Posted on by Californiacontrarian

“Don’t Ask”


In San Diego one of the measures that has used to determine the level of business closures is what is called “community outbreaks.” A community outbreak is defined as three or more lab-confirmed cases from different households. 

The threshold for community outbreaks was seven or fewer in a week’s span. Arbitrary? Yes, but it sounded at least pseudo-scientific with a modicum of common sense. Here, however, the common sense fell apart. The public was not allowed to know from which business an outbreak occurred. (Basically, “Don’t ask.”)

People around the county were asking, “Was it my gym?”, “Was it my barber shop?”,  “Was it my nail salon?”, “Was it my beauty parlor?

The answer to these types of questions “from those that know 

best” was something like . . . “for your own good,we are not going to tell you.” 

(Basically, “Don’t ask.”)

Hmmm. Okay, I guess that those in charge were tracking and testing those individuals who had been at the guilty beauty shop or the guilty gym. However, when asked which type of business the community outbreak had been traced to . . .  Was it a barber shop? Was it a nail salon? . . . the answer was still the same tripe: “for your own good,we are not going to tell you.” Double Hmmm!

(Basically, “don’t ask.”)

Back then, the response to “too many community outbreaks” was to close all of the above types of businesses. 

I can understand if barber shop A was responsible for a community outbreak, then perhaps barber shop A should be shuttered for a while. Likewise if multiple community outbreaks were traced to multiple beauty parlors, then perhaps all beauty parlors should be closed down for a time. But to close en-masse all barber shops, beauty, parlors, gyms, etc. without telling the public the specifics . . . Triple Hmmm! (Basically, “don’t ask.”)

Now I know that a lot of you are responding something like . . . “They (those in the know) are just looking out for the best interests of the community in general.” If all the barber shops had to be closed because of an increase in community outbreaks at gyms, well that’s the way the cookie crumbles, err, should I say that the way barber shop businesses crumble. Hmmm, to me this makes no sense.

Perhaps those of you who feel that public officials know best and always tell the truth, perhaps a recent revelation out of Nashville will open your eyes.

The following is from Fox 17, WZTV in Nashville:

On June 30th, contact tracing was given a small view of coronavirus clusters. Construction and nursing homes were found to be causing problems with more than a thousand cases traced to each category, but bars and restaurants reported just 22 cases.

Leslie Waller from the health department then asks, “This isn’t going to be publicly released, right? Just info for Mayor’s Office?”

“Correct, not for public consumption,” writes senior advisor Benjamin Eagles . . . (Basically, don’t ask.)

A month later, the health department was asked point blank about the rumor there are only 80 cases traced to bars and restaurants.

Here as confirmed by emails, apparently ‘those that know best’ covered up that bars and restaurants were not the cause of the clusters, but bars and restaurants were kept restricted anyway. Hmmm.

A lot of downtown bartenders, waitresses and restaurant owners are asking why would officials not release these numbers? Hmmm! (Basically, don’t ask.) A lot of people who worked in bars and restaurants remained unemployed while it seems like the Mayor felt that he knew best. Does this sound familiar?

(BTW: The mayor of Nashville is a Democrat.)

45 Replies to ““Don’t Ask””

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.