Only different part of presser was amped up fear
Governor Little's held a virtual press conference yesterday regarding Covid-19 and I've had to watch it multiple times to ensure that I heard it right: Little didn't announce ANYTHING. Little said that Idaho is still under his Stage 2 procedures; he used his hour of tv time to bring in three guests stressing the importance of wearing masks, complying with state orders, and Covid is real.
A few actual pieces of information did come out of the conference though:
- Little said that in 2020 the 3rd leading cause of death is Covid. He did not say whether those were confirmed cases or probably cases, just that death was from Covid.
- Little said that in the month of November, Covid was the leading cause of death in Idaho.
I do not have any breakdown information on month by month death rates and causes in Idaho because it's hard to get a good overview of the situation when we're looking at the information through a microscope. We need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, and I have some data to include which is all public records and you can check out this information yourself.
In February Idaho put out the completed 2018 Idaho Vital Statistics report (the 2019 version will be out in Feb/2021). I *highly* recommend everyone skim through that report when you can, it's definitely a playground for all us data nerds that like to have TRUE facts instead of being told what to think. I'm only going to throw out a few pieces of info as to not overwhelm those that look at numbers and their eyes cross (hi Mom! :D).
According to the 2018 Vital Statistics, Idaho's #3 cause of death is Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases. The #10 cause of death in Influenza/Pneumonia. I'm adding both of those causes because the Cov has previously been accidentally attributed to Influenza/Pneumonia deaths AND Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases. These are 100%, lab-confirmed deaths due to these issues, not possible deaths due to these issues. These issues have been affecting our state forever so I look at this to keep perspective on the overall picture, because the media would have us believe that no deaths occur ever, anywhere, except where people are not complying with mandates in Cov-affected areas.
Check out the Idaho average age of death for those causes:
Getting back to the press conference the best part were the pre-arranged questions by "journalists" in the Boise area. Check out the questions and answers below, summarized by me:
Scott Logan - KBOI
Q: What do you say to those people tha accuse you of washing your hands of the hard decisions and passint it along to local leaders?
A: State law
Melissa Davlin - Idaho Reports/ID Public Television
Q: Because local officials don't have to same resources to enforce these mandates, what difficult decisions are you willing to make as we get closer to the crisis standards of care?
A: Compliance. Also, of the top 10 worst counties in the state, 6 of them have some type of mandates in place.
Q: Nothing has changed between the last press conference and this one. Do you think Idahoans are going to change?
A: Compliance.
Betsy Russel - Idaho Press
Q: Why are you not willing to issue statewide mandate orders?
A: Compliance. Also, protesting is abhorrent to the health boards, school boards, etc. But compliance. Also, counties and states have all kinds of mandates/orders in place and their numbers are getting just as bad as we are. But compliance.
Ruth Brown - Idaho Statesman
Q: Health boards can't meet due to protesters. They've asked for help to put mandates in place. What are you going to do to help them?
A: Compliance.
Don Day - BoiseDev
Q: Micron Technology says protests - and the lumped in defacing of the Anne Frank statue which was NOT the actions of protesters - makes it difficult to hire and retain talent, and threatens their growth and prosperity in Idaho. What are you going to do to ensure Micron and other large companies stay in Idaho?
A: I don't want Micron to leave but speaks volumes about a certain segment of society that shouldn't do what they're doing. We do all we can to protect our public health leaders, but more importantly the dignity and civil rights and what's represented by the Anne Frank memorial is something very important to me and important to Idaho. We'll condemn it, we'll enforce the law and I know the people of Idaho, they will react in an equal and opposite reaction about absolutely abhorrent that activity was and I believe if we do that in Idaho those companies will not have a problem.
Point of personal preference: As I said on my Facebook page yesterday, defacing any statues and trying to put swastika symbols on anything is WRONG; if anyone is trying to bring back white supremacy we will crush you.
Protesting, especially protesting a health board, at their office, at their house, at the store, ANYWHERE, is RIGHT. People need to be LOUDER. I do NOT believe these two actions were connected - the memorial is a 20 minute DRIVE from the public health building where the meeting took place.
To continue with the questions:
Rebecca Boone - AP/Idaho Press
Q: Do you think taking additional steps of putting a state wide mask mandate in place would actually cause harm? And if so, would that harm be worse than entering into crisis standards of care?
A: Mandate doesn't change much but, compliance.
Q: Would a state wide mask mandate actually cause harm?
A: It's a big world outside of the Boise area, and orders coming out of Boise make the compliance dwindle significantly the farther outside the city we get. So compliance.
Q: What point do you say, 'We're too close to a humanitarian disaster, I'm going to issue a mandate?'
A: Compliance
It goes on and on, the same questions about why the state isn't under a lockdown or mandate of any kind, and Little just keeps saying COMPLIANCE. It's almost comical at this point. Our friends at North Idaho Exposed noticed the same answers over and over again, and their humor kicked in and made this masterpiece out of the press conference.
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thug swagger
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Ending with some good news that may also have a little bit of (truthfully) vindictive happiness added to the end. Yesterday, some glorious state representatives, led by our wonderful Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin, went around our Attorney General and filed their own amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit. Both Idaho Republican U.S. Reps Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher were also among 106 Republican House members.
Governor Brad Little was NOT apart of that group until this little beauty came out from the creator/admin of 4chan/8chan/8kun:
This image is from an August, 2017 working visit with Counselor Xu Min and the Otter/Little regime. Less than an hour after this tweet came out, Little announces that he's joining the amicus. I'm not saying that those two instances are related, but it's just curious.
I feel like the pressure we've put on the Governor, Attorney General, and others has actually made a difference and we are part of the reasons Little's caved. This is a good sign for us to continue what we've been doing and keep sending daily or weekly emails, phone calls, or letters to let our government know that we're watching them.
That's all the news I have for the moment; I'll let you know if anything else crazy happens over the weekend. :)
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