Gavin Newsom decided to launch a full stay-at-home order based on a state projection that 25.5 million people would become afflicted with coronavirus.
Newsom’s $25.5 Million Estimate
Governor Gavin Newsom of California said he was locking down the state because there was an estimate of 25.5 million projected cases of coronavirus in the state. It was based on a state estimate.
“The state projects that 25.5 million people in California will be infected over an eight-week period, Newsom said in a letter sent to Trump on Wednesday requesting the deployment of the U.S. Navyโs Mercy hospital ship to the Port of Los Angeles through Sept. 1,” the LA Times reported.
It was never a reasonable number, estimating more than half the population of the state would contract the disease in eight weeks. It was a worst case scenario.
Newsom’s lockdown was within two days of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s in New York. Meanwhile, New York has more than 40% of the deaths in the country and over 30% of the cases with only 6% of the nation’s population.
New York has 170,512 cases and 7,847 deaths and 1.4 million Asian population, while California, with a 4.9 million Asian population and double the overall population, has 21,374 cases and 598 deaths. Due to their large number of Asians in Cali traveling from China, they might have gotten the illness sooner. There was anecdotal evidence of a serious flu going around for months before we knew about coronavirus.
Californians are more spread out than New Yorkers, but is that enough to explain it? Herd immunity could explain it if they did indeed have the virus earlier.
Does New York report differently? We can’t say.
Newsom said he followed a state projection, but nationally, our task force used the IHME models.
The IHME’s models took social distancing into account and also came up with extremely high numbers.
On March 30, the IMHE modelโs authors claimed the nation would need 8,000 to 250,000 beds to handle the pandemic, even with social distancing.
So these modelers can come up with any crazy projection and close down the economy of a state and a country? They should contribute to policy but not be the end-all.
In California, the projections of those coming down with the virus were off by over 25 million.
That’s not just because of social distancing. pic.twitter.com/Uln248yJMZ
โ Janet Jackson (@JanetJa55586250) April 11, 2020
We can’t say whether or not social distancing is still necessary but it probably helped. However, social distancing isn’t scientific, it’s a theory, and it is not backed up by evidence. It also doesn’t explain California.
For the first time, a U.S. president has declared a national disaster in every state. He declared a disaster in Wyoming, the 50th state to be included.
The governor of Wyoming asked for the declaration, but they only have 253 cases and zero deaths.
Meanwhile, our economy is going down.
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