Adaptation to COVID world

Exactly. You're preventing (at least a little) the spread of your own aerosols.

They may help you touch your face less, too. Although people seem to fuss with them a great deal until they get used to wearing one.

We're in Week 9 of masks and gloves and lockdown over here. We're (too) used to them.

 

This has been my understanding based on what I've read. And since everyone seems sure there are many undiagnosed cases out there walking around, I wear mine in public places like the drugstore and supermarket not so much for self-protection as to avoid freaking other people out.

 

There's also a bit of a peer pressure (or "broken windows" in the other direction) effect - if I'm wearing my mask and the next person is wearing one, someone who sees us gets the idea that wearing masks is normal and something we should all be doing.

 

to paraphrase Emily Nussbaum,

two weeks ago you got the side-eye if you wore a mask

now you get it if you don't

 

There are definitely many more masks being worn in my town than there were two weeks ago. Even saw a cyclist wearing one. That couldn't have been easy.

 

The difference between last week and now is unsettling. Don't know if it's people thinking they won the lotto with the $1,200 or what, but suddenly people are driving like maniacs - like they're all running really late for....something? Also figure people with chemical issues are still getting their fix - but I do wonder if there will be a creeping fatalism seeping into things - people no longer worrying about consequences or whatever. There is a "sub-strata" of society that is probably ready to start looting, playing Grand Theft Auto for real, doing "something" to feel like they have some control in all of this or just entertain themselves. It makes me sick hearing people explain their feelings about losing a loved one to COVID by saying "it really makes it seem real when it hits close to home."

 

She was right.

 

I had to drive across town for a curbside pickup last week and narrowly avoided several collisions with Amazon Prime drivers who apparently felt, not without reason, they were the only ones on the road. I think that's why people are driving recklessly if they do. They don't see traffic, so they get careless.

 

There seems to be a prevailing thought that police are not giving out traffic tickets right now. Simply not true. You're probably not going to get pulled over for that California stop. But you're definitely getting popped for going 90 in a 60, which is what everyone in my area seems to be doing.

 

It's really dumb. A lot of states are doing roadwork during the break. Some really maniacal driving.

 

This is why the 18-month projection for getting back to what we considered normal on March 10, for reopening the country, is in no way realistic. The longer this goes on, the longer it becomes our new normal.
A world with a deadly virus running loose is terrifying. A world with a deadly virus running loose AND where people no longer have hope, no longer have fear of consequences or respect the authority that has failed them, and have forgotten what "normal" once was, is even worse.