Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Americans Are Done Waiting for the All Clear
Protests to ease restrictions and end the coronavirus lockdowns are popping up all across the country, even in the most unlikely places. Even in Orange County in California, protests clogged the streets after the announcement that on top of every other restriction, beaches would be added to the list of places inaccessible to the public:
WATCH: Helicopter footage from @ABC7 shows a large group of protesters assembling on Huntington Beach to protest state’s stay-at-home order and Gov. Newsom’s directive to close ALL Orange County beaches. Very few protestors are actually wearing masks or maintaining any distance. pic.twitter.com/rDv7xHNamI
— Eric Wasserman 🦆 "WASS" (@EricWasserman1) May 1, 2020
While these protests, small but growing in size and frequency, Americans are performing their own kind of civil disobedience. While shelter-in-place orders are still in effect, they’re being disregarded more and more by the day. Forbes reports,
Apple’s Mobility Trends report shows that traffic in the US and other countries like Germany has pretty much doubled in the past three weeks. It had been down up to 72%. And location data provider Foursquare says that gas and fast food visits are back to pre-COVID-19 levels in the American Midwest.
Rural areas are following the same pattern.
“Gas station traffic has returned to pre-COVID-19 levels in the Midwest, and in rural areas throughout the country,” Foursquare said yesterday.
Anecdotally, I’ve witnessed the same here in Montgomery County, Maryland (a suburb of Washington D.C.). On Thursday I visited my chiropractor for the first time in months, and while her answering service said she was just seeing emergency patients due to the shelter-in-place orders, she told me business was picking up, with her patients saying they couldn’t go without routine care for months, nor were they willing to stay inside indefinitely. The traffic on the Beltway wasn’t what it normally is, but it was hardly sparse, either. The next day, Friday, the parking lot at Home Depot was absolutely filled, and while the store is open for “essential” business, the vast majority of the shoppers were with me in the garden and soil area. While masks are mandated to enter the store, about half of the employees had theirs around their necks. I get it, it’s suffocating having it on all day.
In response to the Forbes piece, more anecdotal evidence rolled in from across the country, even from hard-hit areas in New York:
Lockdown is breaking down.
This has gotten more obvious by the day here in relatively hard hit Westchester. Target’s parking lot looked fuller yesterday than on a normal pre-Covid Friday.https://t.co/QdbgUFl7u9
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 2, 2020
Rode my bike for 30 miles from The #Bronx to #Queens, #Brooklyn, & #Manhattan, everyone was mostly being safe by practicing #SocialDistancing until I arrived at the the Christopher St Pier…
This is APPALLING.It's going to be warmer tomorrow. Police enforce social distancing? pic.twitter.com/0qdw09z5Uk
— Welcome2theBronx™ (@Welcome2theBX) May 3, 2020
And in Atlanta:
The scene near Piedmont Park in Atlanta on an 81 degree Saturday. pic.twitter.com/uj2idUjmL9
— Charlie Gile (@CharlieGileNBC) May 2, 2020
Here in Maryland, there aren’t many places to go, but it might not be like that forever. Anecdotally in other parts of the country, I’m hearing about restaurants that are supposed to be take-out only opening their outdoor seating, and coffee shops that are supposed to be closed opening their counters without seating available inside.
One local friend, a small business owner, told me she’s not waiting for the all-clear for her business that will likely be one of the last legally allowed to fully reopen. She told me “As far as we’re concerned, we’re good to go [when shelter-in-place is lifted]. The people who aren’t insane can [come]. People who are insane can stay in their bunkers… Each day we don’t reopen we are sinking further and further into a dark hole with no quick escape.” While she’s unsure when reopening will happen, some sort of slow return to normalcy will happen after the shelter-in-place orders are lifted for her business. For her, the worst-case scenario isn’t a visit from local law enforcement, it’s bankruptcy and closure. It’s a risk more and more business owners will be willing to take.
Published in General
This is welcome news. I was worried the only Americans left with the Rebel spirit were in the South . . .
They’re not all in the South. Some are on Hoth.
I suppose eventually is now. . .
http://ricochet.com/744657/long-term-were-all-swedes/
Even this guy went outside eventually . . .
It’s particularly welcome news that it’s happening in heavily Democrat/progressive cities. Not all those people can be freedom-loving Trump voters! Yet.
Thank G-d. We need
the ruling eliteour elected officials to understand that they’ll look better if they change their minds than if they double down.The level of anger in Orange County CA is getting close to boil. Newsom saw a photo (telephoto, of course) of busy beaches and closed down OC as “punishment:” for disobeying his orders. The Mayor of Newport Beach, a very wealthy place, was on Fox News the other night talking about it and has a well reasoned article in Orange County Register today.
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/01/governor-newsom-puts-politics-ahead-of-data-in-california-shutdown/
In closing Orange County beaches this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was relying on science, not politics. It’s unclear where he’s getting his science, so I’ll offer this.
Los Angeles County has implemented the most draconian beach closures in the country, and reports more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths. Orange County has taken a gentler approach, and reports 45 deaths.
Orange County’s low death rate should be national headlines. Our population of 3.3 million is larger than 22 states. If it were a state, Orange County’s death rate of 0.0014 percent would be the 49th lowest, right behind Alaska.
The primary hospital in Newport Beach has 475 beds available for coronavirus patients but has never treated more than 25 people for the illness at any given time. The leaders of that hospital system believe the curve has flattened, and that Orange County needs to responsibly reopen.
What else could it be but politics punishing the last Republican city in OC ?
Right. The smart ones will realize voters are more likely to forgive them if they say, “I thought I was doing the right thing, but I was wrong.” People like it when someone admits they were wrong. Heck, I do it all the time at home, and my wife loves it!
In about 10 days we’ll see whether or not this is a big mistake. On the other hand, we don’t know how many people are defying the shut down orders. Perhaps not a significant number.
It might be worse if they open up and no customers show up.
Defy Tyranny. Break the Lockdown.