You don’t need to put on your tinfoil hat. Our small local newspaper just today put out an article that says our location data on our phones is proving that we are not social distancing enough and went through various “statistics”. While I don’t believe roughly half of what I read, I’m quite certain it’s already being tracked, but what they’re doing with that information is anybody’s guess.
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Well, thanks! But no worries. I’m right there with you in terms of disliking how this whole issue has brought out the authoritarian in a lot of people. Especially when they’re authoritarian about things that no one knows for sure work, or don’t work.
For instance, the police officers who waited in a group to arrest a single, lone surfer in CA have totally lost the plot. Those people really, truly scare me. It’s worrisome how quickly people in a position of authority can turn into dangerous little dictators, just because they can. I mentioned before how the park rangers in YNP transformed overnight into that kind of person when the budget impasse a few years ago shut down the parks. It was shocking.
But I guess the mask issue is a bit like motorcycle helmets. A lot of people don’t want to wear them, either. But the consequences of not doing so are also borne by the rest of society. This is like that, but arguably coercion is even more justifiable with the masks. And, it is temporary.
And by coercion, I mean fines. None of this should ever be a criminal offense except depraved indifference, like having COVID19 and deliberately coughing on someone.
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I think perhaps if I had a mask that was actually going to be a protection to myself and others, it wouldn’t be an issue for me. I have had something like that on before. I didn’t feel closed in and I could breathe easily. But those masks are not available to the public unless people already hoarded them away at the beginning of all this. Cloth is not really protective and I have always had issues with scarves and such up around my face. My DH is doing most of the shopping now and he says it’s about 50/50 of people wearing masks. It depends on the store you go to. And there are a lot of people wearing masks that are only covering their mouth with them, so they are wearing them incorrectly anyway.
In my estimation, it’s not so much authoritarianism as the movement toward legalism. Since some people show poor judgment, others try to spell out appropriate behaviors. And then enforce the rules verbatim without allowing for any discretion in the intent of the rules.
And then people that think if it’s not against the rules, or if they can find a loophole, that makes a behavior perfectly ok.
It’s a dangerous path and we’ve been heading down it for some time.
It is much more time consuming to educate people on all aspects of their decision making process and then circle back with them if they are still making poor choices. But it ultimately leads to better decision making and less rules needed.
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I think I’m just plain old discouraged. I feel like we are risking so much and we haven’t gained much footing against continued vulnerability.
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I went out on Friday and I would say 98% of the people were wearing masks and maybe 50% were wearing gloves. Even the cashiers. There are shields between the customer and the cashiers. They put “X” on the floor, six feet apart to show people where to stand to wait in line.
Without immunity and a vaccine, when will it be safe to return to normal?
I think the footing is the number of deaths avoided more so than immunity.
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I’m sure many of you already seen this tracking. Think about how it can be used…
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When the SF Bay Area Counties issued new shelter in place orders last week, they were even more restrictive. Pools, tennis courts, and basketball courts were closed. Parking lots to certain recreational areas and beaches were closed. It prohibited people from gathering at parks and using the playgrounds.
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My sister has been in healthcare for decades. She gets quit lit up about how dangerous it is to be wearing a mask incorrectly. Or expecting the wrong kind of mask to protect oneself. Don’t get her going on cloth masks. It’s almost entertaining how riled she gets.
My phone’s location is turned off. I don’t know if this stops any tracking. It’s just turned off.
If I knew I could be sick all by my onesies and not get anyone else sick (DH for one) I’m about at the point of bring it on and let’s get it over with.
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Being not dead is a very good thing. But being still vulnerable isn’t good for the economy or social structure. If we don’t get more people back to work we could find ourselves standing in lines for food for other reasons. 
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It really does. Do you see much education going on? Like PSAs or billboards or whatever? I don’t really, but I don’t have habits that would put me in contact with much of that.
That certainly has been the argument up until now, and it’s hard to prove otherwise. But I guess the evidence for mask wearing seems to lean the other way, but it has to be done in combination with hand washing, not touching one’s face, etc. it’s not some super-protection, in fact it’s protection for everyone else, not the wearer, unless you’ve an n95 mask. Which most people don’t. So there needs to be that educational component mentioned above and that seems weak to me. I don’t know if it will help if people are not educated about it.
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All of our amber alert signage has been touting “Stay home. Stay safe.” and such.
The online news station I listen to when I decide to listen has a PSA every 15 minutes.
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DH’s employer just issued cloth masks for everybody in the plant with an extensive description on how they are to wash it every day. That is never going to happen. At best he will Lysol it. 
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I’ve heard announcements in the grocery store, which is eerie enough, and that’s about it. I guess I’m thinking of a bigger campaign. I think it’ll take more than short messages to teach people what they need to know. Not just mask usage, but many other things.
Double !
I guess on the mask issue, it seems that up until now, they’ve been tailoring the message to the masses, kind of like ad copy is aimed at an 8th. grade reading level. Well, there are many who can and want to do better than that, and don’t want to be penalized for doing so. In fact, I’d say the majority are perfectly capable of learning to properly wear a mask, and should be supported in their efforts to do so.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally agree with you. The economics gives me a splitting headache.
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Kaiser Hospital, which covers a huge portion of CA, is accepting homemade cloth masks.
A friend and I were tracking things in Houston really closely and it took us awhile to put together what was happening. (I might have the sequence wrong, but it’s the methodology that’s important.)
At the time, both CDC and Houston Health Dept had statements on their website “we are not recommending that schools close”. But, all the superintendents in the region had a conference call, and after that, almost all the school districts in the greater Houston area closed down.
Then, the zoo and most, but not all, of our museums closed down nearly at the same time. No mandate announced.
Then, it was all of our area performance arts.
Very methodically. Like someone had a list.
On a Thursday, someone on staff at church told me they just had a staff meeting and we were definitely having services on Sunday so do my usual volunteer prep. And then on Friday, a large number of Houston pastors had a conference call with the mayor’s office. And shortly thereafter, the mayor of Houston comes on TV and explicitly says that he is NOT telling churches not to meet. Yet, suddenly, a large number of churches (including ours) suddenly about face that they will not be meeting.
I’m nearly certain this is what happened. The mayor’s office was directly contacting each organization (or groups of organizations) and saying “We’re not telling you to close. But this is the situation.” Then educating them and letting them reach their own conclusion. And most realized closing was the right thing to do. Some didn’t get the unspoken advice and stayed open, because they weren’t being told to close. But most groups contacted closed.
By doing it that way, leading people to voluntarily close, they didn’t get push back and didn’t have to waste resources on enforcement. And those that remained open mostly came around pretty quickly when their peers closed. And everyone was kind of ready for it when closures become mandated.
I think the same thing was happening at the federal level (maybe from the Vice President’s office) to some of the national organizations/chains (2 of the major theater chains voluntarily closed at almost the exact same time, for instance). Pretty sure they had a list as well.
Unfortunately, the mayor’s office probably doesn’t have time to call every person in Houston and privately educate them…
ETA: A theatre we had tickets to actually said in their cancellation email “ Following the recommendations of Mayor Sylvester Turner, the Alley has canceled all performances, events, camps, and classes through March 31 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19/coronavirus.” even while the mayor was saying he was NOT telling places they needed to close. I think the messaging was obvious to some and too subtle for others.
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BTW, which means my opinion of “Hey, go to WDW as long as it’s open. They’ll close it down if CDC doesn’t think it’s safe for you to go” was totally wrong!
On the one hand, I’m glad that there was this behind-the-scenes messaging to the various stakeholders in the community.
On the other hand, the secrecy of it is a little worrying, but I guess they didn’t want to scare the horses.
I don’t think that was wrong. I think the CDC and the FDA were both a little set in their ways and surprised by the turn this virus took. Disney, being a very large and successful company, looks at things in a different way.
My DS28 is a nuclear engineer. He told me that senior engineers are always being siphoned off by private companies like Northwestern Mutual and Chase. I was astonished. But he said they have teams that look out for anything that could affect company assets, personnel, and investments. And customers, I presume. Disney either has this type of person on board or consultants that provide it.
Maybe greed really is good- sometimes?
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