COVID Day 48: Commandant’s Orders

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After how many COVID deaths in your town would it to be okay to impose marshal law? Lets suppose your town has a population of 70,000, and is isolated from any other urban area by over a hundred miles. How many dead would have to be laying in the streets before you declared your city lost and marched in armed guards to ensure anyone violating any rule you impose be summarily dealt with? If you think that can never happen under any conditions in America, then welcome to New Mexico, more specifically the New Mexico of Commandant Grisham.

If case you’re still contemplating the number of deaths required to be okay with the Commandant forcing your imprisonment, closing all roads in and out of town with third world guard posts replete with barricades, lets run some numbers. The global COVID death rate is 0.003%. For the U. S., the COVID death rate is 0.02%, almost an order of magnitude higher but keep in mind the U.S. is the only country intentionally overcounting. For a city of 70,000, these rates translate to the numbers shown in the table below. For reference, the actual numbers in Gallup, New Mexico, the only city in the world under militarian Marshal Law, are also provided.

% of
Population
Who Died
Projected #
Dead in City
of 70,000
Global0.0030%2
National0.0200%14
New Mexico0.0060%4
Gallup, NM0.0271%19

Be honest, you’d require a threshold higher than 19 deaths before surrendering all your constitutional rights and liberties? Well apparently in New Mexico the trigger is having a death rate 0.007% higher than the national average. I’ve lived on and within the U. S. reservation system for years and am infuriated by government efforts to overtly imprison citizens for the audacious crime of being 0.007% above the national average.

Which parts of New York, New Jersey, or New Hampshire where under Marshal Law when their death rates soared? How many times was the Riot Act used to imprison the ignorant citizens in Louisiana who foolishly held Mardi Gras? What’s happening in Gallup is an outrage, an embarrassment to New Mexico, and an utter lack of leadership by Commandant Grisham.

With over half of the 131 COVID deaths in New Mexico occurring within the Native American population, when that demographics only represents 7% of the state’s overall population, there is clearly something amiss. But is the answer necessarily placing reservation cities under strict Marshal Law by perverting the Riot Act for demented means?

It’s a matter of logic that when the death rate within any demographic significantly exceeds that of the general population primary drivers are likely linked to either genetics or environment. The entire field of epidemiology is based on that principle. Unfortunately in a politically correct world such logic is not allowed to permeate any solution and when coupled with a governor vying to win the Joe Bidden VP sweepstakes bold attempts a leadership are mandated, regardless of how reckless and misguided they might be.

It is a fact regardless of how much it melts your snowflakes, that different demographic groups across the globe are genetically and environmentally different. Some groups are genetically predisposed to certain medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism. Similarly, how communities live and intermingle are different in various parts of the world. However, we’re not allowed to factor any of that into possible mitigation measures, just as we’re not allowed to investigate the conditions at senior care facilities where most New Mexico deaths have occurred because that might reveal a lack of state government oversight.

So rather than logically attempt to deduce what’s going on in Gallup, to effect meaningful mitigations, in our politically charged/politically correct world the preferred solution is to enact Marshall Law in sweeping brushstrokes because in today’s COVID crisis, that’s what passes for leadership.