I recently learned that SF still has an indoor mask mandate, despite high vaccination rates and a low rate of new cases. Are restrictions like that still common in other parts of CA? Is that part of what's hampering the recovery?
I don’t think it’s hampering the recovery, people are going into work, shopping and eating out more than a few months ago as far as I can tell.
They're probably on the verge of being able to relax some mitigation measures, but those mitigation measures are what keeps those numbers low, so that requires a big degree of caution. I definitely wouldn't say they are being too conservative with it, they're just on the verge of being able to relax a smidge.
This circular logic makes me tear my hair out. "Cases down? Lockdowns are working! Can't stop now" "Cases up? We need to keep these lockdowns!". There is zero exit criteria in this logic, which is why we are trapped in this vicious cycle of unending restrictions.
It's the exact same argument as "Is it raining? Yes? It means rain dances work! Better keep doing them!" and "It is raining? No? It means we haven't done enough rain dances!"
And all these restrictions might as well be rain dances at this point. It is just shit people threw against the wall in some panic'd attempt to "do something". Nobody seems to care if any of it works and asking questions is met with vicious attack.
I personally look at four metrics - ICU capacity above/below 85%, test positive ratio above/below 5%, Rt above/below 1, and Case prevalence above/below 10/100k. If all four are below, then I'm hosting parties with my vaccinated friends. Otherwise, I'm trying not to contribute to spread.
And that's the beauty of state and to some extent even more locally based strategies versus national mandates. As long as there is a national agreed upon mechanism for measurement - its actually quite great that some states are willing to be guinea pigs and their citizenry are willing to go with different riskier strategies and experiments.
In fact the steadfastness and persistence of some states sticking to their strategies even in the face of significant headwinds is a plus as it creates an even richer dataset for research and analysis.
The headwinds these states are facing provides assurance to those in states with the stricter mandates that the mandates aren't just a pure power grab and government control and actually do have a benefit that is measurable.
I mean technocracy is great an all... but I'd prefer to not be a participant in a huge uncontrolled experiment. Usually when you do experiments on humans you get their consent first. It's usually quite a process to go through.
Doing experiments on humans when those experiments can straight lead people to losing their livelihoods, their jobs, their families, their mental health, their lives.... pretty fucking evil. Not sure that would pass any university's review board at all. In saner times, it would probably get investigated by some UN agency for human rights violations but hey... who cares about all that when it's a global pandemic, right? Inalienable human rights are just a formality, right?
So yeah, I really don't consent to participating in this experiment. How do I opt out?
Stay home, don't physically interact with others. If that's not to your liking, move to a state or country with less strict rules and less robust governance.
Why should I move? I don't recall any of these mandates on the ballot, do you? I didn't vote for any of this, did you? Surely over a year and half the public should be able to provide at least some guidance, right? You cannot even erect a cell phone tower on top of a building without a public design review in many places.
And even if it did win on some ballot does that mean any of what we are doing is okay at all? Could it just not be tyranny of the majority? Plenty of real dictators had popular support from the public... does that make what they did okay?
I mean anybody that tries to express skepticism or criticism about what we are doing usually gets called incredibly foul language, gets bullied, downvoted and in real life a hell of a lot of hostility. People by and large refuse to acknowledge that well intentioned people might not agree with any of what society has chosen to do for covid. There is heaps and heaps of groupthink piling onto our chosen course. It doesn't help when the average person supporting these mandates thinks if they catch covid, their odds of dying are 10%[0].
One of the fundamental reasons I believe most of what is driving covid policy is public hysteria and not grounded disease mitigation is the fact that you absolutely are not allowed to question any of this crap. It's like a religion.
Our reaction to covid scares me far more than covid.
I voted to empower my representatives and their delegates in the public health departments of my state and county to make these decisions, and they are doing so. The history of representative government is full of officials making decisions like this, or even more impactful. Just because it's been decades since we've been afflicted by a pandemic of this sort (the 1918 flu being the most well-known, but there have been others) doesn't mean that those officials don't have the powers that they're exercising, it only means that I (and probably you) were unaware that they had said powers. The laws describing and backing those powers have been on the books for years.
Officials having powers like these is a part of the social contract that lets us live in a country with good schools, a healthy citizenry, robust infrastructure, and safe streets. Other officials in the same government have the power to force you to engage in military action in a war. That power is more widely-known than the power of public health officials, but both are powers of our existing governments. If you don't want to be subject to those rules and benefit from those investments and privileges, then moving is the best option for people who are of age and strongly desirous of a different freedom/responsibility mix.
> And even if it did win on some ballot does that mean any of what we are doing is okay at all?
Perhaps, perhaps not. The remedy is through the democratic process and the courts. Government officials are overseen by elected officials, and if the broader public doesn't like the decisions those officials make, that will show up in how people vote. We can certainly see that in the current pandemic; lots of people in Florida are going to be considering the Governor's decisions during the next election; Governor Newsom was nearly recalled over his policy decisions regarding the pandemic.
That's up to your discretion that no one else can answer for you.
Agree nobody voted for each state to do what it did in an emergency; but you've got a ton of new data that will suggest how your state's majority wants your state government to act for the remainder of this pandemic and the next pandemic.
There's a term "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." If you chose to ignore the warning signs then don't be surprised about the outcome.
There's also the concepts around - Exit, Voice and Loyalty. By far the easiest is to just exit/leave the group. The alternatives are to remain loyal to the group and voice your discontent in an attempt to change group decision that may have already been made. That can be like beating your head against a brick wall though.
The beauty of diversified approaches being tried within the United States is that 'exiting' becomes just about relocating to a state that is either stricter or less strict as you desire without the hassle of changing citizenship.
Other points of interest:
R value eat at or higher than one increase anti-spread measures
R value a little less than one - hold current social measures
R value much smaller than 1 consider relaxing measures
However we should also analyze That just about at every turn many places are relaxing too bringing numbers back up and re-stressing icus.
Hence my rain dance analogy. Until you prove this crap works, what we are doing is no better than rain dances.
https://www.sfgate.com/bay-area-politics/article/London-Bree...
Cases down? Keep the restrictions, they clearly are working! Cases up? Keep the restrictions, we still need them! And the cycle continues forever.
Nowhere does anybody actually ask “do the restrictions actually work?”. The answer seems to be “not really”. Compare data and see for yourself: https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/