The pandemic has been characterized by cargo cult expert guidelines, masks being the most prominent among them, which never actually explain why an outbreak is severe in one place and time, while being mild in another. 

Take California, please.

During the original wave, the state got off fairly lightly and the explanation was that Governor Newsom had done a good job of locking down the state. Except the lockdowns had done nothing to help New York. But once the numbers declined in New York, Cuomo and the media began crediting the lockdown. As the numbers started rising, Cuomo and the media tried to blame Orthodox Jews. And then, once it was no longer viable, Cuomo is starting to catch some of the flak.

Back in California, which is now the epicenter of the pandemic despite onerous lockdowns, the experts and the media are trying to use more cargo cult arguments.

Experts say a variety of factors combined to wipe out the past efforts, which for much of the year held the virus to manageable levels. Cramped housing, travel and Thanksgiving gatherings contributed to the spread, along with the public’s fatigue amid regulations that closed many schools and businesses and encouraged — or required — an isolated lifestyle.

… experts say.

Compliance fell apart in June and July. The housing didn’t get any more cramped over time. If anything, there’s been an exodus from California. It’s so bad that even some of the illegals are sneaking back across the border to Mexico.

The Thanksgiving surge was exposed as a myth a while back. The numbers were rising well before that.

So the honest answer here would be that the experts don’t actually seem to know. But that’s not possible. The experts are the oracles of scientism. So, as usual, the experts blame the people for not keeping up with their guidelines. Meanwhile the experts, like the little lamented Dr. Birx, were violating those guidelines.

But this isn’t public health, it’s about political power. 

Crowded houses and apartments are often cited as a source of spread, particularly in Los Angeles, which has some of the densest neighborhoods in the U.S. Households in and around LA often have several generations — or multiple families — living under one roof. Those tend to be lower-income areas where residents work essential jobs that can expose them to the virus at work or while commuting.

LA is much less dense than New York. And while density and multi-generational families are a predictor, none of these are new factors, they just conveniently fit a political agenda by making this about social justice, instead of fighting the virus.

But as I wrote last week, they have no clue about how to fight a virus. The only thing the public health industry can do is social justice and controlling people.

The war against smoking, then fat, salt, and soda, were all based on the unspoken assumption that people were too stupid to behave responsibly and someone had to do it for them. The CDC was utterly inept at managing pandemics, but it spent much of its budget fighting obesity.

The critical difference between fighting obesity and a pandemic is that the former is a behavior while the latter is a virus. Fighting a virus requires actual knowledge, skill, and ability, but fighting a behavior just means spending a lot of time scolding people and penalizing them.

Controlling a virus is hard, but controlling people seems a lot easier.

Faced with a deadly virus, the people whom the taxpayers had been paying a small fortune so that they can have houses in three different states didn’t fight the virus, they fought behaviors.

When Democrats attack President Trump’s handling of the pandemic, they aren’t criticising the amazing dispatch with which Operation Warp Speed produced vaccines, but his refusal to join them in scolding Americans for not wearing masks and for spending time with their families.

That’s still all they can do. They have no answers. Their only answer is controlling people. And when that doesn’t work, they claim it’s because people weren’t being controlled hard enough.