Back in March, when my school shut down, I bought into the "3 weeks to bend the curve". We didn't know what we were up against, possibly something as bad as the Black Death or the Spanish Flu. Stay home a couple weeks, let the hospitals ramp up, then get back to life as usual.
How naive I was--because I believed those in power.
I hope these vaccines work, because I don't know how much longer people will tolerate lockdowns that don't do anything good. We're told decisions are based on science! (said in best Thomas Dolby voice) but the evidence tells us otherwise.
San Mateo County, California, was one of the first jurisdictions in the United States to fight the COVID-19 epidemic with sweeping restrictions on social and economic activity. It joined five other San Francisco Bay Area counties in issuing "shelter in place" orders on March 16, three days before Gov. Gavin Newsom made California the first state to impose a COVID-19 lockdown. San Mateo County Health Officer Scott Morrow's misgivings about reviving that policy are therefore especially striking. "I'm not sure we know what we're doing," Morrow confesses in a remarkable statement he posted on the San Mateo County health department's website this week.
It would be nice if more people in positions of responsibility were as honest.
So, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked (California HHS Secretary Mark) Ghaly, “There have been some criticisms, including from the Assistant Secretary of HHS, who said on Fox News, ‘I don’t know of any data that says we need to shut down outdoor dining.’ I’m wondering if you can respond to that?” Ghaly replied:
“As it relates to the question about indoor dining or outdoor dining, I think one thing that I have tried to message and emphasize is that right now we’re seeing such high levels of transmission that…every activity that can be done differently and keep us at our homes, not mixing with others, is safer. Those are going to be the tools that help us get this under control.
“So the decision to include, among other sectors, outdoor dining, and limiting that, turning to restaurants to deliver and provide takeout options instead, really has to do with the goal of trying to keep people at home, not a comment on the relative safety of outdoor dining.
I've been saying it for awhile now: these lockdowns are about power, not about science!
California officials will allow playgrounds in the state to remain open following a backlash over a restrictive stay-at-home coronavirus order affecting parts of the state that have less than 15% intensive care unit-capacity in hospitals, according to reports...
“This kind of reversal on restrictions that have no data behind them, that make no biologic sense, and that affect low-income groups disproportionally is good governance and should keep on coming!" She wrote in an email, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
If science! were guiding the decisions, the playground rule wouldn't have been made in the first place. And if the playground rule was made based on science!, it wouldn't have been overturned just because people didn't like it.
One of these days I'm going to gather together all my fb posts screaming about the damage being done to our kids by closing schools. My European friends all shake their heads, because even those in hard-hit Belgium, have been sending their kids to school all year.
ReplyDeleteOne friend has twins in 1st grade. She said that about 50% of their classmates are getting individual tutoring to try to catch them up, and that was after missing only the end of last year. Kids here are now down the better part of a year of school.
My US friends are overwhelmingly liberal to hyper-liberal (and proud of it) and they were either silent, or blasting me for my rants.
People whose own sense of worth is wrapped up in showing how much the care (by voting liberal), universally turned a blind eye to the damage we are doing to an entire generation of kids, with those suffering most coming from our most disadvantaged groups. When the time came to take a stand that actually mattered, that would actually prevent massive damage to our poor and minority neighbors, they all were silent.
Absolutely infuriating.
The world revolves around the older Boomer YOLO lifestyle. Since they keep the property tax high, their restaurant workers live in crowded conditions, passing the virus around. The profit margin the boomers need to finance their lifestyle doesn't allow the restaurant or bar to invest in handwash stations, cleaning between groups or the kind of air handling needed to prevent disease transmission. The employees will never be tested. Thus the shut downs.
ReplyDeleteI had a good discussion at my public library in early March. Many patrons were walking in stating "I've been sick, and needed to get out of the house", then coughing and sneezing without covering etc. and walking up to other patrons and coughing/spitting/sneezing on them. I'm not talking homeless using the library as a hangout, just disabled and seniors who have the ethics that its okay to knowingly give what ails you to someone else, with the reasoning that there is a pill for it. (which by the way isn't low cost or free to people who work outside of gov't) The discussion revealed the library was powerless...a person with symptoms of pinkeye, whooping cough, impetigo,or having bodily fluids leaking out etc can hang out as long as they want, and the library isn't going to clean the keyboards, anything. I"ll never go back.
Interesting that you addressed nothing I wrote about.
ReplyDeleteYour view of restaurants doesn't match the reality I see. How many have spent thousands trying to set up outdoor eating areas, just to stay open? And even then, they're only allowed 25% capacity. THAT, not some amorphous "Boomer lifestyle", is what is causing what restaurants are left not to have a profit margin.
I am addressing the bolded - relative safety of dining..in the hot zone I live in, since that's what I see. The owners are not putting a dime into sanitation, despite raising prices to ensure the level of profit desired. Big push to 'support local'. No push for employee distancing, employee testing, employee safety. Employees paid so little that they live one family to a bedroom, or a couple of guys in the back of the restaurant. Continuous notices of local restaurants closing for two weeks at a time because of employees testing positive. No industry standard, as there is in say, hair salons.
ReplyDeleteIts great that in your area its much safer. Bon apetit.
Auntie Ann - Do you still have a blog? I would like to follow it.
ReplyDeleteAnd restaurants are *still* losing money hand and fist, lgm.
ReplyDeleteI've adopted 2 restaurants to spend money at. One is not far from my house, owned by an Indian-American family, and the other is a Mexican restaurant managed by a former student of mine. I texted the former student last night and asked if he was working--he was ready to shut down the restaurant soon because they had *no* customers. I had him fix me 2 meals, one for dinner last night and one for lunch today, and I went and picked them up. He'd sent home just about everyone except a cook and one other employee. It's not looking good for the home team.