Kate Brown. Saving lives is a no-win problem

"From what I have seen at least 95% of people are wearing masks, and if they worked so well don’t you think after a year we would be in a different situation? The only reason our state is in the situation it is, is because our governor is out of control with power. As far as I know a virus has never been controlled once let out. The only way that our state opens is when businesses and people quit listening to commy kate and get back to living. "

Michael, comment on Next Door. Medford, Oregon, May 2

Brown: "I choose to save lives."

For the benefit of out-of-state readers, "commy kate" is a reference to Oregon Governor Kate Brown. Governor Brown just noted that multiple counties in Oregon have seen a sharp rise in COVID cases, causing her to re-classify them as "extreme" risk status, which re-imposes restrictions on indoor meal and beverage service.

Message boards are a way to sample public opinion. There is a school of thought that there is wisdom in crowds because the pooled opinion of a wide variety of people on anything--for example, the correct number of beans in a large jar--is likely to be close to the objectively "correct" answer. Therefore we can trust the crowd to determine the correct value of stock in Apple or Microsoft or to elect the best possible leader at any given time. Message boards make one doubt that. There are a lot of angry and opinionated people and it is hard to perceive wisdom there. But message boards do have value. They show the problems governors are up against when they attempt to reimpose COVID restrictions after having relaxed them.

COVID infections are back on the rise nationally, and especially so in Oregon, including my own community, Jackson County, with a population of about 221,000.

Cases are up. Deaths are rising again, but are still well down from four months ago presumably because the people most at risk from dying have had the opportunity to be vaccinated, and most have done so. The people getting and spreading the disease are younger people.

Currently, in Jackson County:

Below, the graph shows who ends up needing hospitalization. Notice that the big jump is at age 50 and above:

Most of the chatter in the Next Door website in opposition to vaccines is ideological. Vaccine opponents are usually also mask opponents and COVID minimizers. There is a libertarian every-man-for-himself streak, plus a generalized fear of government, in much of the opposition chatter.

The backward step on COVID shutdowns is infuriating to many. Some people are saying very intemperate things. The governor travelled to Medford last week with an entourage of security. Many people never wanted any COVID response, and a great more accepted it briefly but have lost patience with COVID masks, distancing, and shutdowns, especially since they thought we were on the home stretch. The constituency most concerned about COVID, has gotten vaccinated. That leaves a much bigger group of people who are less worried and therefore less inclined to accept COVID inconveniences. Making matters worse is that getting vaccinated had implied a return to normal, and yet CDC guidance retains use of masks. This circulated within Next Door chatter:

Democracies are better at dealing with clear and present threats than with potential ones. Events in India demonstrate that there are tens of millions of people worldwide carrying the virus. The more people doing so, the more mutations happen and the more likely it is that I new, more virulent and deadly strains can take root and circulate here in the USA. People who don't get vaccinated are potential carriers of the disease and its new variants.

Next Door chatter give some insight into the opposition to vaccines. It is a matter of privacy, autonomy, and freedom. Within the subculture of opposition, information circulates which gives practical reasons for opposition to justify the ideological one. Masks don't work. Masks make it hard to breathe and therefore make one more likely to get the disease. Masks concentrate the virus and make people sicker. The vaccines don't work. The vaccines are far more dangerous than reported. Vaccines might give you cancer later. The vaccines only give short-term protection, so don't bother. The disease is spread at homes, not restaurants and bars so shutdowns have no legitimate purpose. The disease is not very dangerous. The disease is totally fake. The numbers of people getting sick from COVID are far fewer than reported. People who supposedly die from COVID would have died shortly anyway. The vaccines have the sole purpose of creating health passports to control people in a new way. The best way to stop the disease is for more people to catch it, live through it, and have immunity.

It is Catch-22 for any governor. If their efforts succeed, then COVID becomes less of a threat, and therefore efforts to slow the disease will seem unnecessary and overblown. It will be much ado about nothing. If their efforts fail, then the disease got out of control, notwithstanding their having rules that damaged the economy; typical government incompetence. The people who did not get sick and did not die will not know that they owe their health and lives to the public effort the governors demanded. The families of people who do get sick and die, will note that the governors did not protect them.

Lose. Lose. Lose. Lose.