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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jun 29, 2021 12:44:51 GMT
As of yesterday, Pennsylvania is now mask-free. However, there are a few businesses I frequent each day with my job, all of them medical related, which still require a mask.
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Post by kds on Jun 29, 2021 12:47:05 GMT
Maryland will be mask free in July 1 once Baltimore City lifts their mandate.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 29, 2021 12:48:53 GMT
As of yesterday, Pennsylvania is now mask-free. However, there are a few businesses I frequent each day with my job, all of them medical related, which still require a mask. That makes sense. How does it feel, Sheriff John Stone? I know when our mandate lifted, it felt really, really good--a little unreal, in fact.
I only know of two businesses here that require masks. One is a gluten-free restaurant nearby (which almost says it all, if one is going to stereotype), a restaurant that literally plasters its progressive cred all over: the entire storefront of the place is covered in progressive signs, so a strong pro-mask message is not a surprise. (It is a little funny, though, insisting on 100% mask compliance in a city that's over 80% vaccinated, and a neighborhood that's probably well above that citywide average.) But yeah, not a surprise.
The other ... Penzey's Spices! I haven't been, but my parents stopped there on their way in and despite the suburban location, it required masks. I was surprised to hear that.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jun 29, 2021 13:01:04 GMT
Well, it started a few weeks ago with my church; it did feel strange to be sitting among fellow parishioners, not wearing a mask. So, I did ease into it a little bit.
I'm thinking of the right word, maybe it's "guilty", like it's still...wrong...to NOT be wearing a mask. And I was even vaccinated months ago! You know, we've all been conditioned over the last year and a half...There are still more people than I expected wearing a mask. Hey, whatever works for them. But, I'm sure I'll get over that guilty feeling shortly.
I never really did have that much of a problem with the mask. I got one early that was loose fitting, didn't hurt my ears, and didn't affect my breathing much at all. Now, I will say that I never had to wear the mask for several consecutive hours. With my job, I would wear the mask for an hour or two, leave the location I was working, take off the mask, drive in my car without the mask on, and go to another business for an hour or so. If I had a job where I had to wear the mask for seven or eight hours consecutively, I might be singing another tune.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 29, 2021 13:05:15 GMT
Well, it started a few weeks ago with my church; it did feel strange to be sitting among fellow parishioners, not wearing a mask. So, I did ease into it a little bit.
I'm thinking of the right word, maybe it's "guilty", like it's still...wrong...to NOT be wearing a mask. And I was even vaccinated months ago! You know, we've all been conditioned over the last year and a half...
I know what you mean. When I attended that funeral a month or so ago, it was probably the first relatively large gathering I'd been a part of. Without a mask on, I kept feeling, well, like you said, maybe guilty. (Perhaps being in a church didn't help! ) Going into stores, same thing: am I cheating? I'd look around, like, please don't yell at me.
For me it mostly passed within a week or two. Though I still find myself distancing in public places, and haven't been to a REALLY big gathering such as a game or concert yet. I'd guess that will feel strange.
I do wish more people would get the vaccine, though. It's their business, I'm not going to yell at them (and hey, I'm vaxxed), but it does seem to me we could get the whole thing behind us sooner if more people would just do it.
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Post by B.E. on Jun 30, 2021 0:09:40 GMT
I never really did have that much of a problem with the mask. I got one early that was loose fitting, didn't hurt my ears, and didn't affect my breathing much at all. Now, I will say that I never had to wear the mask for several consecutive hours. With my job, I would wear the mask for an hour or two, leave the location I was working, take off the mask, drive in my car without the mask on, and go to another business for an hour or so. If I had a job where I had to wear the mask for seven or eight hours consecutively, I might be singing another tune.
I'm still confused as to why I'd see people wearing a mask while driving...ALONE.
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Post by kds on Jun 30, 2021 12:39:33 GMT
I never really did have that much of a problem with the mask. I got one early that was loose fitting, didn't hurt my ears, and didn't affect my breathing much at all. Now, I will say that I never had to wear the mask for several consecutive hours. With my job, I would wear the mask for an hour or two, leave the location I was working, take off the mask, drive in my car without the mask on, and go to another business for an hour or so. If I had a job where I had to wear the mask for seven or eight hours consecutively, I might be singing another tune.
I'm still confused as to why I'd see people wearing a mask while driving...ALONE. There are just...no words. At my office building, they put a limit on elevators - only two at a time. But, that was lifted, and all the signs were taken down about a month ago. So, today, I get in and get on the elevator with two women. They were masked (despite the fact that we no longer need to be masked at work). One of the women said "You know, there's only two per elevator." I said, "that was lifted a month ago, and the signs are gone." My God, I was a shot a look that could cut a diamond.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 30, 2021 12:49:03 GMT
My office is finally likely to lift our mask mandate. It's irrelevant to me personally, since I haven't been there in months. But for a variety of reasons (e.g., corporate HQ wanting to follow the strictest recommendations for liability reasons, a lower-than-county average for vaccination rates among in-office staff, Minnesota still technically being below its initial target of 70%), we still have it in place.
Our HR manager is coming around to the overwhelming reality though: people who are concerned are vaxxed; those who aren't, aren't (and aren't going to be). It's silly for perfectly safe people who haven't worn masks in weeks to come into a building that doesn't require them, only to put them on to work in a fully distanced, sparsely populated office, and then to remove them again when they head out to more crowded skyways, restaurants, or whatever else even during the day (to say nothing of home).
The only question to be determined is whether we'll require the unvaxxed to wear them, recommend the unvaxxed wear them, or what. That plus deciding whether to get corporate approval or just act on our own.
Broadly related, Minnesota's governor announced he is ending the state of emergency that gave him extra powers throughout the pandemic. Annoyingly, the decision was a political compromise to help shepherd various legislation through our divided-government state legislature. (You'd like something like declaring or ending an emergency to be based more on objective reality than political deal-making.)
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 2, 2021 20:31:20 GMT
At Target this morning, I would estimate 35-50% of customers were masked. This is WAY up from recent visits (over the past month or so). I assume it's the delta variant people are thinking about. It was interesting to see again.
I still went without, still cranky from having just come from getting a haircut where the sign on the door "strongly recommended" masks, so I went back to my car for one ... only to then walk in to the store with nobody, not even staff, wearing them. I guess we know what their staff thinks of "strong recommendations."
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 7, 2021 13:30:46 GMT
This is long, but in summary, the points they're claiming are that there is a long-established drug, Ivermectin, that was known to be at least seemingly effective both in preventing and treating COVID-19 as early as April 2020; was proposed by legitimate, prestigious academics as such; and (being long-since out from patent protection) costs as little as $3 per treatment as compared to $3000 per dose of a prominent, recommended drug; but that it was somewhere between ignored (by major medical institutions and mainstream media) and suppressed (by YouTube, etc., in their quest for "accurate" information) while new, experimental, seemingly less effective, and far more costly treatments were proposed, developed, and remain in use.
I'm not in a position to assess the accuracy of this, and honestly I don't see myself digging in to even assess it as best as I theoretically could. But it's a pretty troubling idea, if true. And I could imagine it being true, just understanding how institutions tend to work. Wanted to update this, in that in hindsight it looks like the "wonders" of Ivermectin for Covid were, at best, exaggerated (if not outright wrong). There were a couple recent studies that were inconclusive. What's more, Bret Weinstein has also been saying what strike me as dangerous AND wrong innuendos and statements about the dangers of the vaccines, dangers that are somehow not being covered in the media or (as far as I've seen) observed by, well, anyone.
The above-referenced video has been pulled by YouTube, which isn't damning necessarily, considering how bad YouTube has been in trying to regulate speech on the issue. But that said, it does seem that speech on the issue was just wrong. Here is a new article on the Ivermectin/Weinstein situation from Quillette, a publication that is generally happy to be contrarian and has been positive toward Weinstein in the past.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 16, 2021 11:55:01 GMT
My church falls under this Diocese. During the pandemic, attending Sunday Mass was optional. I went to Mass each Sunday and the church was almost empty. We had to wear masks and observe social distancing by sitting in every other pew. As the pandemic wound down, the number of people returning to Sunday Mass increased, but only slightly. A few weeks ago, we were no longer required to wear masks in church and could sit wherever we wanted (still paying attention to social distancing). The number of people coming back to Sunday Mass has been minor; it's noticeable but, again, just slightly. I doubt that this August 15 return to obligations will make much difference. A few may...make their way back...but I'm not optimistic. We talk about ways that the pandemic has affected society's way of life, in ways that will never be the same again. I'm wondering if religion/attending mass will be one of them.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 30, 2021 11:57:33 GMT
The vaccination drive has shifted further into desperation mode: remember a while back when we were talking about incentives like a free beer?
Minnesota will give $100 to anyone who gets the first dose by Aug. 15. I'm very curious to see how effective it is for the population in question. I'm actually doubtful, but money talks.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 30, 2021 12:05:42 GMT
The vaccination drive has shifted further into desperation mode: remember a while back when we were talking about incentives like a free beer?
Minnesota will give $100 to anyone who gets the first dose by Aug. 15. I'm very curious to see how effective it is for the population in question. I'm actually doubtful, but money talks.
I'm not surprised what people will do for $100.
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Post by kds on Jul 30, 2021 12:17:17 GMT
The vaccination drive has shifted further into desperation mode: remember a while back when we were talking about incentives like a free beer?
Minnesota will give $100 to anyone who gets the first dose by Aug. 15. I'm very curious to see how effective it is for the population in question. I'm actually doubtful, but money talks.
A few months ago, I was annoyed at things like incentives and COVID Lotteries, but at this point, if it drives up the rate enough that we can beat this thing, and not have to return to restrictions, I'm OK with it. The only part that annoys me slightly is that this is another case where people who did the right thing early on don't get squat.
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Post by kds on Aug 4, 2021 13:12:30 GMT
The summer of 2021 has seen a bit of a return to normalcy, but it's looking like it could be short lived.
Garth Brooks is apparently considering postponing his fall stadium tour due to the rise in COVID cases, and the vaccination rate seems to have generally stagnated with a lot of people digging their heels about not getting the shot.
If mask mandates return in the fall, that's one thing, but if we go back to limited capacity for events and restaurants or further restrictions, I'm going to be fucking pissed. It feels like elementary school when the teacher refuses to let the whole class out for recess until the kid who knocked over the fish tank confesses.
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