Merrill Dunes
The screen captures below came from the South Dakota State website on March 14, 2021. Compare the tone of these pages to the style that Canadian provincial government/public health alliances utilize and that you are subjected to.
If you review most media reports on South Dakota it is interesting to see how that state's government is raked over the coals and vilified. Even 'Rolling Stone' magazine is in on the beating! I have a bit of contact with state citizens and I do not feel that they see themselves as being as hard done by as the poor reporters who visualize that life there must be brutal! Maybe the reporters are jealous!
The covid experience is complex and even though the currently popular world view is that history isn't a valid example and that everyone has a duty to fight the virus to extinction, some feel that virus waves are a natural and very powerful judge of health status and that the judge is on the roll and isn't going to be stopped short of doing its complete job. South Dakota hasn't tried to hold back the tide and to date, more people there have died due to covid related causes than elsewhere, but the wheel is still in spin. It is possible that the wave has swept SD, people have died, but government hasn't added to the suffering. With so called 2nd and 3rd waves, are we seeing the 'judge' pushing and the valiant 'fighters of the tide' gradually losing the battle while destroying their society in the futile battle with nature?
Wise leaders are like sport captains who do not mistreat, ignore, belittle, or micro-manage their team players. Wise leaders think and develop effective game plans that have success potential, that is vital, and then they tap the specialty strengths of the individual players to make things happen. Treat the players like little children or perhaps even dogs, harp on them and lay guilt nets on them, and not only will the team lose the game, but the same relationship failings will show up between the players themselves, and the team will disintegrate and the leader will be vilified and lose effectiveness.
Society is complex. Economics is entwined with social health. Individuality and connection are major social health factors. Social health can be damaged in so many ways and is often very hard to repair once serious damage has occurred. We can all watch how South Dakota comes through the covid panic storm. Not many star quarterbacks are female. We may be watching an establishment shake-up!
Who came up with the Question page on the left? Are they having fun with it and trying to be humorous? Are they trying to make fun of their detractors? When I look at the SD website vs the jumble of micro rules (restrain cheering at sports events and high fives are not allowed) that have their hands around my throat, I marvel. Sanity does seem to exist even yet, be it in a small and remote corner.
South Dakota vs 'Just About Everywhere Else'!
April 13, 2021 Note: SD, as of this date appears to have had 2200 deaths per million population. That is less than 1/4 of one percent, but relatively huge compared to Saskatchewan at 390 and Ontario at 520 and Quebec at 1265. But search each of those locations with 'covid' tacked onto the name. Note the graph of new infections and the 'new death' figures. Listen to the media and government 'excitement' and watch to see how successfully the efforts to stop the tide are vs the ongoing damage that is occurring due to the effort. Does that peak and then a flat line in SD, vs the ongoing Cdn mountains surprise you?
Through it all, the reactive panic with almost no evidence of concern for underlying health issues or reforms in this regard, is amazing. How do you explain such a small percent of the population being knocked flat while the vast majority is mildly affected or seemingly not even touched? Where is 'science' being applied to answer this obvious question? Exactly who is guilty of generating 'false news' when doubts are expressed and ridiculed? Where is thought and learning? Does the popular war plan where we are all made responsible to help drive the crafty covid, that is everywhere in several flavours, to extinction, have a hope of success? Is the autocratically applied war plan logical?
April 18 note and charts added, lower on page.
The three charts and data explanation were pulled off the web on April 17, four days after the earlier note that is posted higher on this page. In that four day period, South Dakota had 1.33/day covid related deaths per million population and the figure for Saskatchewan was 1.7 and for Ontario was 2.24. Note that 'deaths' may include 'probable' covid connection deaths.
Are these figures shocking? If people live for 80 years, 34.25 per million have to die daily simply due to old age. Why is that vast majority eclipsed by the few?
Note the flat line of new cases in South Dakota where government kept and keeps hand off and the big hit struck and ended.
Consider the past week's hysterics in Ontario where the media and medical experts and government give the impression that the world is in the process of coming to an end!
The number of people currently dying of covid in South Dakota isn't shockingly lower than in Sask. and Ontario but the social damage occurring due to government actions is shockingly lower. And the die-out of the disease in South Dakota is also shocking. Meanwhile, life and death go on with covid managing to snag only a small proportion of the exit flow. Cancer and diabetes and heart disease must be jealous of the attention grabbing light-weight cinderella disease.
Will Saskatchewan and Ontario eventually tally a similar death level per million from covid related deaths as South Dakota? And will the dragged out war leave a legacy of a smoking economic and social ruin?
And will the high tech V-Weapon strategy save the day or will we see something akin to the USA and their battle with Vietnam or Afghanistan - a bit more complicated and expensive than first thought! And once you are in, it becomes difficult to get out.
Note that the charts and figures are available to everyone, with minimal effort. The Hard Logic of Experience and Common Sense tend to be close allies! Beware the mental virus that destroys common sense and that even more horrid variant (DBODM) 'Dumb Before Obvious Decision Mode'!
May 2 note added, lower on page.
May 2, 2021 Note: During the last two week period, the same clash between media excitement and reality unfolded. Deaths due simply to old age given an 80 yr life span equals 34.25 deaths per day per million people. Covid related deaths only managed to snag the following stats in the various categories.
Saskatchewan - 1.764 deaths per million per day
Ontario - 1.7221
South Dakota - 1.2111
Canada as a whole - 1.2025
Covid needs to step it up or it may be guilty of causing false news due to not fulfilling its end of the media blitz! More than 32 daily deaths seem to be brutally ignored.
