PUSHBACK IN KNOXVILLE: Seen on Facebook:

KNOX COUNTY RESIDENTS!!
IMPORTANT!
Tomorrow evening (Monday 11/23)
5PM
We will be peacefully protesting at the Knox County Health Department. They’re voting Monday evening on a new Lockdown that will destroy businesses and the morale & mental health of the residents.
It includes:
1. No more than 8-10 people in a group
2. New Curfew at either 8 or 9 pm
3. Gyms closed
4. Restaurants at either 25% capacity or no indoor dining (takeout only)

Please join us at the Health Department. Feel free to bring a sign.

I’ve twice heard Knox County officials say that their contact tracing data doesn’t indicate that restaurants or bars are a significant source of infection. I’ve heard no evidence that gyms are a source of spread. I don’t think these plans are scientifically based — we’ve been contact-tracing for 8 months — and I don’t think they’ll hold up in court if challenged. Businesses have already been devastated by lockdowns and the pandemic, and we’re in what, month 8 of “15 days to slow the spread” now?

To quote Judge Stickman in the Pennsylvania case: Population-wide lockdown orders are “such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.”

UPDATE: The local small business community is getting organized. A friend sends this message, which is circulating:

We are trying to get all small business/service industry to close from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm so all staff can attend in solidarity the Health Department protest. We also ask that in lieu of being able to be there in person that you at least make emails from the [circulated] list of public officials.

This is the first organized resistance I’ve seen, but it won’t be the last.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on what the science does, and doesn’t, support, here.