Los Angeles County and the End of Science

Masks are back in Los Angeles

Well. It happened. I thought they’d at least wait until fall or winter, but no, it took literally a month for Los Angeles to (somehow) make a further mockery of science, data, evidence, common sense and rational human thought. One month to the day after California’s “reopening” and the end of the mask mandate for vaccinated individuals, LA County announced they’re getting the least effective band in the history of the world back together. That’s right. The mask mandate is back for all.

In a decision completely unsupported by any reasonable standard of evidence, LA is attempting to stem the rise in cases and hospitalizations by bringing back a policy that accomplished absolutely nothing the first time around.

Somehow, those in favor of this nonsensical policy are using the delta variant to justify the decision, saying that LA’s high vaccination rates haven’t stopped the rise of cases or hospitalizations. Naturally, being who they are, the obvious question has not occurred to them…if high vaccination rates aren’t able to control this latest outbreak, how in the world would you expect masks to?

Critical thinking has never been a strong suit for The Science™, so I suppose this latest affront to our intelligence shouldn’t be surprising. And yet…

So I thought it would be useful to go through the data on LA, include some comparisons and show just how little sense this decision makes. And of course, cover the unspoken ramifications of what message this sends.

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Mask Mandates & LA

The first way to break down what a tremendous difference masks have made in LA is to look at the case curve. In order to justify bringing it back now, LA must have seen a clear and dramatic benefit in reducing cases after their mandate came into effect the first time, right?

Ah! No. No there was no benefit. Cases went up 2,865% after the indoor mask mandate on April 10, 2020.

Well that’s cases, you might be saying…what about hospitalizations? That’s what’s really important, right? And maybe masks help with the severity of cases, too, like, people get less of the COVID right? That’s a thing I feel like I’ve heard from a TV or Twitter expert at some point!

Well. Uh. That’s not great either.

Maybe deaths though! Remember, masks “save lives,” it’s been endlessly repeated. See, even Harvard Medical School says so!

So what about deaths in LA County, surely the mask mandate must have “saved lives”:

Yeah...that…that didn’t work.

How do I report Harvard Medical School to the White House so they can alert the tech companies to censor this dangerous misinformation?

Let’s move on from the past. What about removing the mask mandate for the unvaccinated, surely that must have been the reason for the rising numbers, right?

No. Most definitely not. The 7-day average of positive tests bottomed out on June 8th, a full week before the state “reopened.” Even though positive testing percentage can show changes in trend more quickly than say, hospitalizations, given the delay between infection-symptoms-test-test result-test result reported, it’s likely that infections bottomed out 3-6 days before June 8th. So actual infections likely started going up June 2nd-June 5th, well before the reopening.

Not to mention, of course, that any increase caused by a change in policy wouldn’t immediately show up in the data. “Wait two weeks,” remember? There is literally no conceivable way to attribute the rising numbers to the partial removal of masks.

So why would bringing them back make a difference? Lol come on, as if any of this makes the slightest bit of sense.

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Southern California

Perhaps the easiest way to point out the utter uselessness of masks in LA is to compare it to its most similar neighbors, Orange County and San Diego County. Those three counties account for nearly 17 million people, or what would be the 5th largest state in the country or the 70th largest country in the world. It’s a similar population to that of New Zealand, Ireland, Uruguay, and Croatia...put together.

Los Angeles, being the most committed to The Science™, has been a leader in enforcing strict mandates and edicts, often earlier than the other counties. Surely, their early and decisive action; such as mandating masks well before the others, closing outdoor dining earlier than the state, and having one of the longest indoor dining bans in the country, must have made for better results, right?

Nope. Nooooooope. Noppity nope nope. LA’s had the worst numbers for essentially the entire outbreak. Despite the earliest rules, despite the strictest enforcement. The worst.

It’s much, MUCH worse when looking at mortality rates: LA has had 245 deaths per 100k, Orange County is 162 and San Diego is 113, 54% lower than LA. That’s despite LA mandating masks early, WHICH IS KEY, ACCORDING TO THE EXPERTS:

So according to “researchers” and Goldman Sachs (lol) LA should have had the best success, given their early, decisive leadership on masking, which again, we’ve been told, are equally, or perhaps more effective than vaccines.

What about compliance? Maybe everyone immediately tore off their masks!

Well the COVIDcast survey measured LA at 96% in mid-March and 85% as late as June 19th, after the mandate had been partially lifted. On July 14th, it was still a remarkable 70%!

Orange County meanwhile, has been lower (although not much lower) for months, but now sits significantly lower at 58%.

San Diego’s dropped even further, down to 48%. Yet it’s made no difference. They all started rising at the same time and LA’s still doing worse, albeit with low numbers all around.

Just like always, compliance hasn’t mattered.

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Other Locations

Just to give some greater context to LA’s devastating failure, let’s look at how they did compared to some areas with much lower mask usage. As we know, masks save lives, masks slow the spread, masks are as good as vaccines, so even though the locations are very different in other ways, like density, masks are the most important variable. Oh, and density doesn’t really matter anyway.

So let’s see how LA did compared to say, Florida, one of the most open areas of the country:

That is A LOT worse. Like, way, way worse. Especially after Florida essentially reopened in September.

Of course, everyone says that Florida’s a state and LA isn’t, and as pointless an argument as that is, given LA County’s size (LA has 4x the square mileage of Rhode Island, nearly 2x as much as Delaware and similar population numbers to Georgia and North Carolina, just FYI), let’s look at how LA did compared to say, Houston’s Harris County, Texas. Sure Harris has had their own mask wearing rules, but we know Texas has been much more lax on enforcement and compliance, right?

Oh boy.

And finally, let’s see where Los Angeles would rank in population adjusted deaths compared to other states and the rest of the world, shall we? I mean, masks “save lives,” says Harvard, so clearly there must have been some comparatively beneficial outcomes given how early LA jumped on the mask train, right?

Here’s LA in context internationally:

That is the tenth highest mortality rate in the world. Oh, and I threw Sweden in there to show how much of a disaster it’s been due to lack of masking.

What about US States?

Yeahhh. The early masking, the high compliance…it has unequivocally not helped.

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But all of this pales in comparison to the real, unspoken question: does LA County Public Health really not believe that the vaccines work?

LA has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, 88% over those over 65 have had at least one vaccination dose. Nearly 70% of everyone 16 & over has received at least one dose. 91.5% of those between 65-79 have received at least one dose.

Does LA County not think those people are protected? This doesn’t even include those with natural immunity; and remember as far back as January, KTLA reported that “scientific” modeling said:

One in three Los Angeles County residents have been infected with the coronavirus, according to new estimates by county scientists, an astonishing sign of how rapidly the virus is spreading in the hard-hit region.

NOT PICTURED: Scientists and news outlets acknowledging that this means that masking was completely ineffective at preventing “astonishing” levels of spread.

But in any case, do they not believe the vaccines work? What else explains going against even the CDC, the most die hard proponents of useless masking? I mean, not even Gavin Newsom, who is so demonstrably incompetent that his political party won’t be listed on his own recall ballot, is recommending this (yet).

Even Fauci said:

“My concern is, is in those states in which you have relatively few compared to others’ people vaccinated, when you’re below 50% of the people being vaccinated, that’s when you’re going to have a problem," he added.

LA’s well above 50%, it’s 70%. So are they doubting Fauci? Cause uh, that’s equivalent to doubting science itself.

Maybe you’re thinking that LA has seen from other locations recently that mask mandates can bring the curve down. Let’s see:

Nope.

That would also be a nope.

There is no compelling evidence to suggest mask wearing has had any impact whatsoever on the spread of COVID, and masks are currently failing nearly everywhere to prevent substantial increases.

Almost everyone at significant risk is vaccinated already or has had the opportunity to be vaccinated. One of the most significant indicators was rising before the mask mandate was even partially lifted. Masks completely failed to prevent LA County from having some of the worst COVID numbers in the entire world. There is nothing that justifies this. It goes beyond the definition of insanity. Far, far, FAR beyond it. It’s an acknowledgement that they will endlessly throw whatever at the wall and claim it’s “what we know works,” even though it’s never worked. It’s the elimination of the scientific method in favor of unquestioning allegiance to incompetent authority. Congrats, LA, you killed science.