At our church it’s 50/50 mask wearing even though the diocese requires them. But again, who is going to be mask police, especially since there’s no mask mandate here anymore? DH and I finally gave up and ditched the masks, we are vaccinated. DS wore his as he is not finished with his vaccination series.
I think this is how many things are going to work out as the pandemic winds down. Like the CDC ok’ing travel. It’s a funny thing to hear that when my town has been very busy all winter with travelers. They’re not following the CDC rules, true. But are they stupid, rude or uncaring?
Those are different questions, not so easily answered, especially here where the virus seems to be petering out (although with our pub. health doing website upgrades, some days it’s hard to tell!). There is one active case in my county of 10k people. I get the feeling the residents here have decided a few things already without waiting for the official go-ahead.
I typically wouldn’t care much, but I find it to be rude and disrespectful because there is a service you can attend at the same time and in the same building where masks are optional. We will probably now go to the mask optional service with our masks because at least we can sit near the door during the service. We have not gotten our vaccines yet, although my DH is scheduled for his first on Friday.
In our state and region, cases are going up again and haven’t been low since October.
Yes. I understand that, completely. Why be a non-mask wearer around people who are still wearing them when you could be somewhere else? That is rude. For us, we were starting to feel a little foolish- I can’t tell you when that feeling started happening but it’s been a while now- and there’s no point to it when we aren’t putting anyone at risk. I wish we had separate services. That would solve a lot of problems.
On a related subject, I saw this story and was reminded of Len and Jim’s discussion on Disney Dish this week about how out of 35,000 people at Magic Kingdom on a given day, someone has to be the dumb one. And then there are the people who are somehow willing to risk a lifetime ban to be belligerent.
While it is true that everyone I know personally has recovered, my point is simply that over and over we’ve had it predicted that –THIS– new event would result in mass uptick in cases and over and over that hasn’t happened.
This is a tough topic. How does one gauge at what point a fatality is acceptable, or how many are acceptable? What metric can be universally accepted for such an emotional and ethical issue? Do we go by typical flu deaths in past years, say 30,000? Are the first 30,000 covid deaths acceptable, but no more than that? Whose loved ones that died get to be labeled part of the ‘acceptable’ group versus ‘unacceptable’? Right there there’s already hurt feelings. There’s no easy way to do this objectively. Death is inevitable, yet life should be valued. It’s a hard dichotomy we all have to live with (and die with) and find a balance. If the 38,000 auto deaths per year dropped to 25,000, is that now acceptable? If it is, that’s still hurtful to 25,000 families who lost a loved one. My point is this is too complex to judge anyone’s care for others or value for life by their opinions on covid restrictions alone.
On a happier note- @stlouie have you not updated your mailing address for your snow? I think you might email them again just to be sure they have it. Because I’m still getting your orders :
Again? I distinctly remember changing the delivery address because we so desperately need the snow. Perhaps it needed a signature and I wasn’t home and they thought you would be happy to sign for me? I just rolled into town last night after enjoying Touch of Disney.
Well then. Since you got to go to that, I am keeping your snow. You will just have to come and get it, but I make no promises regarding its condition when you arrive.
Probably it will be in a waterfall by then. That’s not so bad, though.
Wow! I went to the game in Detroit on Sunday and A. it was limited to like 8k people (and due to a glitchy ticketing system nowhere near all tickets were sold), and B. masking was actually quite a bit better than I expected. At one point the camera lit on a guy whose mask was down under his nose, and as soon as he saw himself on the screen he pulled it up.
They not only sold seats in a distanced configuration, they actually zip-tied the un-occupied seats closed so people couldn’t try to spread out and use them. It was almost eerie how empty the place was. The wave still happened, and managed to go all the way around.
So I’m really thankful about the 80% one vaccine dose provides. I just learned that my MIL had such a terrible reaction to the first, feeling sick for at least a week, that she refuses to get the second.
Also interesting, early in the pandemic she insisted that she already had it. Because they’d been on a train that made a stop Wuhan in November 2019 and not long after, while still in China, fell sick. I’ve always just nodded but silently disagreed, but given her response to the vaccine I’m wondering if she did.
I am sure you are not arguing it is ok that all those people have died in any time frame? I actually truly don’t think that is your message.
I believe that you may have said in the past that many of those people would have died of other causes, but they didn’t, and I have not read any explanation (other than Covid) for the overall increase in deaths in the US? Is there?
I think we have to reflect on how hard we fight to reduce those deaths. My governor tried to require all students get the vaccine. You can walk into almost any CVS or Walgreens and get a free vaccine. We bring vaccine into our schools and vaccinate all staff.
We now know that masks, social distancing, and frequent hand washing significantly reduces the flu. It saves lives. Will we talk about this? If 500k lives are not enough, are the 30k?
Not to speak for @qwerty6, but I think what many people on the “fewer restrictions” side are basing their arguments on is that there is a baseline level of deaths that is unpreventable in a free and open society (i.e., not a dictatorship or isolated island nation). The U.S. has had neither the worst response nor the highest death rate (see chart below sorted by mortality per million). Developed nations such as the U.K., Belgium, and Italy have had higher mortality despite having much stricter lockdowns (they’ve also made their share of mistakes). Much of the difference in impact can be attributed to 1) how early on a country was hit by the first wave (NY, Italy, Belgium) and 2) the average age of the population. Other measures make some marginal impact that is hard to define, though clearly that can add up.
Also, it’s worth noting that virtually everyone on this forum supports measures to one degree or another. And some of us live in states / countries that are more restrictive than others. So it is completely understandable that someone in a restrictive state would complain about the measures while someone in a less restrictive state might be more likely to complain about the lack of standards or compliance. No one thinks we should just let people die.
Personally, I’m toward the middle - do the common sense, simple measures that are proven to save the most lives (masks, no high crowd activities, distancing protocols in schools, etc.). But also take into account that humans need interaction; that our businesses, employment and livelihoods bring more than just a subsistence - they provide meaning and are vital to our mental health. So don’t think it’s nothing to mandate a business, church, or activity to be closed / banned. Allow people to do the safest activities (anything outdoors), even when things are at their worst.
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I distinctly remember changing the delivery address because we so desperately need the snow. Perhaps it needed a signature and I wasn’t home and they thought you would be happy to sign for me? I just rolled into town last night after enjoying Touch of Disney.
