Open up or lockdown? That is the multi-trillion-dollar question… for a year.
It was on 20 March, just shy of a year ago, that Governor Gavin Newsom declared California the first U.S. state to lock down to deal with the coronavirus. Later that day, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York followed suit and issued a state-wide edict that non-essential workers must stay at home. At a televised news briefing, a series of which would later earn him an Emmy Award, Cuomo announced,
“I accept full responsibility. If someone is unhappy, if somebody wants to blame someone, or complain about someone, blame me. There is no one else who is responsible for this decision.”
On 6 May, however, CNBC reported, “Cuomo says it’s ‘shocking’ most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who had been staying home.”
In the weeks to follow, dozens of states ordered their versions of lockdown impositions.
Globally, as reported by the BBC on 7 April, “Well over 100 countries worldwide had instituted either a full or partial lockdown by the end of March 2020, affecting billions of people.”
Now, as we make our way through March 2021, despite continued lockdowns in many states and having the most expensive health care system by far, the U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID deaths, ranking the sixth-highest in death rates among major countries.
As for Sweden, the nation the mainstream press continually attacked for not having locked down, their COVID death rate per 100,000 is 125.56 compared to the U.S. at 155.56. But these facts are ignored. Instead, COVID Fear and Hysteria are continually sold.
Lockdown-itis
Not only are lockdowns still prevalent across the U.S., again, but there is also no scientific data to support them, and there has been no consistent strategy among the various imposed restrictions. This continues to validate our Trends Journal article from 26 May 2020, “COVID RULES & REGULATIONS: POLITICIANS MAKING THEM UP AS THEY GO.”
On 5 January 2021, we detailed the continuous false claims, policy reversals, and inconsistencies in the ongoing shutdown orders in our article “COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS: COMPLETE POLICY FAILURES.”
The U.S. States with the Most Restrictions
On 4 March, USA Today provided data on current lockdowns, reporting that:
“Across the United States, officials are rolling out a patchwork of restrictions on social distancing. The orders vary by state, country, and even city. Restrictions are ramping up in many areas as cases surge nationwide. Health officials warn that easing restrictions too soon could bring new outbreaks, but many states forged ahead.”
According to the report, while a majority of states (39) are easing restrictions, only four states have lifted all lockdown orders: Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Iowa.
One consistent trend across all 50 states: people, tired of the continuing isolation, are leaving home more often.
It’s important to note that while a majority of states qualify as “easing restrictions,” they are still imposing many limits that continue to crush businesses and jobs. Some examples:
- In New York City, restaurants were allowed open indoor dining at 25 percent capacity. New rules will allow ten people indoors or 25 people outdoors at residential homes, up from the current ten. Movie theaters could reopen at 25 percent capacity. Bars and restaurants can stay open another hour longer. For the rest of the state, restaurant occupancy is now at 75 percent.
- In North Carolina, gyms, barbers, retail establishments, restaurants, and breweries can only operate at 50-percent capacity.
- In California, Governor Gavin Newsom’s office issued revised guidelines for indoor church services but left in place restrictions on singing and chanting.
- In Illinois, indoor service at bars can resume with an occupancy limit of 25 percent, and only six people can be at a table at a time. Retail and personal care services have capacity limits of 50 percent.
- In Pennsylvania, revised guidelines allow indoor venues to permit people at 15-percent capacity while outdoor settings, such as sports stadiums, can admit crowds up to 20 percent of capacity. Prior, indoor events had been limited to 10-percent occupancy with a cap of 500.
TREND FORECAST: Despite ongoing fears of deadly new strains, as promoted on Sunday by Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, “We are in the eye of the hurricane right now,” so get ready for “some tough days ahead.” Osterholm also said states will begin a “steady stream of reopenings by late spring.”
Why? The bottom line: states cannot afford to be locked down, and with $2 trillion of stimulus money injected into the economy, the spigot has been turned on for a hot money surge.