Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Yes. Right now, absolutely.

 

Too little too late, I'm afraid.

Now we're about to be overwhelmed.

 

If you tell people to do something they cannot do, they're gonna do it anyway, and they'll do it more often than if you'd said, "do that thing as little as you possibly can."

 

I don't disagree, but this: "stay the hell home as much as you possibly can, but when you do go out, minimize human contact and wear your mask."

is what we have been / should have been saying since March.

Now that the second wave is upon us and we've topped 100,000 hospitalizations, "stay the fuck home," is just about all we have left.

As Rick points out, things are going to get really bad before they get better.

 

My trips outside my home the last two weeks. Visits to supermarket and pharmacy. Liquor store (they have curbside pickup, never left the car on my pre-Thanksgiving visit). Hardware store (once). Neighborhood walks. That's it. That's about as minimalist as it can get, I think, without arranging food and medicine deliveries. If you tell people a regimen like that won't really protect them from the virus, many are likely then to say, "oh, fuck it, there's nothing I can do." The only message that has a chance of success is "the less you do outside your home, the safer you'll be."
The situation in France in October was really grim. Their second lockdown, which partially ended yesterday, was far, far stricter than anything in the US, and drove case incidence down from 90K a day to less than 5K a day. But with such functions as closing all consumer retail but food/wine/bakeries and limiting travel outside the home to one hour with a one-kilometer radius from said home, they still didn't close the schools and they still allowed for outside the home activity. AND the restrictions were partially lifted (bars/restaurants still closed, travel now in 20 kilometer radius, many businesses reopened) for the Christmas period because the government, far more paternalistic and overbearing than anything Americans have ever seen, knew that if they weren't, citizens would just ignore them en masse.

 

I understand.

Same draconian shutdown in the UK has been effective. Also to be eased at Christmas.

But again, the failure of US government messaging earlier in the pandemic has made everything more difficult here.

Irrespective of people's willingness to follow guidelines, they have no idea what the guidelines are. Or have been. Or should be.

So a sort aggressive helplessness sets in, and we get



this guy instead.

 

The one exception being the news conference to hire Hugh Freeze. Might as well start breaking the rules early.

 

I go into the office one day a week via the subway. I’m now seeing all the available seats (leaving every other one open) filled and a few people standing. The attitude many people are taking is, “we’ll wear masks and minimize our risk, but we can’t do anything else because the government can’t/won’t do anything.” It’s every person for themselves.

 

It's fine. This shit is wrong and I think anger is a perfectly logical response for it, and I've kicked this around in my head quite a bit.

The more you get with the program the less progress is seen. The opposite of a great society.

 

You forgot to credit Yogi Berra.

 

Political scientists on Twitter are coming up with (mostly serious) lists of three celebrities who could do ads in which they get the vaccine to convince others to take it. I didn't join in, but my suggestion would be a racially and gender diverse trio of bartenders. "Do this and you can see me again!"