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Trauma Survivors

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Ken

America The Beautiful (Lyrics) is a patriotic American song.

Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates From her View Atop Pikes Peak ― and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey.^[1] The two never met.^[2]America the Beautiful – Wikipedia

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” ― Mother Teresa

What is it that brings you Joy? What makes you feel good? Is it exercise? Perhaps meditation or prayer, maybe it’s a hobby or learning something new. Maybe it’s music or all of the above. Remember this, No one can take that from you, it’s yours. Use it for you.
There are people you haven’t met yet that will be able to love you without you having to work for it. They will see you & appreciate you because of who you are. They will be gentle in really caring ways because they will recognize what vulnerability has cost you in the past.

This is what I call agapé love, love that is unconditional. The only requirement to receive agapé love is to exist. No works are required.

I kind of feel like I’m striving to regain my whole self. I’m 96 percent positive. Dropping old bad energies, aligning chakras. And laughing at everything.

**Your Voice Is Your Power**

Have you ever experienced pain to the extent that you felt silenced where
you weren’t able to open your mouth? Your voice ― is what allows you to
express yourself in every way. It is your power and the guidance for others.
It is the echo that we all need!

We all learn this lesson at our own pace. Did you notice that your voice wrote a poem. That’s how powerful speaking the truth is! 𝔰𝔬𝔲𝔩 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔢𝔤𝔬. | proυd ѕepнardι.
It speaks volumes and no matter how long it took, you now have your voice which you always had. It was just silenced with other distracting noises that are now disconnected.
I am thankful every day that they are disconnected. I like being heard now as opposed to used, lied to and ignored.

Has anyone ever thought they could instantly change the weather by praying?

Trying and Doing are two different things. When you try, you hope.
When you do, you succeed.

When I started having grand delusions, I thought everything:
What I would write down on paper would come true. So I would write down everything I thought I wanted. I think what really messed with my head is that some things happened that I wished for and prayed for. Nothing delusional about that! Positive intentional thought! Everyone of the delusions I once had or suffered from I’ve made come true!

The good ones anyhow Think positively!
My thoughts exactly. Nothing delusional about being intentional and manifesting.
That’s not a bipolar thing, just an “I want a great life” thing.
Go read Quantum Mechanic Angels @ http://dopey420allday.blogspot.com
it blows your minds…

I am the master of my emotions – I transform fear to love, anger to compassion, pain to comfort, scarcity to abundance, expectation to gratitude, and jealousy to generosity.

I’m not unhinged or unhappy, I’m just wild – Lana del Rey

Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over The Country Club (Lyrics) – Bing video
I am powerful. I am strong. I am loving. I am desirable. I am authentically me. I am a divine being. I am willing to learn. I am in the present. I am worthy of my dream job. I am worthy of my goals. I am helping rebuild the world from 3D into 5D. I am worthy of a great 5D life.

I am ME Through spoken words, manifestation,
visualization, and through our very own thoughts,
our world is about to change for the greater.

Humanity is notorious for it’s utter detestation of the truth, most particularly about ourselves.

It’s most easily seen when we are doing something ill-advised.
There is almost always that little bit of excuse making that occurs as we lamely rationalize our transgression. The person was never born who didn’t willfully avert their eyes on a regular basis. I’m sorry, what now? How can I willfully avert my eyes if I’m honest with myself about my own shortcomings?

I am a lot of things…but I am never dishonest with MYSELF.
It is alarmingly easy to deceive others, but is it just as easy to convince the person in the mirror …. If so, who are you looking at?

To see a world of fear, lies, false beliefs & judgement is to blind the eyes from which the heart sees.. ~ Lakota

**Association for Insight Meditation:**

The central teaching of Buddhism is mindfulness, which leads to insight.

Insight removes craving and delusion, the causes of suffering Vipassana Links
vipassanadhura.com

Good 4 relaxation – bastion life.

Taking a moment to wonder how the people of the world would act if we could all think/hear/see from the heart #BeautifulPeople

Accurate, this sums up what is going on today. I’m hoping for a way out and remember that indifference can do profound harm to the heart as well.

When the evil around us is too great and widespread , we close the eyes of the heart to dream a different world; but let’s never give up the hope of a change that can start with each of us. We must believe it!

“Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.” – Isn’t this statement contradictory? if you are working as hard as you can on something not worthwhile and with dumb/exploitative/ incompetent people, how would you be able to take a step back and realize this needs to change. I have always found it challenging to identify who you are the absolute right people to work with.
I guess in retrospect one can judge if the person is the right-fit.

But on what parameters can someone judge on the very first or second meeting?

Life ends when you stop dreaming, hope ends when you stop believing, and love ends when you stop caring. So dream hope and love…

Funny thing is if you work hard, the right people and the right thing to work on will show up along your way. At the end ! You learned most part from the surrounding….
This clip sums it up well: What You Work On > Who You Work With > Working as Hard as You Can – Naval Ravikant – PodClips (1.5-minute listen)
The reason trauma survivors respect & support one another so well is due to the shared experiences of what makes them survivors & the journey of what it takes to find the way towards healing. Most of us need help finding our way & when we do, we readily offer that to others. This is a gentle reminder to whomever reads this.. you’re a badass and beautifully human for getting up, for showing up & facing whatever demons that are trying to destroy you. I’m proud of you & you should be proud of yourself too.

**If you are diagnosed with:** – Bipolar 1 & 2 – BPD – Schizophrenia – Major Depressive Disorder – PTSD – OCD – GAD – Eating Disorder – Postpartum – Addiction – Psychotic Episodes/Psychosis – Phobias – DID I stand with & acknowledge you and your immense strength & resilience.
Could you elaborate a bit more on why these specific ones aren’t considered to be mental illnesses? I’m quite curious because I’ve never heard it framed that way before. Quantum Mechanics BY Greg Braden is, at least at first glance and at least in part, a mathematical machine for predicting the behaviors of microscopic particles or, at least, of the measuring instruments we use to explore those behaviors and in that capacity, it is spectacularly successful: in terms of power and precision, head and shoulders above any theory we have ever had.

Mathematically, the theory is well understood; we know what its parts are,
how they are put together, and why, in the mechanical sense (i.e., in a sense that can be answered by describing the internal grinding of gear against gear), the whole thing performs the way it does, how the information that gets fed in at one end is converted into what comes out the other. The question of what kind of a world it describes, however, is controversial; there is very little agreement, among physicists and among philosophers, about what the world *is like* according to quantum mechanics.

Minimally interpreted, the theory describes a set of facts about the way the microscopic world impinges on the macroscopic one, how it affects our measuring instruments, described in everyday language or the language of classical mechanics. Disagreement centers on the question of what a microscopic world, which affects our apparatuses in the prescribed manner, is, or even could be, like *intrinsically*; or how those apparatuses could themselves be built out of microscopic parts of the sort the theory describes.[1]
That is what an interpretation of the theory would provide: a proper account of what the world is like according to quantum mechanics, intrinsically and from the bottom up. The problems with giving an interpretation (not just a comforting, homey sort of interpretation, i.e., not just an interpretation according to which the world isn’t too different from the familiar world of common sense, but any interpretation at all) are dealt with in other sections of this encyclopedia. Here, we are concerned only with the mathematical heart of the theory, the theory in its capacity as a mathematical machine, and — whatever is true of the rest of it — *this* part of the theory makes exquisitely good sense.

1. Terminology
2. Mathematics 2.1 Vectors and vector spaces
2.2 Operators
3. Quantum Mechanics
4. Structures on Hilbert Space
Bibliography Books Useful For Beginners
Quantum Mechanics Textbooks
Useful General Texts in Mathematics and Physics
Books on Philosophy of QM
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries

This song makes me feel indescribable…. Aphex Twin – 7 ∂ƒ∆ [rough mix] (1080p HD/HQ) –
it is difficult to explain the emotions that this sound generates ….
I guess that was the intention. 🙂

1. Terminology
Physical systems are divided into **types** according to their unchanging (or ‘state-independent’) properties, and the **state** of a system at a time consists of a complete specification of those of its properties that change with time (its ‘state-dependent’ properties). To give a complete description of a system, then, we need to say what type of system it is and what its state is at each moment in its history.
A **physical quantity** is a mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive family of physical properties (for those who know this way of talking, it is a family of properties with the structure of the cells in a partition).
Knowing what kinds of values a quantity takes can tell us a great deal about the relations among the properties of which it is composed. The values of a bivalent quantity, for instance, form a set with two members; the values of a real-valued quantity form a set with the structure of the real numbers. This is a special case of something we will see again and again, *viz.*, that knowing what kind of mathematical objects represent the elements in some set (here, the values of a physical quantity; later, the states that a system can assume, or the quantities pertaining to it) tells us a very great deal (indeed, arguably, all there is to know) about the relations among them.

In quantum mechanical contexts, the term ‘**observable**’ is used interchangeably with ‘physical quantity’, and should be treated as a technical term with the same meaning. It is no accident that the early developers of the theory chose the term, but the choice was made for reasons that are not, nowadays, generally accepted. The **state-space** of a system is the space formed by the set of its possible states,[2] i.e., the physically possible ways of combining the values of quantities that characterize it internally. In classical theories, a set of quantities which forms a supervenience basis for the rest is typically designated as ‘basic’ or ‘fundamental’, and, since any mathematically possible way of combining their values is a physical possibility, the state-space can be obtained by simply taking these as coordinates.[3]
So, for instance, the state-space of a classical mechanical system composed of nn particles, obtained by specifying the values of 6n6n real-valued quantities — three components of position, and three of momentum for each particle in the system — is a 6n6n-dimensional coordinate space. Each possible state of such a system corresponds to a point in the space, and each point in the space corresponds to a possible state of such a system. The situation is a little different in quantum mechanics, where there are mathematically describable ways of combining the values of the quantities that don’t represent physically possible states. As we will see, the state-spaces of quantum mechanics are special kinds of vector spaces, known as Hilbert spaces, and they have more internal structure than their classical counterparts.

A **structure** is a set of elements on which certain operations and relations are defined, a **mathematical structure** is just a structure in which the elements are mathematical objects (numbers, sets, vectors) and the operations mathematical ones, and a **model** is a mathematical structure used to represent some physically significant structure in the world.
The heart and soul of quantum mechanics is contained in the Hilbert spaces that represent the state-spaces of quantum mechanical systems. The internal relations among states and quantities, and everything this entails about the ways quantum mechanical systems behave, are all woven into the structure of these spaces, embodied in the relations among the mathematical objects which represent them.[4]

This means that understanding what a system is like according to quantum mechanics is inseparable from familiarity with the internal structure of those spaces. Know your way around Hilbert space, and become familiar with the dynamical laws that describe the paths that vectors travel through it, and you know everything there is to know, in the terms provided by the theory, about the systems that it describes. By ‘knowing your way around’ Hilbert space, I mean something more than possessing a description or a map of it; anybody who has a quantum mechanics textbook on their shelf has that. I mean know your way around it in the way you know your way around the city in which you live.
This is a practical kind of knowledge that comes in degrees and it is best acquired by learning to solve problems of the form: How do I get from A to B? Can I get there without passing through C? And what is the shortest route? Graduate students in physics spend long years gaining familiarity with the nooks and crannies of Hilbert space, locating familiar landmarks, treading its beaten paths, learning where secret passages and dead ends lie, and developing a sense of the overall lay of the land. They learn how to navigate Hilbert space in the way a cab driver learns to navigate his city.
How much of this kind of knowledge is needed to approach the philosophical problems associated with the theory? In the beginning, not very much: just the most general facts about the geometry of the landscape (which is, in any case, unlike that of most cities, beautifully organized), and the paths that (the vectors representing the states of)
systems travel through them.

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‘ The Aaron Rodgers of Division III’

Posted on May 5, 2021 by Ken

**Bryan Scott, ‘Aaron Rodgers of Division III,’ ready to prove himself.**

I have posted many cancer survivor stories and they all have one thing in common: most have had the “WINNING Mindset” to search their best option.

Bryan Scott knows the importance of timing.
It’s part of his job as quarterback: not only helping him throw accurate passes to receivers, but also delivering them quickly enough so his offensive linemen don’t exert themselves more than they need on a given play.

It’s a simple, effective part of his play style, one achieved through talent and meticulous, years-long practice. But his greatest strength, Scott says, is how
he elevates the play of those around him. That’s part of the reason the former Occidental College play-caller — once tabbed the “Aaron Rodgers of Division III” — has his sights set on the NFL.

**MORE: NFL Draft picks 2021: Complete results, list of selections for Rounds 1-7**

“My goal is 100 percent to play in the NFL. And to play in the NFL, not just be a roster spot,” Scott told Sporting News. “It’s to play. And I believe in myself.”

Now, he’s waiting for that time when a team will give him that chance.

Scott was once a scrawny, 5-1 freshman at Palos Verdes High School (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.), and only grew a few inches by the time he was a high school junior. But he hit a growth spurt as a senior, springing to 6-1. His height allowed him to compete for the first time for the starting quarterback position. He took full advantage, leading Palos Verdes to an 11-3 season and the 2012 Southern Section California Interscholastic Federation championship — its first such title in 47 years.

That very nearly was the last football season Scott ever played — if not for a chance encounter with his eventual college football coach.

“We won the state championship, and I was good. I was happy with it,”
Scott said. “And I played in this all-star game, and my head coach from
college (Doug Semones) actually ended up being there.
“And he came up to me and said, ‘Hey would you like to take a trip up to Occidental and visit?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of Occidental,’ Scott recalled of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference school. “I went up there and I loved it. I went to their practice. It was kind of fate.”

In just the second game of his freshman season at Occidental, Scott was forced to step in after the starting quarterback was injured. He didn’t flinch under the circumstances: He flourished, earning second-team All-SCIAC selection and the conference’s newcomer of the year award.

Scott considered using his early success at Occidental to transfer to a larger, more visible program. Ultimately, he stayed with the team that gave him a chance.

Scott became a first-team all-conference selection in the 2015 and ’16 seasons, earning the SCIAC Player of the Year in the latter. That season, Scott also set conference records in career passing yards (9,073), completions (763) and total offense (9,475). He threw 77 touchdowns and 22 interceptions in 33 career collegiate games.

It was during this time that Scott earned the moniker “The Aaron Rodgers of DIII,” which he attributes in part to his quick release, accuracy and ability to extend plays with his feet.

“And I got a little fire in me too, out there on the field.”

“The biggest thing I took away from that, if I’m being honest, is that I felt like
I could for sure play at that level,” Scott said. “I stepped in and it went really well. And to be honest with you, I think it might have shocked the Rams a little bit.”

Scott said the Rams called him the best quarterback at the camp, but an invitation to compete for their final 53-man roster never materialized. Scott turned his attention to The Spring League.

***Bart Andrus*** had never heard of Bryan Scott before the 2018 Spring League in Austin, Texas. Andrus, one of four TSL head coaches in that year’s showcase, just happened to have him as one of his two quarterbacks. (The other was former Titans signal-caller Zach Mettenberger).

By the end of the event, the former Titans quarterbacks coach and CFL head coach considered Scott the best quarterback at the event. That also included Mettenberger and 2012 Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Moreover, Scott had demonstrated everything you want in an NFL quarterback:
accuracy, confidence, poise and ability to extend the play.

**MORE: NFL Draft grades 2021: All 32 draft classes ranked from best (Dolphins) to worst (Raiders)**

“I had Steve McNair through Super Bowl XXXIV. Also as a head coach in NFL Europe, I had Danny Weurffel and Shaun Hill,” Andrus said. “In the UFL I had Troy Smith and Eric Crouch on the same team; both won the Heisman Trophy.

“Bryan is in that class as far as his talent.”

Just 11 miles south of Occidental, at USC, Scott participated in the Trojans’ 2017 pro day. By then a respectable 6-2, 220 pounds, he threw to receivers such as future NFL star JuJu Smith-Schuster, completing 62 of 64 passes with one drop. He signed with the BC Lions of the CFL that April, but included a provision in his contract that he would be released if given the opportunity to earn a spot on an NFL roster.

6’2 230| QB | Bryan Scott ’17 : Occidental College (CA) – YouTube

That opportunity came on May 1, 2017, when first-year Rams coach Sean McVay invited Scott to participate in the team’s rookie minicamp.

At the time, Scott said, he was happy to be there.
The hometown kid had been passed up in the 2017 NFL Draft and was “just excited to go out there and compete.” His tune changed by the end of camp.

Andrus wasn’t the only TSL head coach who saw the potential in Scott at that event. Steve Fairchild — former Bills running back coach and St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach — saw an “NFL-ability arm” on the former DIII player.
“Every time we got in a team setting, he threw the ball well,” Fairchild said. “But a lot of guys throw the ball well. But every time we got into some sort of competitive team setting, his game kind of rose.

“I’ve coached a little bit in the NFL. He could play at that level. He’s that type of talent.”
Scott earned The Spring League MVP honors in 2018, netting him tryouts with the Chiefs and Falcons. Neither workout resulted in anything long-term, so Scott signed a futures contract with the CFL’s then-Edmonton Eskimos in October 2019 for the 2020 season.

Once the league canceled its season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Scott opted out of his contract so he could showcase his talents somewhere — anywhere — with the goal of making an NFL team.

Scott again turned to The Spring League, which ironically took place in the fall of 2020. This time the event — which broadcast games on Fox Sports 1 — included six teams, more games and even more notable players. Among them: former Power 5 college football quarterbacks J.T. Barrett (Ohio State), Shea Patterson (Michigan) and Alex Hornibrook (Florida State).

No surprise, Scott — whom Andrus drafted first off the board — outperformed all of them. As quarterback for the Generals, he earned the league’s MVP crown a second time. He completed 91 of 133 passes (68.4 percent) for 1,125 yards and 13 touchdowns to one interception. He also led his team to a 4-0 record and the TSL championship.

That led to a workout with the Colts in February, and two more NFL teams Scott declined to name. Now, he is once again waiting for his shot at earning his spot on an NFL roster — and he feels confident his opportunity will come soon.
“I want to show a team what I can do day in and day out,” he said. “I want to show a team my character and what I can bring to their football team and how I can make their football team better. And whoever does sign me is just going to get a winner and a leader.”
Bryan Scott knows the importance of timing.

Perhaps he might have hit his growth spurt earlier in high school. Maybe that would have led to a scholarship offer at a Division I school, where he would be more noticeable and his competition less scrutinized. Or, he simply could have chosen to leave Occidental behind in favor of a larger program.

“Who knows where my life would be right now,” Scott said.
But then, Scott wouldn’t be the same player or person he is today — the one who has had to earn everything. He considers that mentality as much a strength in his relentless pursuit of the NFL as his arm talent or athleticism. And he wants to prove right everyone who has believed in him up to his point: friends, family, coaches and teammates.
That includes those who have worked with him in TSL. Andrus finds it “baffling” that an NFL team hasn’t taken a chance on Scott. Fairchild calls it “mind-boggling.”

Both understand why some in the NFL might hesitate to take a chance on Scott. Division III teams simply don’t produce NFL talents like those in Divisions I or II. Only 10 former Division III players were on NFL rosters in 2020, and none was a quarterback.

Bryan Scott QB TSL 2020 Highlights – YouTube

And yet, both Andrus and Fairchild consider Scott an “exception to that rule,” someone whose natural talent, competitive nature and leadership qualities supersede all else.
“He sees himself as a starting NFL quarterback” Fairchild said, “and he should. There’s no doubt in my mind.” Said Andrus: “I think it’s a matter of time before somebody wakes up and says, ‘You know, we better give this guy a chance.’”

That’s all Scott has ever needed.

NFL Draft prospects 2022: Big board of top 50 players overall, position rankings | Sporting News

2022 NFL Mock Draft: Lions replace Jared Goff with Spencer Rattler (msn.com)

College football post-spring Top 25 power rankings (espn.com)
And The TOP Eight Teams All Looking For Q-B’s 🙂

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The coronavirus pandemic isn’t over, but experts are getting more vocal about when things might at least appear normal-ish, at least here in the United States. As cases rage in India, more than half of Americans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, bringing cases down dramatically, although caution is still required. Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb appeared on Face the Nation Sunday to predict when we’d be back to normal — and also issued other essential advice.

Read each slide for his life-saving advice—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure Signs You Had COVID and Didn’t Know It.

1. The Virus Expert Said We’d Get Back to Something “Resembling” Normal By SummerNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said New York City will fully reopen on July 1st—is this a good idea? “Look, I think as we look out into the summer, we’re going to be able to resume normal activity or something resembling normal activities—there’s still going to be a layer of protection on top of what we do,” said Gottlieb. Read on to hear about how mutations could complicate matters.

2. The Virus Expert Shared Some Really Good News Worth ReadingThe “situation in the U.S. continues to improve,” said Gottlieb. “And I think in the coming weeks, we’re going to see an acceleration [of] the declining cases. And one of the big reasons is we’ve vaccinated 145 million Americans—who’ve had at least one dose—about a hundred million Americans been fully vaccinated at this point. This has been a monumental achievement rolling out this vaccine, getting that many Americans vaccinated, it’s going to continue. We’ll continue to chip away at it. The rate of vaccination is going to slow in the coming weeks, but we’ll continue to pick up more people as we get into the summer. And if you want to get a harbinger of what it’s going to look like, look at San Francisco right now—about 71% of people in San Francisco have had at least one dose of vaccine, 47% have been fully vaccinated. They’re recording about 20 cases a day. They have about 20 people who’ve been hospitalized. So they’ve dramatically reduced COVID in that city. And it’s largely the result of vaccination. I think that right now, the gains that we’re seeing across the country are locked in. We’re entering warm months when this is going to create a backstop against the continued spread of coronavirus. And so we’re locking in these gains.”

3. The Virus Expert Said the Virus Will Keep Mutating, so Get Vaccinated. “The more that this virus continues to circulate, the more it’s going to continue to mutate,” said Gottlieb. “But the reality is that these variants aren’t just cropping up in one market and in migrating around the world, they’re cropping up simultaneously in every market. You’re getting what we call convergent evolution, where the same mutations that are arising in other parts of the world are also rising here spontaneously. There’s probably a finite number of ways that this virus is going to try to mutate to evade immunity. And it’s testing us everywhere in the world. So the same mutations that are arising in other parts of the world are rising here as well. They just haven’t gotten a foothold here in part because we’ve been vaccinating out public.”

4. The Virus Expert Said The Numbers are Going Down Encouragingly “There’s a lot of testing going on at home,” said Gottlieb. “Now with those home tests that aren’t necessarily getting reported unless they’re positive cases. So I think the positivity rate around the country is even lower than what we’re recording, but we’re seeing cases come down with seeing hospitalizations come down, which is really the hardest measure of the overall impact of COVID hospitalizations are pretty good indicator of where the direction is heading and they’re coming down as well. So I think these gains are pretty sustainable at this point.”

5. How to Stay Safe Until July. So follow Fauci’s fundamentals and help end this pandemic, no matter where you live—get vaccinated ASAP, wear a face mask that fits snugly and is double layered, don’t travel, social distance, avoid large crowds, don’t go indoors with people you’re not sheltering with (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, and to protect your life and the lives of others, don’t visit any of these:

35 Places You’re Most Likely to Catch COVID.

Doctors have known for 72 years that masks do nothing to prevent the spread of airborne viruses.

#Facts they still know. But the government paid doctors who get INCENTIVES for diagnosing, putting cv patients on ventilators and marking cv on a death certificate is More lucrative than pushing science. Bad doctors are now being overshadowed by all the good doctors in America. Do you mean by prevent as in 100% effective? No of course not.
You would need a negative pressure with hepa and gas cartridges to get there. Goal is to cut transmission by 75% or so. Im a strong conservative but the stupidity around this situation is mind blowing. In a study where #SURGEONS did operations over one months in teams, one with masks and one without. The NON MASKED doctor’s patients had faster recoveries and LESS infections. Figure that out !!!
I had this argument with a friend at the beginning of all this because she said I should tell doctors not to wear one next time I need surgery. She couldn’t comprehend masks being used to prevent bacteria in spittle from landing on the open wound.

I envision a return to widespread traditionalism, widespread patriotism, and widespread freedom. The darkness may always be there but the light will shine so bright, we’ll hardly notice it. In Jesus name, Amen. #TuesdayPrayers

The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas

Cases are rising mainly in states with stricter disease control policies.

When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, lifted his statewide face mask mandate and his limits on business occupancy in early March, Democrats warned that he was inviting a public health disaster. Yet a month and a half later, newly identified coronavirus cases in Texas have fallen by more than 50 percent, and daily deaths have dropped even more.

Meanwhile, states with stricter COVID-19 regulations have seen spikes in daily new cases. This is not the pattern you would expect to see if government-imposed restrictions played a crucial role in curtailing the pandemic, as advocates of those policies assume.

Abbott’s critics did not mince words. President Joe Biden said the governor’s decision reflected “Neanderthal thinking.” Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said it was “extraordinarily dangerous” and “will kill Texans.”

One reason those dark prophecies have not come true: The practical impact of Abbott’s changes was much less significant than his detractors implied.

Most businesses in Texas had been allowed to operate at 75 percent of capacity since mid-October, when Abbott also allowed bars to reopen. It was implausible that removing the cap would have much of an impact on virus transmission, even in businesses that were frequently hitting the 75 percent limit.

While Abbott said Texans would no longer be legally required to cover their faces in public, he urged them to keep doing so, and many businesses continued to require masks. At the stores I visit in Dallas, there has been no noticeable change in policy or in customer compliance.

Conversely, face mask mandates and occupancy limits did not prevent COVID-19 surges in states such as Michigan, where the seven-day average of newly confirmed infections has risen more than fivefold since March 1; Maine, which has seen a nearly threefold increase; and Minnesota, where that number has more than doubled. Cases also rose during that period, although less dramatically, in other states with relatively strict COVID-19 rules, including Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

Florida, a state often criticized as lax, also has seen a significant increase in daily new cases: 34 percent since mid-March. But Florida, despite its relatively old population, still has a per capita COVID-19 death rate only a bit higher than California’s, even though the latter state’s restrictions have been much more sweeping and prolonged.

In any event, COVID-19 surges are happening mainly in states with more legal restrictions than Florida or Texas is imposing. The Washington Post nevertheless says “experts…agree” that rising infection numbers are largely due to “a broad loosening of public health measures, such as mask mandates and limits on indoor dining”—a claim that is tenable only if you ignore all the countervailing examples.

States differ from each other in various ways that may affect the spread of COVID-19, of course, so you can learn only so much from comparisons like these. But several systematic studies have cast doubt on the effectiveness of broad legal restrictions.

While some researchers have concluded that lockdowns had an important impact, others say there is little or no evidence that they affected mortality rates or trends in cases. According to a Nature Human Behaviour study of 226 countries published in November, “a suitable combination of NPIs [nonpharmaceutical interventions] is necessary to curb the spread of the virus,” but “less disruptive and costly NPIs can be as effective as more intrusive, drastic ones (for example, a national lockdown).”

In a 2020 National Bureau of Economic Research paper, UCLA economist Andrew Atkeson and two other researchers looked at COVID-19 trends in 23 countries and 25 U.S. states that had seen more than 1,000 deaths from the disease by late July. After finding little evidence that variations in public policy explained the course of the epidemic in different places, they concluded that the role of legal restrictions “is likely overstated.”

That much seems safe to say in light of more recent experience in the United States.

California has lowest COVID-19 rate in America: Here’s why

Big turnaround due to continued vaccine rollout, masks and immunity from past surges.

After a winter of misery during the worst pandemic in a century, California is now seeing a major surge of hope this spring.

Buoyed by a steady pace of vaccinations and the immunity of people who already have had the disease, California now has the lowest rate of COVID-19 cases anywhere in the United States.

“The worst of it is behind us,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at UC San Francisco.

California’s rate of 33 cases per 100,000 people Wednesday morning was less than a third of the U.S. average of 116 cases. By comparison, Texas had more than double California’s rate, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while Illinois and New York were four times higher, Florida five times and Michigan 10 times.

Meanwhile, California’s positive test rate also is the lowest of any state —

Just 0.9% of people, or fewer than 1 in 100 who were tested for COVID-19 in the past week, had the disease. That’s a quarter of the national average and down from 14% statewide 4 months ago. “It’s fabulous — just outstanding,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus of public health at UC Berkeley. “It’s been a remarkable few weeks.”

Deaths and serious illness, which once overwhelmed hospitals, are in sustained retreat. The number of people who are dying each day in California from COVID-19 has fallen 90% since the peak in January. There were 65 deaths statewide on Wednesday, down from 684 on Jan. 5. Hospitalizations have fallen 91% statewide over the same time.

Perhaps most remarkable, California’s most populous county, Los Angeles, which was a national hotbed of COVID-19 sickness in December and January, is on the cusp of moving into the yellow tier under California’s system — reserved for counties with the lowest case rates — as soon as next week, possibly joined by San Francisco, Marin and others. Disneyland, a symbol of the Golden State that was closed for more than a year, reopens Friday.

The trend isn’t fully appreciated yet by the public and the media, say some experts.

“We’ve gotta get out the good news and not always with ‘but this’ or ‘but that,’ ‘ said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at UC-San Francisco. “It’s a success story.” To be sure, the pandemic isn’t over. Michigan struggled recently with a jump in cases. And Oregon this week began tightening rules for restaurants in Portland and other cities after its cases rose.

But Gandhi said it’s unlikely that California will see a new surge like Oregon or other states.

She and other experts say California’s fortunes have turned around for three main reasons, all of which continue to protect the state from new spikes.

First are vaccines. After federal delivery of vaccines has increased with more streamlined systems, every day a larger number of Americans are getting vaccinated. On Tuesday, 337,000 more Californians became vaccinated. Overall, 61% of adults 18 and older in California — 18.5 million people — have received at least one dose, according to the CDC. And that number is growing by 1% every day. More important: 87% of people over age 65 in California have received at least one dose, the group that was most at risk of dying.

“You can mask and social distance until the cows come home,” Gandhi said. “But the only way to get out of pandemic is to create immunity in the population to that pathogen. Because of mass vaccination rates, we are going to stay at low case rates.”

The second big reason for California’s reversal is natural immunity. Officially, 3.6 million people have gotten COVID-19 in California since the pandemic began 14 months ago. But in some communities, particularly in Southern California, that number is much higher. When people survive the disease, they build up antibodies and T cells that help fight off future infections. That resistance lasts at least eight months, research shows, and probably longer. California had more infections than other states before and now is better protected.

Third is the lack of variants. Other states, such as Michigan, have been hard hit by the so-called “U.K. variant” of COVID-19, which is 50% to 70% more contagious than the main strain. But California hasn’t seen a significant outbreak of that type. Instead, two “West Coast” variants, which are only about 20% more contagious, prevailed. Researchers aren’t sure why, although they say Californians’ general willingness to wear masks, wash their hands, social distance and follow the state’s tier rules for business reopenings has helped.

“The West Coast variants seem to be outcompeting other strains,” Swartzberg said, urging people to remain vigilant. “Why that is is beyond me, but that seems to be happening so far.”

What could go wrong?

“We have two big giant international airports — SF and LA — who are flying people in from all over the world,” Rutherford said. “I worry about variants. As each day goes by and more and more people are vaccinated, the concern goes down.”

Rutherford said that by June 15, the day that Gov. Gavin Newsom said he will drop the tier system and limits on gatherings, he expects that California will reach herd immunity of 70% to 80% of the population having been vaccinated or having natural immunity from previously suffering from COVID-19.

That will be a political boost to Newsom as he faces a recall election, political experts say.

“COVID has become the bullseye on him,” said Larry Gerston, a professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University who is writing a book about the pandemic and the recall. “To the extent cases are dropping, that will only help him. It means the state is returning to normal activities. Kids are going back to school. Businesses are reopening. It’s a perfect storm in reverse, at least the way things are going today.”

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