Our house is located so we don't normally see public fireworks displays on the Fourth; hills, trees, and buildings intervene. We do hear a fairly constant crackle of (illegal in the city) individual fireworks every year. This year, the crackle increased to something more like a roar. This morning I saw a news report that the 911 lines were overwhelmed with complaints of illegal fireworks. But beyond that, for the first time ever, we saw a display of organized, expensive professional fireworks from our windows. UPDATE: This happened all over the state. The LA massive violations are covered here and here.
In other words, in the face of the governor's prohibition of public fireworks displays, we had both in-your-face professional public displays and even more illegal amateur fireworks than usual. I read reports of situations in other states where businesses are suing their governors for shutdown orders on just days notice, when shutting down and reopening require planning and can't be imposed or reversed on a whim. Clearly this sort of\ green light-red light arbitrary control isn't going to work over any medium term. Either the courts will stop it or there will be massive disobedience.
Looking into the nature of the statistics being used to justify a "spike" in the COVID "pandemic", it appears to me that in part, it's an artifact of increased testing. Estimates are that at least 5%-10% of the population is infected, though others suggest it could be much higher, that COVID has been in the country much longer than believed, but the vast majority of infections have been either asymptomatic or with very mild symptoms.
Two problems with reports on "cases" are connected with this. One is that reports of "cases" don't separate current or very recent infections from the presence of antibodies. Those with recent infections within a 14-day period may be contagious, but it isn't clear whether this includes people without symptoms. (If they aren't coughing or sneezing, how do they infect?) Those now with antibodies are now immune and contribute to herd immunity.
But second, reports of "cases" may or may not subdivide the totals into "confirmed" and "probable". "Confirmed" simply means there has been a positive test, whether of infection or antibody. But "probable" simply cooks up a number on the assumption that anyone who tested positive may have infected x number of other people, which is just a fudge factor being used to inflate the numbers. Nothing "probable" about it!
Finally, I note that reports of hospitalizations refer to hospitalizations "with" COVID, which appears to be used the same way deaths "with" COVID have been reported: deaths for any reason, suicide, heart attack, overdose, or whatever, were reported as deaths "with" COVID if the person had a positive test for the virus. Hospitalizations "with" COVID are apparently the same thing. Since COVID tests are now routine for any hospitalization for any reason, this is simply inflating the numbers to manufacture a crisis.
It's entirely possible that states, even those with Republican governors, will try to reimpose lockdowns based on a manufactured "spike" in the virus. But just as the March lockdowns lost credibility as mass graves somehow didn't appear in public parks and the hospital ships and field hospitals went unused, I've got to assume there will be a similar effect if lockdowns are reimposed, added to the "fool me once" factor from the first lockdown.
Abp Gómez, who is head of the USCCB, is no dummy, and my impression of the men who surround him in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is similar. I've got to assume the bishops who are on the ball will be working on a strategy to deal with these developments. The bottom line is that we will likely see attempts to reimpose a prohibition on in-person masses, with an equivalent loss of credibility for such government measures as the renewed lockdowns on one hand don't control the spread of the virus, while on the other, the actual impact of the virus continues to be relatively small.
The question I really have, though, is if COVID was the result of some Chinese attempt to weaponize a biological agent that escaped from the lab (and I simply have no opinion on this), the weapon they devised didn't do a very good job.
