My wife and I took an unplanned trip to the Finger Lakes this weekend. We just hit Stage 3, which means that restaurants are open with indoor and outdoor seating, at greatly reduced capacity, with all employees masked and patrons masked unless they’re seated.
In Ithaca, which is a somewhat liberal community (LOL/JK), there was almost universal masking outdoors and I felt comfortable eating outdoors downtown. Apparently they’re going to close streets downtown so restaurants can have more outdoor tables. That’s really smart. I feel pretty confident that I’m not gonna get COVID outdoors, certainly not in Ithaca, but probably no place else in the less densely populated parts of New York.
Campgrounds were almost totally full, and, again, I felt pretty comfortable camping overnight, because it’s not hard to distance in that environment. New York State Parks are working at lower capacity. The parking lot at a popular hiking area had every other spot occupied with a traffic cone to reduce density. The ventilation in the restrooms there was running full blast with all windows open. Masking was required in the restrooms, and one place we visited had a single person at a time policy in the bathroom. Increased ventilation, plus removing forced-air hand dryers (there were still too many of these around), requiring masks, limiting restroom crowding, and a lot of hand sanitizer is probably the key to having people use restrooms without getting sick.
The only negative experience we had was at a brewery where the deck was crowded and everyone was unmasked (since they were drinking). We had a drink, but nowhere near that deck. There were some drunks walking around in areas where they should be masked with their masks partially off. There’s a simple solution to that problem: leave and come back in a year when we have a vaccine or effective treatment. Restaurant and bar owners will probably learn the hard way that older customers will avoid their establishments like the plague (literally) if their staff can’t enforce masking and distancing law.
Looking at our biggest states, the way New York is approaching reopening — massive testing, universal masking, watching COVID-positive counts carefully — is the only reasonable way to do it. I understand why Florida and Texas are re-opening stupidly, with skyrocketing case counts — they’re ruled by idiots. I certainly don’t understand what’s up in California, which seems to be reopening even though cases are going up. Maybe some Californians can chime in on that.
Anonymous At Work
In Florida, we are reopening the Florida way!
(Which is not just stupid, but colossally stupid in magnificent and unbelievable ways.)
japa21
Beautiful area of the country. Went there fall of 2016 for a wedding. Nice wineries and Ithaca’s farmer’s market was amazing. Don’t know if it is open.
Crashman06
Mass. opened up playgrounds at the beginning of the week but it must be subject to local rules. We walked to three different playgrounds in our town and all three were still closed. I hope they open soon because the kids need to run off some energy. We passed by my favorite local place on the way home and their patio was open and busy, albeit with masks and appropriate distancing. I would love to visit but the kids would make it too complicated I think. Alas…
Brachiator
Just as the Empire Strikes Back, in Southern California, conservatives strike back. Maybe it’s like this in some other areas of the country as well. And Trump doesn’t help. But there have been some communities that have sued to re-open, to avoid masks, and to defy health department orders and recommendations.
The crux of the problem is that even when these fools agree that the regulations are reasonable, they bitterly resent being told what to do. They need to believe in the myth of personal responsibility and that they can figure out on their own exactly what they should do, without control by the nanny state.
And in Orange County you have the wack jobs who made death threats against the female health director, ultimately forcing her to resign. And at a recent public meeting there were idiots who insisted that they could not pray with a mask on, that masks forced them to inhale toxins, and all other ridiculous shit.
And even here in the Los Angeles area, I have seen young people out in public without masks, often exercising, running, or biking and preening, as if to advertise their purported invulnerability with respect to the virus.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
With cases on the rise in my state, I’m not venturing out much, and certainly not hanging around in public places for fun…
I do want to support my local restaurants, but a trip for takeout is inconvenient (and don’t get me started on disappointing delivery experiences), plus eating at home more has been so much healthier!
Some pub tots and a chicken burger sure sound appetizing right about now, though…
Baud
@Brachiator: I think exercising outside without masks has been permitted in most places, so long as the surroundings are not crowded.
mrmoshpotato
@Anonymous At Work: Is Rick Scott planning on committing Medicare fraud again with all of the upcoming hospital stays?
PsiFighter37
@Brachiator: I have been running with a mask outside in NYC the whole time, even in the depths of the pandemic. But I am always running in the street, off the sidewalk, to avoid being close to people, and when I am on the river, I am not worried about being close to people for more than a second or two when running at 7 AM in the morning at a sub-7:00/mile pace.
I would be very interested to hear what the issues are in California. Specifically, it seems like it is SoCal (LA / OC) that is the drive of infection rates going up, although it seemed like the San Joaquin Valley (where all the farming is) is a source of rising infections as well. SF / NorCal generally seems to be in good shape. I had been hoping that CA would have things under control such that my family and I could take a much-needed respite over 2.5 weeks or so in late August on the PCH, but now I want to see how things develop. At this rate, I will probably avoid flying into LA (maybe Santa Barbara) and drive from there up the coast to SF.
BruceFromOhio
Ithaca is lovely, as is the surrounding area. My neck of the woods in the buckeye is chock full of covidiots. MrsFromOhio and I rarely leave the grounds, except for groceries and takeout. She did a few garden center runs, and the experience was unhealthy, both mentally and physically as few patrons were masked. I’d love to see something like a “America would be COVID-19 FREE in 60 days if everyone wore a mask in public!” campaign.
Brachiator
@Baud:
For a while, in some Southern California communities, masks were required when you were outside. And some of the young people I describe were in crowded areas, near a local community college, for example, and were walking and preening before taking up their run again, or after exercising. Again, if I were filming a nature documentary, I would say that they were preening and announcing their “fitness.”
Cyclists I had no problems with, whatever the rules were. They were speeding by and so a non-issue.
John Revolta
@Brachiator: they could not pray with a mask on
?????? What, God has to read their lips?
Or, more likely, other people won’t be able to see them praying??
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Baud: I agree. I ride my bike on the Erie Canal trail and pop up my mask when I’m passing people, but I think that’s probably unnecessary. It’s the indoor exposure that’s the issue.
mrmoshpotato
@John Revolta: God can’t read their minds through the tin foil hats.
zzyzx
I also have been running sans mask because that’s what the science has shown to be accurate. And as a diabetic, I need to exercise because that reduces insulin resistance which appears to be a major component to corona side effects.
But I also use side streets at 6-7 AM and see maybe 1 person a mile and I go into the street if need be to avoid them. However, I do NOT have a sub 7 minute pace. I figure an 8:20 mile pace isn’t too bad for a man in his 50s.
PsiFighter37
@Brachiator: In NYC, bikers are definitely wearing masks more than runners. It makes sense IMO – you do not need to exert yourself as hard on a bike versus running.
Mary G
Some Californians of all political persuasions love the beach in particular and the outdoors in general more than life itself. One of my housemates came home from work yesterday and said the beaches here were packed wall to wall and my block half a mile away from the sand is full of parked cars, which used to only happen on July 4th.
It’s a blue state, but we still have at least that 27%, probably more, that hates liberals and does whatever will “own” us. Orange County, where I live, is still hitting record highs of new cases, hospitalizations, and ICU beds. On the other hand, it’s a very shallow, flattened curve. We have 703 total ICU beds available and only 144 occupied by COVID19 patients today. In a county of 3.1 million we’ve only had 221 deaths, 102 of them from nursing homes and none from jails, which has led most people to conclude they aren’t at risk.
I have questions about testing and whether the reporting is completely accurate, because a lot of lower level politicians here are still very Republican (for California, that means socially liberal but tax hating) and we’ve had a lot of loud OPEN UP FOR FREEDOM protests here with astroturfed participants. Our female health director, like Amy Acton in Ohio, resigned because she got so many threats and abuse.
So my TL,DR is a combo platter of cabin fever and racism.
PsiFighter37
@zzyzx: Yeah, even that is okay. Just when I get to the river, I intentionally run on the bike path – I figure that means I am less likely to have as many touch points with people who are jogging or walking.
PsiFighter37
@Mary G: Sounds about right. Someone I know who lives in the OC went out for dinner last week and said indoor dining limitations were basically nonexistent.
Sister Golden Bear
@PsiFighter37: To state the obvious, California is a big state, so it makes sense to think of the epidemic on a regional basis.
As @Brachiator: noted, urbanized SoCal areas are being opened up too soon due to a conservative backlash. The San Joaquin Valley is seeing outbreaks among farmworkers — being poor, living in substandard conditions, etc. put them at much higher risk.
But in fairness, there’s a lot of rural counties that had few cases thanks to an aggressive initial efforts, and they’ve met the criteria for reopening, so they’re taking the lead. We’ll see whether they’ll start getting outbreaks, especially as people from other areas start visiting. (Last I heard, Lake Tahoe still was telling tourists to stay away.)
The Bay Area is starting to reopen — e.g. we just allowed outdoor dining, and retail business can operate via curb pick-up.
I get the sense that some the statewide loosing up is giving in a bit to quarantine fatigue, and trying to encourage harm-reduction rather than have people simply stop ignoring the restrictions.
zzyzx
@PsiFighter37: the bike path (that I use for a few blocks) is the bane of my existence because it gets so much more crowded than the rest of my route. About 3-4 weeks ago, a bicyclist got within 2-3 inches of me and he turned his head and screamed something as he passed (I think it was just a greeting) which felt like the one way I could possibly get Corona through my activity.
Sister Golden Bear
@PsiFighter37: FWIW, the California covid tracker gives a county-by-county breakdown that you could use for your route planning.
PsiFighter37
@Sister Golden Bear: I understand that people are getting fatigued – tell that to someone who has been cooped up in a Manhattan apartment, trying to work and watch an infant during the workweek, for 3 months now – but that does not mean people can go back ‘to the way things were’. People need to wear masks, full stop, no matter how uncomfortable it is – and trust me, it is no fun wearing one when it’s 90 and humid in the concrete jungle – but the vast majority of people here are adhering to that.
What this whole pandemic is showing is just how selfish most Americans are. How can more-densely populated countries in Europe be doing far better than we are? Sure, they have better leadership (whereas our federal government is basically nonfunctional), but it’s also a cultural thing.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Well at least in stores, masks are required here in LA county. Not everyone seems to have a clue as to how a mask works (by wearing it and actually covering both nose and mouth!) but still, vast majority is better than none. The walking, bike riding mask less part gets me but I stay as far away as I can from others so that works. And we can’t legislate intelligence or even stupidity. And with the stupidity role model we have in the WH, that doesn’t seem like it will ever get better.
NYCMT
Ithaca is lovely. I lived there for nine years during college at Cornell and afterwards, before moving to New York City to make a more adult life. We visited for a few days last summer and I have recommendations, even after close to twenty years worth of atrophy in my townie nous.
Where did you eat outdoors? The Commons was reconfigured some years back to accommodate more outdoors dining. We ate lunch at Viva Tacqueria and (out of nostalgia) at Sangam’s in Collegetown, but the combo of toddler and seven year old meant that dinners were cooked in the Airbnb.
I really miss the wineries.
Annie
@Sister Golden Bear:
I live in San Francisco and I think since we did reasonably well so far, and the huge wave of cases did not develop, a kind of denial has set in — “ oh we’ll be OK.” I feel it myself — I understand and agree with, and have obeyed all regulations about masking, I’ve gone out only for essential trips to the grocery store, I’ve worked nearly entirely from home – and at the same time I miss my old life. If I had lost my job in this and had no income I’d probably feel a lot differently about it all.
zzyzx
@PsiFighter37: I don’t know if I’d say that most are doing better. Germany is but a lot of the European countries have had per capita death rates close to twice what we’ve seen in the US.
A Ghost to Most
I’m glad you’re enjoying a break.
Since you are relaxing, don’t look at this WaPo article.
Scant evidence of antifa shows how sweeping the protests for racial justice have become
Especially don’t look at the 4K+ comments, many where people profess allegiance to the memory of the soldiers of WWII, and claim to be antifa.
Go on with your bad self. The Resistance Auxillary is the right place for you.
pamelabrown53
Last week, (I live in El Paso, Tx.) made a Walgreens run. A woman I guesstimate as in her 30’s wasn’t wearing a mask and I confronted her. She told me that masks don’t do anything anyway and I just saw red! Unfortunately, when I’m upset, I experience adrenaline flooding and find it hard to think clearly. I managed to sputter that it’s important to wear a mask for community health. She told me I shouldn’t “yell” at her in front of her kids. I remarked that she should be a role model for her kids. Awful experience as I suck at confrontation
CaseyL
Washington State is also doing county-by-county reopening, and our case load is rising again. I haven’t seen the county breakdowns, and there’s a chance the increase is due to increased testing… but I was looking forward to road tripping within the state sometime this summer and now I’m not so sure.
debbie
@PsiFighter37:
Absolutely. It’ll be the death of us all.
wmd
@PsiFighter37:
I checked a county by county tracker for my county (Santa Cruz) and bay area counties in general. Positive tests are up here and nearby (Except San Benito county). We’re at stage 3 as of Friday (and there was some cheating with “soft openings” for invited guests to bars and restaurants a few days early.
I recall a couple of weeks back some reporting on track and trace readiness that California in general was looking ready. No idea if it is happening in a timely fashion, and while it is possible to do it remote it would be good to see track and trace effectiveness data at county level granularity. I expect that to be available in the next couple of weeks. I don’t intend to even attempt to have a beer at a bar before July 4; if it looks unsafe I’ll go in long enough to tip the staff (and tip them well, they’re doing hazardous work) and turn around. Social distancing and bars don’t really work unless you have a party of people from your bubble with you.
Brachiator
Some re-opening observations.
Yesterday I walked to my local coffee shop to get some afternoon takeout. I went about 45 minutes before closing. I had not been by in about a week.
It’s a small place and I noticed that some of the tables were put out. Here in Southern California, some eateries have been allowed to accept customers. After ordering, the owner asked if I would like to eat in, noting that he would be staying open past closing time. I said OK.
It felt good to be able to sit and eat, and not take food back home. There were only 3 other people there, a single guy and a couple.
But as I sat more people started coming by, some regulars and a few newbies. Everyone coming in wore masks. Everyone decided to stay and sit. Not a lot of people and everyone was accommodated.
One lady, with her husband, noted that the day was the first time that she had been out at all since the shelter-in-place orders were given.
Thing is, as much as I enjoyed being out and able to relax and eat, I noticed that I thought that the tables were a little too near each other. However, the guy sitting behind me had his back to me, so I felt a little better. And of course, even though people came in with masks on, everybody removed them to eat and talk. The ventilation was good, and a couple in the back sat near an open door. But I note that in the past I didn’t think about how crowded a place was or about ventilation.
I did notice that one couple put their masks back on after they finished eating, while they sat and talked for a while.
But people clearly felt some relief and happiness at being able to get out of the house.
And yet, the place felt a little too crowded, and even though people were trying to be good and respect social distancing, I am not sure that I felt all that comfortable with everyone having their masks off, even though obviously you have to take masks off in order to eat. It was wild to note that I have to now have a mental Pandemic checklist in mind and consider whether a social space feels safe. This is unavoidable, but it still felt odd.
More post pandemic days to come.
Van Buren
Ithaca is on the short list of where I will retire, precisely because it is, AFAIK, the most progressive area of its size in New York.
Alex
The hand dryers! I forgot about those particular plague blasters. We are never going to be able to reopen schools because they can’t afford paper towels and soap already, and they definitely can’t with sales tax revenue crashing and enrollment down (if the kid isn’t there on count day the school gets no funding for them in my state).
Soprano2
In Missouri all restrictions are coming off on Tuesday (including visits to nursing homes!), and people are supposed to be responsible enough to do what’s necessary. I know how that will work – all the rural counties will act like there is no risk, and everything will open back up like the is no virus. Each city and county can have stricter requirements, so in Springfield we’re at 50% capacity and supposed to stay 6 ft apart. That doesn’t happen in a bar, and this isn’t a place where you can insist on it, because FREEDOM. The regular customers try to put chairs at the bar, which is still prohibited! I’ve had people tell me that hospitals get paid $15,000 for each COVID patient (they don’t know from where, though) so they think the hospitals are lying about COVID deaths to make money. I think it’s their way of rationalizing that it’s not a real threat. To be fair, there haven’t been that many cases here so far; the worst of it has been in St. Louis and KC. I think a lot of people don’t believe it’s a problem unless they know someone who got sick. Look for cases here to start rising in 2-3 weeks, but I guarantee no matter what no restrictions will be imposed again because freedom.
trollhattan
Brazil looks perilous and if their trajectory continues they will catch the US in cases and deaths. Bolsonaro really is a tool, failing his people badly.
Everything has ticked up in our county–cases, deaths, traffic, noticeably more folks out and about. It’s not concerning just yet but the last week’s trend needs to ease off.
Brachiator
@wmd:
Bubbles are becoming a thing for the post pandemic world. These UK rules are pretty comprehensive.
Who you choose to bubble up with can take on huge social importance. “Yeah, I like you, baby, but not enough to include you in my bubble.”
I think that social bubbles may be used at schools as well. Worse than a clique.
trollhattan
@NYCMT:
When the kid was picking which Ivies to apply to, I whispered “Cornell” based solely on the aerial images. Place looks magical. Does she listen? Nooooo.
NotMax
Did the monthly Costco run on Friday. No waiting outside to get in and number of customers appeared close to pre-lockdown. Everyone masked (it’s required). 3 or 4 carts lined up at each register, which is a sign of normality.
Well stocked with everything, no obvious gaps in merchandise selection with the exception of the bakery area which was not displaying the usual sheet cakes, only round layer cakes. Noticed that the food court has reduced the menu to just hot dogs and pizza. And only cheese or pepperoni pizza; no combo, no veggie.
Spinoza Is My Co-pilot
Masking, or not, is all over the place (metaphorically speaking). Most (though not all) epidemiological and infectious disease experts recommend some form of mask-wearing, but even with that generalized consensus there is nothing like a true standard for the public on exactly what type of masks should be used, and in what settings.
Some believe cloth masks (like bandanas) are mostly just fine, while others claim only N-95 masks are really any use (even though very few outside trained medical personnel know how to fit them properly to the face). Some say masks should be worn by everyone everywhere away from their home, whether indoors or out, others say outdoor mask-wearing is unnecessary unless you are in a crowd where social-distancing (“physical-distancing” as Dr. Osterholm puts it better, I’d say) is not possible.
Reports vary as widely as can be from all quarters, in the country and the world, on what percentage of people are wearing masks, and where they are (or are not) wearing them.
I wear bandana-style cloth masks when I am away from home indoors (which has only been the grocery store and a couple trips to the Home Depot for the past three months) but I don’t wear a mask when I’m out riding my bike or walking the dog or on a couple visits we’ve made to the state park with our pre-school age granddaughters (who we’ve been full-time daycare for since early March). It’s not difficult at all to avoid being anywhere near anyone else in those settings. Outdoors, I’ve only worn a mask to the protests here (along with nearly 100% of the others around me, except, of course, for the fucking cops who have been 100% unmasked). My infectious disease specialist wife, and her colleagues at several hospitals here (AZ), believe this to be sufficiently prudent, and I’ll continue to follow their lead.
However, there’s an article in the most recent New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert about her recent visit to Iceland to report on their response and experience with the pandemic. That response was planned and instituted by their top public health authorities (including the chief epidemiologist and national director of health) with the politicians wholeheartedly supporting them and the public (so it seems) largely following their recommendations and instructions. And mask-wearing wasn’t even in the conversation. Pretty much no one in Iceland has been wearing masks (and the director of health, Dr. Moller, is even quoted in the article mildly dismissing mask-wearing by the general public). Although in mid-March Iceland’s rate of COVID-19 infections surpassed the rate in the US at that time, by mid-May they had gotten that down to essentially zero, with one of the lowest overall mortality rates in the world from the disease. Have to say, makes me wonder.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: I went to TJ’s here in NoVA this afternoon – the first time I’ve gone in probably 8 weeks. There was only a 3-4 person line to get in, everyone separated by 6 feet and in masks. The carts were sanitized by a couple of workers and hand sanitizer was available. They were limiting the number of people inside.
All of that was the same as a couple of months ago.
But the place seemed more crowded. Too many people stopped in the aisles, people having to go around them, etc., compared to my memory of last time.
It made me uncomfortable. :-(
I think I got enough of our staples from that store that I won’t need to go back for another month at least.
The Rt numbers for VA look pretty good and have been falling, but we’re on the path to more opening up and that worries me. Too many are getting too complacent.
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ivan X
Here in Santa Barbara County, it’s been very low case counts, and even that has been elevated by the prison in Lompoc. And SB is a small town, so if people were dying, everyone would know. As a result, in the absence of a perceived threat, even smart people I know are switching to a kind of “best intention” social distancing — letting their kids have playdates, having a friend come over once in a while, etc, and masks are mostly being worn, but I think they’re also seen as something of a nicety, rather than a necessity.
And then there are plenty of people who are just being dumb idiots, walking around in a busier area (State St is closed to traffic so people can dine outside) with a mask around their neck, not their nose and mouth. Or someone wearing a mask but then they have to sample their latte and have a whole maskless conversation about it with the cashier. People are stupid. And the beaches can be pretty full; I think there’s a perception that if you’re outside, the risk is pretty low. Also, salt air kills viruses, doncha know?
I’m still being very conscious about mask wearing outside, as I want to keep myself safe and not make anyone feel unsafe, but I hate it. It’s uncomfortable after a few minutes. I’m also perfectly happy never leaving the house, so I don’t, because I’d rather stay inside without a mask on.
Let’s face it, this is not a normal state of human affairs, at least in our individualist culture, and people don’t do well with abstract, as opposed to personally felt, threats that inconvenience them. (See climate change.) I was talking to someone I know in Israel who said that when the rules were clear and strict, everyone complied, but once they started “relaxing” things, thereby making it a grey area, distancing really broke down.
I suspect that something like contact tracing requires competence, infrastructure, and organization, which state, city, and county governments are hardly famous for or uniform around. I’m sure some will get it righter than others. Strong and smart federal guidelines, and training for states, would be helpful, but these are not those times.
Fair Economist
In OC CA the problem seems to be mostly people not following rules. I wear masks everywhere and only go out to get groceries and drugstore necessities. People are pretty good about masks inside my grocery store but outside? Forget it. Traffic is almost back to normal even though there are still supposed to be fair number of restrictions. Hubby’s workplace reopens tomorrow; they’re supposed to wear masks but they don’t. I told my husband to complain and report but I think he’d rather whinge to me :-/
Unsurprisingly cases, hospitalization, and ICU usage are all at all time highs. Still not bad by national standards but relentlessly worsening since the big orange blob told everybody to go out and die for the Dow. So I’m staying on lockdown American style (much laxer than Europe but no restaurants or shopping). I’d been planning to visit my mother during the anticipated summer slowdown but it seems the idiot are so idiotic I’ll not get the chance.
FWIW cases and deaths in CA are currently driven by LA county, which is about 2/3 of statewide. Trends look bad in a number of other places, but LA still has the numbers. Lately their cases are climbing but deaths remain plateaued, so maybe it won’t be *too* bad
I actually approve of “bubbling”. It’s a good way to get some social interaction without a huge spreading risk. You can’t get a superspreading event from bubble interactions because there’s only a few people, so decent contact tracing could keep things under control. I’ve been recommending it for people living alone for a while.
Another Scott
Relatedly, …
+1
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
I noticed that pizza hut is emphasizing that no one touches your pizza after it is cooked. It’s oven fired, pulled out with the paddle, put in the box, sealed and ready for pick up or delivery.
And I noted more pizza deliveries on my street recently.
ETA: The food court area of my local supermarket has reduced the number of items available.
Kent
I’m down in the Vancouver area. The increase in WA seems almost entirely attributable to food processing industries. The latest is a huge outbreak on factory trawlers. Down here in Vancouver it was a big fruit and vegetable processing plant. And in Central WA it is the meat and industrial farming.
We are planning a vacation to the San Juans in July. It is the only week this summer that my wife has off and our original plans to go to NYC and a family reunion on the east coast are all toast. I found a remote AirB&B house on San Juan Island where we can vacation and self-isolate. Looking at the stats there have only been 19 cases in that county since March so not a hot spot. I don’t know if we will even do any eating out. Might just cook at home.
My daughter is a rising HS senior and we were planning lots of college visits this summer. the CA ones are likely a no-go. But Gongzaga is opening back up for tours in the end of June. I expect the other schools will soon follow.
burnspbesq
@Van Buren:
if you haven’t done so already, spend a week there in February before you irrevocably commit to that course of action.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: You are so brave.
::swoon::
burnspbesq
@Another Scott:
Fuck that. Right now they’re a force for good. I can unsubscribe after Biden is sworn in.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
People do pretty well at my local supermarket. However, the aisles are marked for one-way traffic and this is not always respected.
There are some peak periods where people have to line up and wait before being allowed in. It’s a minor pain.
I wonder about the additional costs some businesses may be incurring. Even though people at this particular market wear masks, as required, I note that they used to have one security guard on premises, and now have three. I’ve never noticed any problems when I’ve been there, so I am not sure what this is about.
way2blue
I live in San Mateo County, CA, and take a long walk on nearby trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains or neighborhood roads each afternoon. Starting the beginning of May, there was a noticeable drop off in people wearing masks. I *think* it’s a combination of coronavirus fatigue and Trump’s message that the health crisis is over being absorbed subliminally somehow. Memorial weekend was nuts. People flooded the open space & parks. Parking lots were still closed, so people parked along the shoulders. And now, I rarely see people wearing masks. Some will raise their shirt to cover their face when they see me with my Buff neck gaiter…
I’ve been told that the majority of deaths in my county are taking place in ‘retirement’ homes. Including the former President of Stanford when I was a grad student there. Many stores have a ‘gatekeeper’ at the door to make sure no one enters w/o a mask. And to restrict the number of customers inside at any time. I’ve never seen any challenges to this restriction.
But I’m worried infections are going to balloon w/o reminders of adhering to guidelines.
Kent
I would think Vermont if you want rural northeast mountain country that is progressive. And Montreal is close by for urban expeditions. But then what do I know?
pluky
@trollhattan: Ithaca in general, and Cornell in particular are “gorges” (inside joke :0). The Winters are definitely for the hardy though. Friends were shopping for the soon to be a freshman, and asked if I had any recommendations — serious boots, heavy coat with a hood, long underwear. Kid was dismissive; thought the stuff was “dorky.”
A few months in his parents texted me a photo of the receipt from the local REI in response to an urgent plea. Kids, can’t tell them about reality.
trollhattan
Biden 2020: he can run and drink water.
pluky
@burnspbesq: Absolutely! When the wind comes whipping down from Canada across Lake Cayuga things get real fast.
trollhattan
@pluky:
I can believe it! She’s a California kid 100% who occasionally “visits” snow, a scheme with considerable merit. It was an actual deliberation point with Wellesley (climate deliberation for her, sticker shock for me).
Ken
We could make a top 10 list for people and organizations doing the most to defeat Trump. My nominees for the top three slots:
3. Every member of Trump’s staff who, as Drexler puts it, talks about him as if he were a child.
2. Project Lincoln
1. Trump himself.
(Hollow laughter)
JaneE
California metro areas are blue, but anything rural or semi-rural and even outer suburbs of metro areas are pretty red. Freedumb brigade has been out in full force, doing their usual threats, including death threats, to get the restrictions lifted. For the first time in at least 25 years that I know of, the local Smart&Final has a security guard posted – presumably to make sure everyone who comes inside is wearing a mask. Our county is the only one around that still has masks in public mandatory, and I would bet money that none of our growing tourist traffic knows that. Lots of masks where locals go, almost none outside businesses that cater to tourists. Down south there are very few people wearing masks, and they are only recommended. A lot of businesses are requiring them (including Costco) and there are a lot of people at least pretending to be angry about that. Not enough to keep the line from wrapping around the building yet, earlier this week.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
I don’t know which store you were at, but my friend’s store in Clarendon has had the number of people allowed inside at once go up and down. For quite a while it was 30, but a few weeks ago they upped it to 40, I think.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
+100
Another Scott
@Steeplejack (phone): It was the Old Town store.
The staff was doing a good job. And it probably, objectively, wasn’t that bad. It was just more congested than I expected.
There was a line of a couple of dozen people to get in when I was leaving.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I kind of cringed at that one. Surprised to see that come from the Biden campaign. Anybody else?
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
I think it’s a send-up.
Racer X
For the most part Northern California has done well. Lots of masks and people acting rational. It helps that the tech giants have all been acting responsibly (with the exception of Tesla). I feel like you do I am pretty comfortable with the opening… it has been well thought out and so far seems to be working.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: But it has the Biden logo. ?
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Maybe Joe needs to put out a statement that says that even though Donald Trump has trouble walking and drinking water, it’s unkind to mock someone with disabilities, even if they are incompetent their job.
PsiFighter37
@WaterGirl: Not an official campaign ad. Someone slapped the Biden campaign logo on at the end.
wvng
Just saw a picture of a Kid Rock bar in Nashville,just packed, with hundreds of unmasked people. Horrifying.
WaterGirl
@PsiFighter37: I didn’t know that at #62 and #65, but I did know it in time for my suggestion at #66.
Who can fault Joe Biden for saying it’s rude and unkind to mock Trump for the disabilities he can’t control. :-)
Marigold
Our community relies heavily on tourism–roughly half the city’s budget would be gone if our amusement park didn’t open for the season, and many business owners use their summer profits to survive the winter. Despite that, it seemed like most people accepted that we just had to get through it together. I bought twice as much takeout as normal, and nearly every time I was impressed at the effort they had taken.
Coronavirus fatigue seemed to hit my conscientious friends around early May, and when manufacturing was allowed to reopen, I got to hear resentful, “Well, *I* don’t know anyone who’s had it,” from the hourly guys. Now the tourists, who have never let basic human decency get in the way of their vacation, are wandering slack-jawed and maskless at the grocery store, looking for bait and a case of PBR. The knowledge that we’ll probably have a spike in local cases makes my chest tight.
We’ve had a different couple over the last few weekends for barbeque and poolside socializing. I’m a little worried, but by staying mainly outside, and with an average incubation of 5 days, I think we should be able to avoid contaminating other bubbles even if we were exposed.
Geminid
CorgiMum
We normally go to Watkin’s Glen in the Finger Lakes the first week in September (for a vintage Grand Prix up at the racetrack plus a festival in town) but have cancelled that for this year. I’m still trying to order wine on-line from my favorite wineries to support them though :-) Sorry I can’t get up there this year, I do love that area.
NYCMT
@pluky: Course Exchange January 1996 is not likely to recur; I remember standing outside Barton in a peacoat at 8am and it was twenty-six degrees below zero.
My own damn fault, of course. I grew up in the Catskills and knew from what cold was, but I was also vain.
(I took a very long hot shower when I got back to my Ecohouse dorm, and shook out the parka and wore the parka instead of the peacoat for the next seven years)
kindness
I went to Ithaca College for 2 years after high school. Then I moved out west. Loved the town. The winters were brutal. Lots of lake effect storming. A couple of old friends stayed on so I still see their posts on FB. It was a different town in 75.
Sure Lurkalot
@Spinoza Is My Co-pilot: Probably too late for a reply but Iceland has a population of about 370K, and like NZ, were able to contain the virus, not mitigate it. Being an Island night have some bearing. Still good to have an expert be your spouse!
glc
What’s showing up in the CA statistics so far is heavily LA County (1/2 the cases, 1/4 the population).
One can find a number of articles about this in the LA times. The one from June 6 is titled.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-06/bay-area-los-angeles-coronavirus-reopening
Bay area closed faster, opened slower. It is noted that the differing policies in neighboring counties translated into political (or economic, or other …) pressure which may have played a role as far as the divergence around reopening is concerned.
LA County has the second highest COVID-19 mortality rate per capita in CA – Imperial has the first, but it is LA that provides much of the signal in the aggregate.
I had been wondering about this situation for some time but still have only a very loose grasp on it.
To put this in perspective, I believe the following are the recent cumulative mortality rates per million for various hot spots by that metric (arbitrarily identified with regions defined by political boundaries).
NY State: 2888 | Quebec Province: 593 | Spain: 580 | UK: 567 | Rio de Janeiro Province: 365 | LA County: 263 | Lima region: 258
Of course the trends vary a great deal, with Latin America currently exploding upwards and California continuing its less explosive but steady deterioration, and some others having peaked and descended rapidly. But this establishes the general scale in relative terms.
As in much of the country, there are also major difficulties associated with nursing homes in California and it would probably be helpful to split the stats into two groups. At one point my state, NJ, was trending down quickly in non-nursing home mortality and up in nursing home mortality, and since the nursing home total was about half of the whole, this sort of thing can muddy the waters.
As a NJ resident with family in LA I’ve been paying closer attention to the numbers and policies in my own region, but I would certainly like to understand more about what is going on out there.
bluefoot
@pluky: I remember back when I was in school there. Fashion in the winter was having good boots in a color other than then standard black or brown. One of my friends would run while wearing ski goggles to protect his eyes from the Ithaca wind.
I love the entire Finger Lakes region. It’s so beautiful, even in the bleak winter.
Bill Arnold
@Sure Lurkalot:
I’m in a county in Southern New York that has exactly the same population as Iceland. Containment was out of the question; too much traffic from other areas, including commuters to/from NY City and Westchester. Community spread was inevitable, even if there had been more testing and contract tracing, and early on it was pretty hard to get tested and there is still no formal contact tracing. The lockdown helped, but what has made the most difference IMO was the face coverings indoors in public places order by Cuomo on April 17. The new case rate started dropping 5-10 days later even though many more people were out and going to stores, and is now in the territory of 5-10 new positive tests per day (385k pop), some of which are probably from exposure in places with less strict measures. Though the nearby states also have mask/face covering orders, and good looking declines in their new case numbers.
Also, some of the anti-masking sentiment in the medical community is essentially non-scientific 100 year old dogma dating back to a few weak statistical studies during/after the Spanish (Kansas) flu pandemic, where people used a few layers of gauze for their cloth masks, much poorer than what we’re currently using. There is observational evidence from the era that masks were effective when mandatory. (San Francisco IIRC.)
A tell is that there is so much emphasis on hand washing; there are no studies (that know of) that demonstrate that these measures have any significant effect on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. (There’s a weak (though interesting) study related to other (endemic) coronaviruses and prevalence of infection; that’s about it.) Public health authorities including the WHO & CDC are throwing their usual toolkit of pandemic/epidemic measures at the problem, and their toolkit initially did not including universal public masking because, well, 100 year old dogma and nobody had done a controlled study of universal masking during a pandemic since them. Now, we are doing the study, through a bunch of natural experiments plus much better record keeping and video surveillance records to better measure levels of mask discipline in various jurisdictions. (Haven’t seen any discussion of mining such records but it will be done IMO.)
I’m happily in an intervention arm of this study, NY State. Late response, lotsa death initially in NYC, but looking OK now and still improving.
glc
@Bill Arnold:
Back toward the beginning of the lockdown I followed Nina Fefferman’s seminar, and the mask question was asked at the end of that. Even at that time she was very careful in her answer to say that if one avoided two pitfalls it seemed like a good idea. The pitfalls she had in mind were the following.
1. Not using equipment needed by medical personnel and in short supply.
2. Making sure the mask fit properly and that one was sufficiently accustomed to it not to have it become another reason to touch one’s face.
This was before the information about transmission primarily by droplets (and super-spreaders) was filled in. It seemed like the guidance shifted appropriately. Though the WHO only shifted its guidance on June 5, and continues to emphasize its concern that this not be thought of as a sufficient measure by itself.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Sure Lurkalot:
And now I’m the one who’s likely (much) too late in my response back to you, but thanks for your reply. I made much the same comment regarding the New Yorker article about Iceland in a LGM post a lot earlier today (in a discussion there about wearing masks) but between that thread and here yours has been the only response.
It’s an important topic, and goes right to the heart of the left/right “culture war” aspect of people’s reaction to the pandemic. The truth is, we don’t know, for an indisputable fact, that wearing masks (with variables to consider: what kind of mask? indoors and outdoors both? maybe just indoors, unless in a crowd?) is actually effective in preventing or even significantly reducing the spread of this novel coronavirus. It’s certainly logical that it likely would, based on the (also quite logical) theory that aerosol transmission is the primary vector for the disease (which is the same primary rationale behind social – or physical – distancing).
And so the prudent course is to wear a mask in public, which is why most epidemiologists/infectious disease experts – from my wife and her colleagues here locally, up to Dr. Fauci and others at his level – agree generally that we should. But there we still run afoul of the variables, and the consensus of exactly what and where starts to break down, particularly on the question of “to mask, or not to mask” outdoors.
Then there’s Iceland, with essentially no mask-wearing at all based on the population’s (obvious) trust in their public health authorities with their epidemiological-minority opinion about masks. And whether or not you want to say “contained” or “mitigated” (I’d say they did both) they did manage – through a well-planned and executed set of by-now-familiar schemes such as rigorous testing, tracing, tracking, quarantine, etc. – to have some of the least-damaging overall effects from COVID-19 of any society on Earth. As the New Yorker article put it, by mid-May they hadn’t just flattened the curve, they had virtually eliminated it.
Yes, they are a fairly small and quite remote island nation, with an exceptionally homogeneous genetic stock (I’m guessing that last is somehow an important factor) and a population that must be significantly-healthier overall than, say, that of NYC (also likely an important factor). But the novel coronavirus did arrive at their shore and did begin moving – very rapidly early on – through the people, most of whom (2/3 of the total pop. of 370K) live in and around Reykjavik, a typically-modern Western European city not terribly unlike most others (just, you know, smallish, and, well, not very cosmopolitan). We can’t dismiss them as somehow so strange and different from us that their experience through this pandemic has little or no relevance for us, because that’s not true. I think it’s just the opposite, actually – their experience with the pandemic is tremendously relevant, and is in fact a nearly-perfect control group for this inadvertent worldwide medical experiment we’re all going through.
So, the question remains: if public mask-wearing is such an important, even vital, tool in preventing or at least mitigating the spread of this disease, then how were these people so successful without using it at all? I won’t be surprised if the answer ends up being that masks really aren’t that important (or, as Iceland’s national director of health is quoted in the article: “We think they don’t add that much”). I also won’t be too surprised if it turns out that there is some anomaly that’s found that explains how mask-wearing was unnecessary in Iceland, but that doesn’t apply elsewhere. I’ll be the least-surprised if we never really know for sure one way or the other, and so we should just stay on the prudent course of wearing our masks (and then the questions are still: “Where? And for how much longer?”).
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Bill Arnold: This is almost certainly a very dead thread, but if you’re still looking in, take a peak at my response to Sure Lurkalot at #80. I appreciate your take, though my infectious disease specialist wife and her colleagues will fight you tooth and nail about hand-washing (I’m not saying they’re right and you’re wrong — I actually lean in your direction — just that that’s a hill they’re ready to die on).
oldster
On Iceland: doesn’t this show that masks are not important?
No.
Iceland shows that masks are not important IF you have a highly centralized and well- coordinated test-trace-isolate regime in place, with universal voluntary compliance from the population.
If you don’t have that, you had better use masks.
Kevin Drum collects studies, and here are some recent ones showing masks having large effects: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/06/two-new-studies-confirm-it-wear-a-mask/
People aren’t very good at the logic of disjoint necessity, i.e. A is not necessary and B is not necessary and C is not necessary, but at least one of A or B or C *is* necessary.
And yet everyone understands it in particular cases: you don’t need cash to buy gas and you don’t need a credit card to buy gas, but you need to have at least one of those to buy gas.
What you cannot do is to come here with neither, point to the guy paying with credit, and say, “so that shows cash isn’t necessary,” point to the guy paying with cash and say “so that shows credit isn’t necessary,” and then conclude you can take the gas for free without paying.
People get that with disjunctively necessary means of payment.
But with public health measures, they don’t (yet). Thinking that you can skip what Iceland skipped without doing what Iceland did is thinking that you can skip the credit payment without paying in cash.
Bill Arnold
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
As they should. I was being a little unclear; hand washing hasn’t been proven to significantly reduce transmission in the public of SARS-CoV-2, so its scientific status is if anything more dubious than the scientific status of mask wearing as a means of limiting spread in the public in a pandemic of SARS-CoV-2.
However, hand-washing is clearly important, very very important, for many other common pathogens, and may help with SARS-CoV-2. It’s just when i see e.g. a video of a young maskless beach goer in Florida (?) saying that she is very careful about hand washing, but (implied – she didn’t say this) may be going into changing rooms/bathrooms without masks, I get a little irritated. Hand sanitation was still on top of the CDC COVID-19 bullet point list last I looked.
(Dead thread, yes; this is mainly for google and the record.)