The Return of the Mask Mandates

As predicted long ago, the CDC's Map of Fear is leading to more nonsensical mandates

Another Friday, another flurry of renewed mandates. All of which are based on the flawed and outright fraudulent data from the CDC’s Map of Fear.

I have warned about the impending disaster since they first unveiled the map in late February (see https://www.facebook.com/105378038473582/videos/1774020229455172 and here). As my predictions have started to come true, I have gone through several specific examples as well, both for ridiculousness and to show the outright fraudulence of the CDC admission numbers driving this new ‘wave’ (here, here, here and here).

Yesterday morning, students at Ohio University in Athens County, Ohio were informed that there would be an indoor mask mandate put into effect starting Monday, August 1st, citing, yet again, the CDC’s map indicating a high ‘community level’.

So. As I have for other counties, let us take a close look at the actual data and use a bit of common sense to understand exactly what this designation is based on.

First, what the CDC says:

We see, as is the case most everywhere, that there are greater than 200 cases/100k population, and greater than 10 new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population, pushing the county into ‘orange’. ‘Cases’ alone can only bring the color up to yellow, it’s the hospitalizations that take it further to a high level, so it’s the hospitalizations I want to focus on.

As I discussed in this article, CDC has complicated the counting of hospital admissions, creating ‘Health Service Areas’ that usually comprise multiple counties in their new admissions count. Athens County’s Health Service Area also includes Fairfield, Hocking and Vinton counties, and according to the CDC has a total population of 264,250. According to the CDC, they are counting new hospital admissions between July 20th-26th, so I pull up this week’s csv file from the Ohio Department of Health (quick tutorial on how to download the database yourself can be found here.) The total new admissions in the Health Service Area are all listed in the table below.

Note that Athens County has had one new admission in that time frame. And that individual had ‘onset’ on the date of admission — an incidental positive. The last one prior to that was on July 4th in an 80+ year old man.

All of the dates I have marked in red have not for COVID admissions, either with ‘onset’ on date of admission, or, as in three instances, ‘onset’ after admission to the hospital. Both of these indicate that the patient was NOT being admitted for COVID.

Only three admissions in the entire region could potentially be for the disease itself. That comes out to a rate of 1.1 admissions/100,000 population. Even if we were to accept all of 15 of these admissions as being valid, that still only brings us to 5.7 admissions/100,000 population. Still well below the 10/100k threshold, and the 11/100k that the CDC is claiming. According to the CDC’s numbers, there were 29 admissions.

But where are they?

They don’t exist anywhere in the data, and yet those 14 mystery admissions have driven up the numbers just over the line into ‘orange’ setting off OU’s supposedly ‘evidence based’ masking policy.

So what can be done?

The good news and the bad news.

The bd news: This system is designed for nothing more than to allow for all of these institutions to pass on their responsibilities. OU claims that they are following the CDC, and the decision is out of their hands. The CDC claims that the data is coming from the states, and that they are recommendations. And so the buck gets passed in infinite circles. But in truth, there are no governmental mandates enforcing this. Not federally, and, in Ohio, neither ODH nor the local Public Health Departments can issue new mandates since the passage of SB22 last spring.

The decisions lie solely in the hands of the institutions themselves. Which is where the good news comes in. When taken down to the individual county levels, and by examining each admission with simple common sense, we can ridicule just how insignificant an impact this disease is having. Ridicule and public opinion can move some of these institutions into making good decisions (see Miami University’s decision to forgo masks despite a ‘high’ level). It won’t work for every place, but the more that reject it, the easier it becomes for others to reject.

The trick is for individuals to be able to take it on themselves to look at their own local data and take it directly to their officials and start asking those questions. There are 88 counties in Ohio, and it’s just too much for one person to go through. I have already posted a quick tutorial on how to access the data and do simple sorting in order to find your county’s data. And I recommend all frustrated Ohioans become familiar with that data to arm themselves because this wave of mandates will only intensify with time unless it is brought to a halt now.