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Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Photo: Mark Meuser youtube)

Gov. Newsom’s COVID ‘Science’ is ‘Political Science’

Are Newsom and Public Health agency burying COVID data to keep state locked down?

By Katy Grimes, July 18, 2020 8:23 am

Press play to hear a narrated version of this story, presented by AudioHopper.

Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that public school students in most of California will not be attending school in person this fall.

“The virus will be with us for a year or more, and school districts must provide meaningful instruction in the midst of this pandemic,” Newsom said during his press conference Friday. “In California, health data will determine when a school can be physically open -– and when it must close –- but learning should never stop. Students, staff, and parents all prefer in-classroom instruction, but only if it can be done safely.”

The “health data” he refers to and the “science” he continually claims to be following show that there are zero deaths in California of young people under age 18.

Currently, California shows 6,044,039 COVID-19 tests have been administered, 366,164 positive tests, 7,475 deaths from COVID, leaving 5,677,935 negative tests. Gov. Newsom never discusses the negative tests, or the dropping death rate from COVID-19.

Interestingly, California’s COVID-19 website has either removed or buried the mortality data due to COVID in California. Up to recently, deaths were broken down by age, showing there were no COVID deaths of anyone under age 18 in the state. The state’s COVID data page doesn’t include age breakdowns of those who have died as a result of COVID-19.

California Globe has filed Public Records Requests for mortality data from the Department of Public Health, but has been stymied. “California officials whose COVID-19 responses were once hailed as enlightened are now receiving criticism—and some of the sharpest is coming from scientists seeking to help guide the state’s fight against the virus,” ScienceMag.org recently reported. “Since April, epidemiologists from Stanford University and several University of California campuses have sought detailed COVID-19 case and contact-tracing data from state and county health authorities for research they hope will point to more effective approaches to slowing the pandemic. ‘It’s a basic mantra of epidemiology and public health: Follow the data’ to learn where and how the disease spreads, says Rajiv Bhatia, a physician and epidemiologist who teaches at Stanford and is among those seeking the California data.”

“But the agencies have refused requests filed from April through late June, Science has learned. They cited multiple reasons including workload constraints and privacy concerns—” as California Globe reported in May.

California Globe filed a Public Records Request May 13th with the California Health and Human Services Agency Director Mark Ghaly, Chief Information Officer Adam Dondro, and General Counsel Gabriel Ravel seeking documents, facts, opinions, data, and analysis, that have been used to guide or inform on the public health justification for the latest of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s updates on California’s re-opening policy, as well as state or local social distancing measures to prevent Covid-19, as well as 2020 California mortality data.

Within hours of sending the records request in, the Globe received a written response back from Attorney Michael Palmisano, Office of the Agency General Counsel for the California Health and Human Services Agency. In a glib letter, Mr. Palmisano responded:

“CHHS has determined it possesses no documents responsive to your request. By providing you with this information, CHHS considers your Public Records Act request fulfilled, and the file is now closed. Thank you for your interest in this matter.”

The California Globe have been in contact with Epidemiologists, Professors of Medicine and Public Health, Professors of Medicine and Research scientists who say they know that these records must indeed exist. Some of these medical professionals have been public health officers who say they never issued such a dismissive letter to a public records request.

So is Gov. Gavin Newsom really using science and data to base his decisions on the ever-expanding re-opening of California, as he says in every daily briefing, or is his “science” political science? Is Health and Human Services Agency Director Mark Ghaly M.D. basing his recommendations on data, or are both Ghaly and Newsom still using the flawed, discredited models, and not considering total mortality?

Reputable Epidemiologists say these COVID-19 models are “grounded in important assumptions about which there is currently little knowledge.”

Bhatia says, “In 4 months of the epidemic, collecting millions of records, no one in California or at the CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has done the basic epidemiology,” ScienceMag.org reported.

“Bhatia and colleagues say detailed COVID-19 case data could be mined to find the combinations of factors most responsible for the “biggest bundles of hospitalizations and deaths.” He hypothesizes the data would, for example, confirm that even as commerce opens up, hospitalizations and deaths still primarily emerge from widely cited flashpoints, including elderly care facilities and large households that include infected essential workers who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and pass the disease to relatives who have risk factors making them more vulnerable to severe illness.”

Instead of locking 40 million Californians down…

“’We think you can be more strategic on your interventions if you know where exposures actually occur,’ says Jeffrey Klausner, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is also seeking the California data. For example, case data might confirm patchy evidence suggesting indoor dining is risky, but parks and beaches are generally safe. If so, reopening outdoor settings with reasonable precautions might boost the economy and allay fears that severe risk of infection is ubiquitous.”

Bhatia and Klausner are referring to real science – not Political Science as Gov. Newsom relies on. There is no reason not to open schools, and no reason most counties are still under strict lockdown orders.

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19 thoughts on “Gov. Newsom’s COVID ‘Science’ is ‘Political Science’

  1. My son attends Jesuit High School. They have a very solid plan to return in person with solid accommodations made for those students who either can’t return or whose parents won’t let them return in person. They are now having to delay in person learning because of this.

  2. It’s absolutely outrageous and a slap in the face to send such a dismissive response to any journalist who makes a public records request. Why are there no consequences for this? And why bother to send back anything at all if such requests can be safely ignored? Just to rub our noses in it? And finally, why the hell does this official even exist if he refuses to do the ONE JOB he is given to do?

    But never mind, these are always rhetorical questions in California, aren’t they, because we already know that many of the do-nothings on our state payroll are either AWOL or are actively trying to destroy what matters to the people they are supposed to be serving. Or maybe they are just too busy tasting wine and eating foie gras at PlumpJack Winery to do their jobs.

  3. It’s ALL politics, isn’t it? Calling it “science” doesn’t magically make it so. Thanks to Katy Grimes and The Globe, we know that now without a doubt.

    Pandemics and epidemics have always followed an approximate bell-shaped curve. Once we have passed the peak of the curve, and have accurate numbers to go by, the only number that really matters to show where we are in the course of this one, COVID-19 — and whether we are near the end of it — is the decreasing RATE of death.

    Unfortunately as long as a death from a motorcycle accident or a heart attack or someone falling off their roof is counted as a COVID death (because there is a financial incentive to do so), we can’t even have precise numbers on death rate. But we do have SOME idea to go by, not that Gov Gruesome and his Gang give a rat’s rear end about that.

    To focus on COVID cases is ridiculous, principally because more testing = more cases, and we’ve had exponentially increased testing for some time now. But unfortunately the number of CASES is not accurate either, because one person who tests positive may be tested five more times to see if COVID still lingers, and those additional tests are counted as five more CASES. Those faulty numbers add up, DUH! And of course, as reported here, the HUGE number of negative test results that are NOT mentioned shows us how deceitful the politicians and bureaucrats have been and continue to be in this.

    There is also the issue of “presumed COVID” where a person is not even tested but is counted as a case because they were said to have the sniffles and a slight fever before they had the heart attack that landed them in the hospital. “Presumed COVID” figures into the faulty death counts too.

    I am at a loss to know how we can even unravel all of this in five years time, never mind now, when recording at the SOURCE is not being accurately done.

  4. How long will this appalling pretender be allowed to run this state, and when will the masses stand up to him? He’s ruining lives and businesses based on disproved, junk science. Cities with competent leadership (unlike Manhattan Beach, for example) must fight back and refuse his edicts. Police departments (who basically have no backing from Newsom) must refuse to enforce illegal face mask mandates. It’s the flu, and nothing more, so get over it. Open everything up and let’s get back to normal.

  5. Less than 1% have tested positive, yet he want’s to basically shut down education. A generation of uneducated people will be the result, we are to become a third world country..

  6. Sounds to me like Attorney Michael Palmisano, Office of the Agency General Counsel for the California Health and Human Services Agency, is following the lead of former Governor Moonbeam. He pretty much said “You want to see our documents, facts, opinions, data, and analysis? We don’t want to show them to you. And if you don’t like it you can sue us.”

  7. I believe everything you are saying, but you hit the nail on the head Showandtell….covid lingers!! This is the year they really pushed the “super” flu shot on the elderly. They know once they got the ball rolling and testing that by testing people in nursing homes they would for sure test positive for it because they had flu shots and it would be lingering in their systems. They had a captive audience. How is that old folk that go no where all at once were all carriers to this little virus? They knew who to exploit to start the fear factor. When these older people were testing positive they were immediately admitting them and then suffocating them with plastic ventilators. The whole thing was a sham. Covid is real, but not as contagious or deadly as they wanted us to believe. I never hear comparisons of the death rate of those hospitalized vs not. Many people don’t die from cancer, they die from the treatments. Why would covid be any different? You are in a hospital with an IV going in your veins with God knows what. This is so sister. If covid was as deadly and contagious as they said I would accept financial lost , but it is so frustrating to see the world turned upside down because people played a political game in a sinister plot!

  8. No reputable scientist hides data; therefore, the Governor and his flunkies know that the data does not support his lockdown/masking orders. Keeping the schools shut will have a negative impact on all students, but a ‘disparate impact’ on minority students. Maybe BLM or La Raza should file suit to open the schools.

  9. So why is he doing this? I HOPE it is only out of TDS, the real sickness in this country (Trump Derangement Syndrome). To keep our economy down in order to stop Trump from being re-elected. I hope that’s the reason. Other explanations are too scary to think about. Making us so desperate that we will accept anything in order to go back to making a living. CA is ground zero for a communist overhaul. That is when the real death numbers will start piling up. LENIN-STALIN-MAO-KIM DONG WHATEVER-POL POT all murderers, millions and millions murdered starved worked to death in gulags. That means you, me, and our children. You think that can’t happen now? It can happen more easily. “Pol Pot was a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork.” and “The Great Purge” of Stalin.

    1. @ Amy

      Excellent points and all of those tyrants were left-wing leaders pushing a left-wing agenda. The democrats are very obviously going down the same path whether people want to acknowledge it or not.

      Pol Pot’s death count of over 2 million consisted of 1.3 million that were executed. This is out of a population of 8 million people, or 25%. The khmer rouge had no problem eliminating anyone and everyone that did not agree with them, including but not limited to Buddhist Monks, Christians and anyone who supported the former government of right-wing politics. Think about what hillary clinton said way back in the 90’s when she stated “ you’re either with us or against us “, and the way she treats Conservatives and Republicans, or how Governor hair-gel is treating Conservative counties and Christians right now. There is no love in these people and I would not put anything beneath them. The democrats are so full of hate and evil and void of any morals or conscience, they are punishing people right now just to punish them and I wouldn’t doubt it a bit if they enjoy every minute of it. Just imagine if they start throwing people in jail or prison or simply removing them from their home or family and use black lives matter as jailers. Do not think for a minute that couldn’t happen. Gov hair-gel alone has figured out how to bypass the courts and law enforcement to get what he wants while even creating his own ‘ strike force ‘ that resembles hitler’s SS nazi cops.

      Don’t think for a minute that there is anything beneath these democrats and radical groups. They are already punishing and sometimes killing their enemies while oppressing the rest just as the past regimes you mention did, and we have not seen the end of it. I guess George soros misses the days of his youth and is re-living it through these evil left-wing leaders and groups.

      Democrats need to be defeated and never allowed to rule again, or it will be more of the reality currently surrounding us regardless of what these liars promise to get elected.

  10. The real “virus” is the politically promoted mass psychosis sweeping the country. Less than 1% of the country has tested positive since March. Wake up People!
    since March 1:

    Sacramento County cases out of 3 million population
    Updated Jul 19 at 8:11 AM local
    Confirmed: 6,563 +123
    Deaths: 95 +1
    Recovered: not reported

    California cases out of 40 million population
    Updated Jul 19 at 8:11 AM local:
    Confirmed: 375,363 +9,199
    Deaths: 7,595 +120
    Recovered: not reported

    United States cases out of 400 million populations
    Updated Jul 19 at 8:11 AM local:
    Confirmed: 3,781,985 +104,532
    Deaths: 142,229 +1,341
    Recovered: 1,108,518 +31,695

    It’s a fact that the deaths from covid are “over reported”

  11. This is happening in the school system as it is yet another way to keep people home! Now that the parent or parents are stuck at home with the kids it makes it harder to get out and vote, now enters voter ballot mail in fraud! The Dimwits will stop at nothing to continue with their power. The people of Calif. have to step up & say enough is enough, the scams from these liberal dirt bags are endless! The P.O.S. Newsom does not give a rats ass about anyone’s kids………. He is a power money hungry criminal. Look up Calif Crime families on Google & see who pops up. I’ve studied body language for years , Newsom’s tells me 100% that he is a liar & cheat! Vote Democrat & this is what you get! They all need to go this November, don’t forget to find the recall Newsom form & sign it.

  12. This is happening in the school system as it is yet another way to keep people home! Now that the parent or parents are stuck at home with the kids it makes it harder to get out and vote, now enters voter ballot mail in fraud! The Dimwits will stop at nothing to continue with their power. The people of Calif. have to step up & say enough is enough, the scams from these liberal dirt bags are endless! The P.O.S. Newsom does not give a rats ass about anyone’s kids………. He is a power money hungry criminal. Look up Calif Crime families on Google & see who pops up. I’ve studied body language for years , Newsom’s tells me 100% that he is a liar & cheat! Vote Democrat & this is what you get! They all need to go this November, don’t forget to find the recall Newsom form & sign it.

  13. Don’t worry – if enough discourse is stirred up to get Biden elected President (perish the THOUGHT), then Fauci will declare the plandemic over and we can resume the Communist takeover of the United States by the Democrat party & their ChiCom enablers….

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