We have some meeting updates to share with the membership, friends and family.  It is current as of this writing and we’ll update if anything changes.  Read to the end.  You’ll be glad you did.

As everyone knows, our governor and his administration have enacted all manner of lockdowns of the Illinois economy ostensibly to control the COVID flu.   GSL leadership recommends prudence in protecting one’s self from the flu, but at the same time believe that for those who are healthy and asymptomatic, using common sense will protect people better than authoritarian lockdowns.

Here is the latest news on GSL monthly meetings.  Tell your friends about the closures (and urge them to check the GSL website frequently – especially the day or two before the meeting!)

TUESDAY, December 1st:  Pontiac  — CANCELLED.

The Pontiac VFW’s general manager told us that “we are shut down” due to local authorities following the IDPH so-called guidelines.  

WEDNESDAY, December 2nd:  Decatur  — OPEN    CANCELLED

Coz’s Pizza in Mt. Zion WAS open for business.  Now closed down by the health department.

THURSDAY, December 3rd: Peoria — CANCELLED.

Barrack’s Banquet Center has been temporarily shut down.  They (and we) regret the closure and they eagerly look forward to hosting us in the coming months once these COVID restrictions are lifted.

MONDAY, December 7th:  Sangamon County – CANCELLED.

SCHEELS is open for business, however they are limiting group sizes to 25 persons.  We have elected to cancel the meeting given the small number allowed as our scheduled main speaker would be driving from some distance away to deliver a presentation we know 150 or more would want to hear. 

Their cafeteria is closed, however candy, ice cream and similar sales continue.  They also are putting out ammo in the mornings, so if you’re looking for ammo, including 9mm and 5.56/.223, it may well be worth your time to take a morning trip to SCHEELS.  They have a 4 box / caliber limit per FOID card, so bring your spouse and kids like we did.  We could have bought 2400 rounds of .223 that morning, which in today’s ammo shortage would have come as a major coup.  They also had primers (albeit at $89/1000).  Past performance is no guarantee of future performance though.

TUESDAY, December 8th:  Rantoul.  OPEN!  (no food)

The Knights of Columbus in Rantoul will host us on Tuesday, December 8th.  However there will be no food served.

THURSAY, December 10th:  Charleston.   OPEN (with food!)

The Unique Hotel and Banquet Center will host us on Thursday, December 10th.  Great food will be served.  

SUNDAY, December 27th:  Chicago.  SUSPENDED.

Frankly, we would have cancelled this one anyway with the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  We have a location identified to resume meetings, but they are currently closed for business because of Cook County lockdowns.  Trust us, we’ll let everyone know when we will resume the meetings.  We’re VERY anxious to reopen this meeting.

More on the COVID flu political lockdowns

Buried in the Thanksgiving holiday was news that the US Supreme Court ruled that COVID-related restrictions on the religious services and religion in general were contrary to the US Constitution.  Yes, the 5-4 decision blew a big hole in New York and other states’ mandatory closures of (or sharply restricted) religious services.

Remember how JB Pritzker said we should all remain home for Thanksgiving?  Well, initially at a press conference before the holiday, ol’ Governor Gravy admitted his wife and daughter were flying to their family plantation in Florida while JB and son were headed to the Wisconsin estate.  Do as I say, not as I do.  If COVID was as big a threat as he claims it is, I have no doubt the (not so) brave JB would remain holed up in a basement just like another JB we all know.

Nevermind that plenty of other states are running wide open without appreciably more (and in some cases, with appreciably fewer) COVID flu deaths. 

Nevermind how a study from Johns Hopkins has shown that the COVID flu has not taken 200,000 additional lives.  Instead, public health officials are classifying deaths from other causes as “COVID.”  At the same time, deaths from those other causes are falling by similar numbers.  Read the story…  From the Wayback Machine since big tech censored the original article.

Excerpt, courtesy of the Wayback Machine:

A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19

According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”

From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.

She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States. 

After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared. 

Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same. 

“The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals,” Briand said.

More…

Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths. 

These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.

This comes as a shock to many people. How is it that the data lie so far from our perception? 

To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.

Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.

“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.

When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes. 

 

This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19. 

And still more…

The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.

“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.

“If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification,” Briand replied.

In other words, the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the U.S. is considered problematic only when it increases the total number of deaths or the true death burden by a significant amount in addition to the expected deaths by other causes. Since the crude number of total deaths by all causes before and after COVID-19 has stayed the same, one can hardly say, in Briand’s view, that COVID-19 deaths are concerning.

But this doesn’t fit the narrative involved with “following the science.”

Indeed, it’s almost like following the political science.