November 18 in Executive Order 20-99. Kevin Roche set forth his argument to this effect in the Star Tribune column “COVID’s fall surge peaked before Walz order.” The shutdown regime has imposed great harm on many businesses throughout the state. Contrary to the assertions of state authorities, »

Coronavirus in one state (137)

Featured image Governor Walz conducted another dog and pony show for the press yesterday afternoon. I have posted the video below. He produced two physicians (Drs. Kevin Croston and Peter Bornstein) and a nurse (Mimi Keeler) to convey stories reflecting the stress produced on them and the health care system by the epidemic. What was the point? We are to understand that we are not taking the epidemic sufficiently seriously. If we »

Coronavirus in one state (136)

Featured image If you have time to take in one video on COVID-19, I recommend the Power Point presentation by Kevin Roche immediately below. Kevin originally gave the presentation via Zoom to the Edina Morningside Rotary Club. I watched it live on December 1 thanks to the kind invitation of Dan Hunt and found it to be among the most educational presentations I have seen on the epidemic. Constrained by time from »

Coronavirus in one state (135)

Featured image Governor Walz is talking faster and faster about less and less. Yesterday he appeared at the regularly scheduled press briefing with Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm and Infectious Disease Division Director Kris Ehresmann (video below). They announced a shift in the recommended quarantine guidelines consistent with last week’s revised CDC guidance. Walz contributed approximately nothing to the discussion. He loves to hear himself talk. My impression from listening »

Coronavirus in one state (134)

Featured image Playing catch up, the Minnesota Department of Health responded to my second and third sets of three questions consistent with the terms of my settlement agreement with MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm and MDH communications head Michael Schommer. Kevin Roche comments on several of the answers in “A few more observations, some ranting involved.” I interrupt the flow only to comment on the answer to question 1 below. Here they are, »

Coronavirus in one state (133)

Featured image As I noted yesterday in part 132, the authorities reported a single day record number of deaths on November 25 (reported on November 27). The number was 101. As always, these fatalities swept up the infirm elderly in nursing homes and elsewhere. Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm nevertheless refrained from express mention of this fact in her special November 27 statement: Thanksgiving Weekend is a sad time to »

Coronavirus in one state (132)

Featured image Governor Walz took over Monday’s regularly scheduled Department of Health press briefing yesterday. He advertised it as a “deep dive” on the data that is now to become a feature of Monday briefings with Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm, who performed the “deep dive” with slides that mostly do not appear in the video I have embedded below. (The cited data are accessible at the MDH Situation Update, »

Coronavirus in one state (131)

Featured image Governor Walz has preempted the regular Department of Health press briefings over the past 10 days. Yesterday’s briefing (audio below) was the first since November 13, covered in part 125 of this series. The catastrophe that has befallen our nursing homes due to the epidemic was addressed only indirectly, in terms of staffing, but the Star Tribune’s Chris Serres and Glenn Howatt cover it in a manner that is entirely »

Coronavirus in one state (130)

Featured image Governor Walz convened yet another COVID-19 press conference yesterday afternoon (video below). The verbiage flowed in the usual torrent. His performance made me wonder if the Emmy Foundation gave Walz a fair shot before it chose to recognize New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with an Emmy for his press conferences. Like Cuomo, Walz deserves some kind of recognition for what he has wrought in his press conferences. Indeed, Walz’s failure »