Here in Eastern WA as well. It is now more rare to see someone in a mask than without except at the hospital where we are required to wear them. Next door in North Idaho, my coworkers tell me there are no masks to be seen anywhere, and haven’t seen any on people for weeks, if at all. Silverwood and Boulder Beach open tomorrow (large theme park), masks are not required or recommended. It will be interesting to see how many people show up. Idaho moves to their level 3 tomorrow (of 4), and are also opening bars and movie theaters. There is such a difference from state to state!
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Yes, and even regions within states. The two towns I split my time between are about an hour apart, and they’re like night and day.
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Of course we still have no restaurants, dentists (although mine tells me my June 18th is on), and hairdressing opened this week.
If anybody needs an n95 mask, it’s a dentist. DH gave one of mine to ours, but he didn’t use it. I guess he thought DH was low-risk enough.
That is one profession I would really, really hate to be in right now.
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Well - almost everyone has them on in my packed Walmart yesterday. In a county that has had 112 cases and 3 deaths. Granted, many only had them over their lower lip… but people here are following the rules even if there is little to no risk. I’d wear a plastic bag over my clothes and a propeller hat if they’d just OPEN HOBBY LOBBY ALREADY!
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In the past 6 days we have eaten in 2 restaurants (glorious!), and 2 of the 4 of us have gotten haircuts. 1 more will get their haircut today. I also went to the dentist on Tuesday for a cleaning, and the kids have their rescheduled visits today (first March, then early May, finally going today). I hope you get to do all of these things soon, it has really lifted my mood! I will never take things like eating in restaurants and getting a haircut for granted again.
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I’d pay to see that!
In our suburban area outside Houston, there were probably 80-90% voluntarily wearing face coverings at the grocery store on Tuesday. My uncle gets around Houston for work, and he says it’s really inconsistent.
We still have community spread in Houston. Given that, I’m not sure how effective the contact tracing is. I think we needed another 2-3 weeks before re-opening for that to be really effective.
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I’m one of those high-risk people and haven’t been out to eat yet. I think I’d better hop to it before all these tourists contaminate my state!
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My dentist office is not wearing n95s. The hygienist had on a regular surgical mask and then a face shield over that. She said nothing has really changed for them other than the face shield. They were already wearing masks and gloves. My dentist also just had on a regular surgical mask, but she only looked in my mouth for a short time and didn’t do any procedures. Not sure what she is doing for a procedure, I didn’t think to ask.
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Our dental hygienist always wear face shields. 
Ours opened last Saturday, but I haven’t made it there yet. Either today or tomorrow I will go, I also wanted to hit Party City for graduation decor, but they didn’t open until yesterday as they were waiting on more plexiglass shields at the registers.
Have your Joanns and Michaels been open through all this? Neither of those stores closed (deemed essential) so we have been there several times over the last 2 months.
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Our Michael’s and our Joann’s were not open. You could do curbside pick up for Joann’s for fabrics and notions, but had to order over the phone ahead of time.
Essentially you had to sell food, or building or cleaning supplies to be open here. It took me until last week to realize Big Lots was open!
Yes! It is safer now than later as the tourists will be coming very soon, if not already. The first place we ate, we were one of only 2 parties there. The second, we were one of maybe 4 in a restaurant twice the size of the first. Way less germy people than at any grocery store.
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Mine too!
I already have my first day planned out. I need a shoe store, Maurices, TJ Maxx, and Home Goods. There is a Suburban strip mall with all those stores right near the kids’ community college In a county that’s had 201 cases and 9 deaths that I expect will be among the first to open. I’m not sure which one I’m going to rope drop that day…
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Strange, I wonder why Joanns and Michaels are essential in WA, which has been so strict on so many things, but not essential in NY.
I’m not sure.
Considering that in order for people to make masks, they need fabric and sewing notions, they SHOULD be considered essential, frankly.
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Maybe because our Walmart and Target sells fabric? Do yours too?