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New Mask Mandates, Not Like the Old Ones
I have been traveling. I managed to be in two cities just as new mask mandates were put in place this month.
In Minneapolis, the new mandate went into effect at 5 pm on the day of my arrival at a large hotel. During my stay, about 50% of the people were complying with the mandate. When asked a member of the hotel staff said that they were required to tell people about the mask mandate but there was nothing they could do to force people to wear a mask.
I was in Omaha right before and right after their new mandate. There was an increase in mask use but really it was still maybe a 50-50 thing mask or no mask.
In early 2020 when this first started, there was staff at the doors keeping the unmasked out. Now no one seems to care.
It would seem to me that some of these Public Health Officials have a problem. They have lost a measure of credibility. They can “mandate” anything they want, it does not matter if the public ignores them.
Published in General
Still too many obeying around here.
I get that but it just seems different this time. In May of 2020 if you could get in the door, you would get dirty looks if you did not have a mask.
Now based on the mandate mask, mask use went up but it really does seem like people don’t care if the rule is followed. I think that is maybe turning a corner on the government mandating things. Mandates like this can only really work if the public is behind them and makes them work.
Our Public Library has put up increasingly stern signs at the entrance stating how Masks are Required! And while I saw too many people obeying on my last visit, I also saw several who were not. These were the . . . kinda homeless people who hang out at the library all day, sucking down free wifi on their phones (and I still don’t know how they afford them). And I imagine the library won’t kick them out. So next time I go, I guess I’d better just pretend to be homeless.
Albuquerque is even worse. The governor brought back the mask mandate in August for “a few weeks”. She’s been extending it a few weeks at a time every time the deadline approaches. Similar to the Jager’s observations, no one tries to enforce it. I don’t wear a mask and no one stops me at the door, even the stores with greeters. My Walmart is the best. I rarely go, but when I did last year the greeter would offer me a mask. I’d tell her no and continue on into the store.
Maybe ten to fifteen percent of shoppers aren’t wearing masks. When I was out this weekend people were walking around the parking lot with them on already. Why?
The pandemic emergency is over. A lot of people are going to get sick, a relatively few will get very sick and some portion of those will die. It may be me, it may be you — I do not know. But there are no health care measures that are going to make a significant difference. The only way out is through. And the people are through.
We had a prominent member here at ricochet Bragg on how he would turn people in for not masking. Even he seems to have changed his tune and that’s something that seems very difficult for him in general.
The house of cards is crumbling. Way too slowly, but it is crumbling, nonetheless.
I live in WA, and the mask mandate was only lifted here for a period of just a few months (even then, it wasn’t actually lifted – masks became optional, if, and only if, you were vaccinated). I’d say at least 1/2 the population simply stopped wearing them and never started back up again. Very, very few stores are enforcing it. I’ve been to several restaurants, and at quite a few of them, nobody wears masks. Others, the staff still wears them.
Basically, we’ve reached an understanding with TPTB, along the lines of: “I pretend to teach, you pretend to learn.” They give out all sorts of highly-specific rules, and we ignore them.
Madison County, NY stated that they would not enforce new mandates. But not out of moral or ethical reasons. They simply don’t have the resources to enforce them.
Many areas around here are asking probation officers to work overtime to help. You’re going to get increased calls when Karen loses her mind because she saw someone in the restroom maskless. Combine that with the fact that the police are having their own staffing problems right now due to vaccine mandates and a general contempt directed towards them from Albany, and you run into a logistics nightmare.
Oh well. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I spent last weekend in Detroit area. I visited a lot of places and only needed to muzzle up at a Fedex store. Not at churches, restaurants, or stores. Most other people were masking, but nobody gave me a stink-eye.
Not on our side of the Cascades. I just got home from the grocery store after work. Every other shopper, except for one adult and two of his children, was masked. That is the situation in most grocery stores I go to. Often, I am the only one in the store not masked. In Seattle and King County, you can not enter a bar, restaurant, or music venue without showing your “vaccination papers”. We are missing in-person chamber music concerts, because I refuse to show my papers to be admitted.
A week ago, I went to a yuppie coffee shop in a yuppie neighborhood in urban Columbus, Ohio. “Mask required!” said the sign on the door. Everyone but me was obeying, but with a minimum of effort. Half the customers and employees had their masks pulled down below their noses. People sitting at the tables, eating, and talking were bearing their faces to the world, but the moment one of them got up to walk to the restroom (alone!), on the useless piece of cloth would go. Yet nobody bothered me or glared at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d even say the neon-eyebrowed barista gave me a look of admiration!
All theater, but I was the only one willing to acknowledge it. Which is why this can (and will) continue forever.
I heard someone the other day say “public health” is like “legal rape” – the ultimate oxymoron.
Well… yeah, it’s a bit different in Seattle. But we tend to steer clear of Seattle. Although, even there, I think you can go many places maskless without getting much grief. Over here you don’t even give it a second thought.
While we don’t have a mask mandate where I live (Aiken, SC), most of the stores have “Masks Required” signs posted on their entrances. The signs are ignored by 99.9% of the customers. Even employees routinely go around with the things pulled down . . .