Schuylkill County Loses Chinese Virus Lockdown Lottery – Still in Time Out

Bad news, folks!

Schuylkill County lost the big lockdown lottery today.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf today released the much anticipated list of the first wave of counties (or regions … depending on the narrative of the day) that will be released from their Coronavirus Time Out. And we’re not in it.

Some people probably applaud this decision because the stuff they’re reading on the internet these days tells them what to fear next. However, we’re starting to see most people are feeling like this guy right now:

Schuylkill County Not Included in First Wave of Counties to Re-Open in Pennsylvania

We were close, but no cigar.

Here’s the map our esteemed Governor released today:

(Image: Office of the Governor)

The counties in Yellow on the map will be released from Wolf’s Stay at Home Order on May 8. That includes neighbors in Northumberland County but sadly, not us here in Schuylkill County.

Our favorite Twitter account wrote, “Party time at the Coney Island Lunch in Shamokin!”

Party time at Coney Island Lunch in Shamokin!

— Coal Region Canary 🐤 (@HardCoalCanary) May 1, 2020

In total, 24 counties will emerge partially from their State Government-induced economic coma next Friday. That’s when those counties go from Red to Yellow on the big map up there. The rest of us have to wait.

Here are the counties included:

• Bradford
• Cameron
• Centre
• Clarion
• Clearfield
• Clinton
• Crawford
• Elk
• Erie
• Forest
• Jefferson
• Lawrence
• Lycoming
• McKean
• Mercer
• Montour
• Northumberland
• Potter
• Snyder
• Sullivan
• Tioga
• Union
• Venango
• Warren

We can only assume they already feel our jealous looks from wherever Lawrence County is.

Wolf said today these counties were chosen because of the following reasons:

• Low per-capita case counts
• Ability to conduct contact tracing and testing
• Population density

Moving the Goal Posts

Of course, that will likely change based on the day of the week as the Wolf administration continues to move the proverbial goal posts on what he feels he must do to keep Pennsylvania safe from the virus.

Remember, initially, the goal of these draconian business shutdowns and Stay at Home Orders was to lessen the potential impact on hospitals. Then it became about keeping us safe and healthy. And then it became about pushing a radical leftist agenda. That’s when he advised Pennsylvanians who were told to come back to work to refuse to do so because they were making more money on unemployment.

It’s a great way to trap people in the throes of poverty and how totalitarian governments trap people into a socialist society. What Wolf doesn’t say to those people he so wrongly advised to refuse to work is that the $600 bonus payments from the federal government will eventually dry up. And slowly, people who refused to work will get less and less from the government.

Those jobs they refused to return to will go to someone else or simply won’t exist. The meager sums the government hands out to those people who followed Wolf’s advice won’t be enough anymore and those people will want to go back to work. But the work won’t be there. And the work that remains will be hard to swallow.

This all plays out in a more tragic way the longer we’re all forced to live under Wolf’s current idea of what safe means. They keep moving the goal posts the more people try to figure out what their ultimate goal is. All the while, they say it’s about protecting you from yourself and becomes more about control and less about the virus.

Today’s Goal Posts

Now, Wolf, obviously, didn’t say that today. Remember, he’s the guy telling you to refuse to go to work. That’s his real plan, no matter how soft his voice and honeyed his words sound on TV.

So, today, he provided more ambiguous details on the “decision process” which determined what counties shift from Red to Yellow next week. It’s largely subjective and that should frighten all Pennsylvanians, especially the ones he’s partially releasing from under his thumb next week.

Wolf said today, this is what the state’s using (besides their gut feelings) to help determine who goes from Red to Yellow. This was today’s bill of goods:

• Risk-Based Decision Support Tool: In addition to the grossly inaccurate and flawed data the state Dept. of Health releases on a daily basis, the state is also using some tool designed by Carnegie Mellon University. Why use actual hospital data from some of the most esteemed hospitals staffed with some of the top doctors around the world when you can use some metrics formula crafted in a study hall at a likely conflicted university?
• Contact Tracing and Testing: Somewhere in the middle of the pandemic, the people who thought staying at home was the best way to reduce the spread of the coronavirus decided that we couldn’t possibly emerge until we had an ability to do contact tracing and testing. No one really considered the effects or consequences of this. After Trump delivered on the media’s bloodthirst for ventilators, they quickly switched to the need for contact tracing and testing. Everyone needs to be tested! That’s what they screamed.
  But no one really ever thought about how pointless testing is on people who don’t have symptoms. If you’re negative one day, you can become positive the next day and they likely won’t give you a re-test. That’s when they just decided to say people “probably” had the coronavirus.
  So, then it became about contact tracing. Sounds almost harmless but it’s the thing that could change our society, definitely for the worse, forever. Alerts on your phones to tell you when someone is infected nearby … needing a QR code just to get inside buildings or even leave your house … ankle bracelets … police drones everywhere … Yeah, sounds like a blast!
• Robust Case Investigation: Another factor in our ability to re-open here will depend on the ability to do case investigations. This is something the state hasn’t been able to do from the beginning and never really made an effort. From Day 1, the state has said it wouldn’t track patient recoveries. Instead, you keep getting this constant drumbeat from them and their parroting media partners about the “total number of cases” statewide. Sounds more awful every day, but … It’s never gone down and it won’t go down. It’s a cumulative total and now is over 46,000. In Schuylkill County, it’s up to 375.
  Of those numbers, we have no idea how many people have recovered. We don’t even know how many of those people were told they “probably” have the Chinese virus and how many actually tested positive.
  We maybe know how many people died from the Chinese virus but then again, they’ve altered those stats at least once already and it’s confirmed that hospitals get more money if they label a death with COVID-19 as the cause … and any time you introduce money and money from the government into the equation, it becomes less about the virus and more about the money.
  So, again, “robust case investigation”? Give us a break. The Wolf administration hasn’t been doing that since the beginning and refuse to track patient recoveries.

Phase Red to Yellow (No Mention of Green)

Long story short, we got screwed in the first round of the Lockdown Lottery.

Trying to figure out what we have to do to get into the Yellow category the next time is pointless. We don’t even know when the next time will be.

“Counties that will remain under the stay-at-home order will be considered for reopening in the next several weeks as the state continues to closely monitor metrics and collaborate with CMU, health experts and counties,” the governor included in his statement today.

He also warned people going into Yellow next week that it doesn’t have to be a forever thing. Wolf should have said this while wagging his authoritarian finger at us all: “If we see an outbreak occur in one of the communities that has been moved to yellow, we will need to take swift action, and revert to the red category until the new case count falls again. So, Pennsylvanians living in a county that has been moved to the yellow category should continue to strongly consider the impact of their actions.”

Not one peep today about how counties that go Yellow next week can get into the Green zone. We guess Wolf isn’t ready to give up that much control of the situation just yet. As if he ever had control from the start.

FOR MORE: 

• Coronavirus in Schuylkill County
• 19 Different Hand Washing Songs for the Coronavirus Outbreak
• Wolf Lied About Hair Salons and Barbers Opening in the Yellow Phase
• Schuylkill County Loses Chinese Virus Lockdown Lottery – Still in Time Out
• Despite Threats to Food Supplies, Goodman Votes Against Re-Opening Garden Centers
• Argall, Knowles Urge AG William Barr to Investigate Wolf Power Grab During Pandemic
• Wolf Backpedals on Regional Pennsylvania Map Being Used in Coronavirus Decisions
• Knowles, Tobash Back Bill to Re-Open Real Estate Businesses in PA – Goodman Says No
• PA Opens a Coronavirus Snitch Line for Social Distance Warriors

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