LOL, LA LA LAND
The Los Angeles County Hospital Inpatient death curve is looking a bit...manufactured
Tonight, I’ll be watching my son’s final performance as Cosmo Brown in his high school’s outstanding production of Singin’ in the Rain. If you’re unfamiliar with the musical, it’s set in Hollywood, Los Angeles—a city synonymous with the entertainment industry.
It’s hard to say which U.S. coastal metropolis - L.A. or New York - puts on a better show but fair say that L.A. is more driven by and immersed in show business.
This morning, while examining Los Angeles County’s hospital inpatient death curve, I couldn’t help but be “star-struck” by how artificial and surreal it appears.1
From a "spreading virus" perspective, L.A. is geographically closer to China than New York, yet its hospital inpatient beds somehow managed to avoid a cataclysm until late December 2020- February 2021.
Meanwhile, hospitals in New Orleans - also a fun and showy place! - were “hit hard” during the first wave. Strange…
New York is still the *winner* for magnitude and speed, but the L.A. county curve looks comical in timing and shape too. Why didn’t L.A. hospitals “learn from” New York’s experience?2
This isn’t to downplay the genuine portion of excess deaths in L.A. (and New York) or the needless suffering caused by government policies at the federal, state, and local levels.
Rather, I am highlighting the sheer spectacle of it all and reminding readers that we are still expected to accept these events as presented—and as being driven largely by a Virus From Afar spreading person to person—despite the absence of public records to substantiate them, or any investigation into what happened inside hospitals.
So, as with New York - and Bergamo, Italy - until basic death certificates or names are released, I’m saying: “LOL, La La Land.”
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land (a movie with many scenes and moments that pay homage to Singin’ in the Rain)
X thread version, with hospital bed data from Todd Lowdon.
See Figure 13 in Does New York City Make Any Sense? for a spring 2020 all-cause comparison between six U.S. metro-areas, including Los Angeles County.
ICYMI aspiring NYC Mayor Andrew Cuomo recently reiterating The New York Story, see here: https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1896300841096892795 | My view on the NYC spring 2020 event can be found here: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/new-york-city-spring-2020-an-unsubstantiated