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No, Just No…New Rules of Social Distancing on Reopening
Per the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday:
As states across the country reopen and several report fresh outbreaks of the [Wuhan] coronavirus, many people are unsure how to navigate this confusing time. We asked experts about resuming a near-normal life while minimizing the risk of getting the virus that causes Covid-19.
Here is what some of those so-called experts said.
About how the virus is spread:
Health agencies like the CDC and WHO have long focused on preventing transmission of the virus through droplets, largely through coughing and sneezing. Now, many experts say, there is increasing evidence that it can be spread through smaller droplets, called aerosols, which are released and inhaled through breathing, talking, singing, and other activities. …aerosols can linger in the air for hours. Preventing transmission through these invisible particles is trickier and underscores the importance of face coverings and distance, air filtration and proper ventilation.
About optimal social distance:
Six feet is good, but 10 feet is better, says Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, who has warned about airborne transmission of the new coronavirus for months. …More space around people is always better.
About expanding our social circles:
Yes [expand social circles], particularly if you are gathering outside and taking the proper precautions in terms of distance and masks. …”The fewer contacts we have, the better“, Dr. Allen says….”I think you can start to expand your circle but it depends on how serious the other family is taking their precautions and if they have quarantined and locked down.”
About elevators:
If you can, take the stairs. If you can’t, don’t board a crowded elevator–unless the lobby is more crowded. Don’t touch buttons if possible, though it is fine to use your elbow or even fingers as long as you avoid touching your face before cleaning your hands.
About that summer vacation:
Yes! “We need to get out and about in the world for our mental health,” Dr. Allen says. “We should take advantage of the summer when we can be outdoors because we don’t know what the winter is going to bring.”
Choose destinations where it is easy to practice social distancing…can include national parks and beaches if not crowded. …places where you can bring your own food and supplies, or where there are options that make it easy to avoid crowded restaurants or grocery stores.
About camping:
If camping with people outside your immediate family, maintain the 6-feet distance even when outside, don’t share food and drinks, and try not to touch each other’s supplies (or wash and sanitize your hands before and after if you do).
If people actually try to observe all these rules, what families or friends would even want to get together at all? Yes, let’s all go outside, in our masks, maintaining a 6-10 foot distance from our friends (good luck talking with them, behind a mask from six feet away). No talking, singing, or breathing, for fear of spreading the virus. Who is going to sing from behind a mask? Who even believes anything out of the CDC/Deep State or (China-aligned) WHO these days? Going to that restaurant? How are you supposed to communicate your order to the server if you are both wearing masks and 6 feet apart? Outdoors is noisier than indoors, making communication even more difficult.
It seems to me that all these rules for avoiding contagion take most, if not all, of the fun out of life. Going outdoors would seem like an ordeal, not an excursion.
How will we be able to have a Ricochet meetup in the future? What will the Black Hills meetup look like in September, if everyone is masked and six feet apart? Will the group be able to go out anywhere to eat or drink, or be confined to the vacation house that Randy has already rented?
The rules for reopening are depressing, and enough to make me wonder if there will ever be a return to normal (what was normal in December 2019). Are people doomed to never getting close to their friends again? Is this what the so-called experts really want society to look like? I sure hope not.
Published in Healthcare
Doctor? I smell a degree in Public Health.
Well lookie here:
A doctorate in science? Shades of Dr. Science! You can just smell the grant money rolling in, eh Joe?
The implication from most of these twits, that the American people, and the British people, and the [fill in the blank] people are so stupid that they simply cannot understand the SCIENCE of their betters, is really depressing.
Particularly at a time when Dr. Fauci has acknowledged that the White House Coronavirus Task Force (or whatever it’s called) was lying about the efficacy of masks (saying there wasn’t any) because they thought that the American/British/etc (are you sensing a pattern here?) people are so venal that they’d hog all the masks and that none would be left over for healthcare workers, at the same time as the University of Oxford (heretofore acknowledged as an “expert” in modeling, and not of the @rightangles sort) has announced that the “two-metre” (six foot) social distancing rule really isn’t any more effective than the “one metre” (three foot) social distancing rule that’s been adopted in many countries, because SCIENCE!!!
So, actually, neither the WHCVTF recommendation on masks, nor the six-foot social distancing rule has anything to do with SCIENCE.
If we can just admit that, I’m good. We’re good.
Count me among those who are willing to acknowledge that the “mask” may help. So I’m willing to wear one, especially a highly-decorative one of the sort that I make myself, in interior situations where the airflow may not be optimal or may be compromised. (And, let’s be clear, there are many such.) But I’ll be damned if I’ll wear a mask outside, on my farm, or while I’m taking a walk in the country.
On a positive note, several establishments in my area (SW PA) have re-opened, and many of them don’t seem to give a cuss about the governor or the “emergency declaration.” So, that’s good.
My model shows that one light year of separation would be better yet. Technically difficult, but if it saves just one life!
Can we all agree that during a contagion, increased distance from potential sources reduces transmission? Do we really need credentialed wankers on “expert” panels to endlessly repeat the obvious?
Right up there with the wisdom of my Canadian childhood: DON’T EAT YELLOW SNOW!
There is no scientific evidence showing that Sars-Cov-2 has not spread to other solar systems.
Agreed.
If this is what “society” looks like, I’m more than happy to stay home. What am I missing, anyway?
The best advice for those who are young and healthy: get infected and recover. Then you won’t have to worry about the rules. If enough young and healthy individuals do this, there will be herd immunity.
You deny my model evidence? I’ll bet you eat yellow snow!
Divide and conquer. Oldest trick in the book. They divided us in March — separated us from our loved ones. Isolated us. Now they’re conquering us.
The most annoying part of the rules is that other people are following them.
@Kephalithos
Your comment reminded me of an old joke about a man who approached a wise guru, wanting to know how to achieve immortality.
The guru pondered the question, and then said: My son, you must forgo wine and women. But not song. You can sing as much as you want.
There will be no breathing. You must stop breathing.
Phase 3 just started here, and this was the week that almost cracked me. More places are opening but with bizarre regulations like closing 3 to 4 hours earlier than normal, or only allowing 4 people in at a time. You can remove your mask to eat or drink, but need to wear it when going to the counter or the restroom. The arbitrary nature of it all is really testing my patience.
Six inches of vacuum would probably work.
Air moves the way of least resistance. A mask is really only as good as its seal at the edges; especially if the nose area has a wire, the wire has to be bent to conform to the nose. This is to prevent breath from easily escaping without being caught and “filtered”. And, by watching people, at news conferences and in public, this is rarely the case.
The only time I have heard the rationale explained for the six-foot rule was by Dr. Birx, and that was only once; and that a cough or a sneeze can spread the particulate matter as far as six feet. So the mask is to catch particulate matter, or restrict and redirect air from a cough or sneeze to considerably less than six feet.
This is probably the rationale for making masks optional, and still requiring the six-foot perimeter. It seems to me that if you’re going to sneeze or cough, doing it into a handkerchief is as good or better than a mask. And if you don’t sneeze or cough, you don’t need to keep a six-foot distance to save someone’s grandmother.
This is so tiresome.
Are you fer it or agin it? Physical distancing that is.
We can socialize at the graveyard.
For a long time I resented the term “social distancing” because it was an inaccurate descriptor of what the authorities told us we should be doing – we should be “physically distancing,” but I and others expected to use other methods to remain socially connected. But as the “rules” piled up, it began to appear that the authorities really have been trying to isolate us from our family, community, professional, and social connections – so the term “social distancing” is an accurate descriptor of the authorities’ efforts to isolate people. And we know that isolated people become unhealthy people.
Um…no. Funerals have not been allowed either. You cannot even meet at the graveyard funeral for the grandmother whom you helped to kill by standing too close to her.
Underground socializing will be allowed.
Lol… in the grave is what I meant..
Ghost tea party over tombstones.
Bingo.
I am tired of authorities mandating my socializing. Give me trustworthy information and I can manage myself, thank you very much.
My family has largely ignored the social distancing rules. Our family is large and we continue to socialize, with some friends that we saw often included.
A good friend’s wife died 18 months ago and unfortunately his daughter moved to TX six months ago, with a plan for her dad to follow once she got settled. I’ve made it a mission to reach out and see him at least weekly. When I hugged him goodbye yesterday he had a good cry, thanking me for being “non compliant” and still inviting him over. If everyone in his life was compliant with mandates, I fear how he would be doing.
None of us fear Covid. But I do fear the isolation and the toll. I’ve said from day one, “they’ve got us right where they want us. Isolated from friends and family. Churches closed. Stuck at home. Information inconsistent and unreliable. Ain’t no way they won’t take advantage of it.”
And a story that I hope is true (from a reliable source). A large (200+ people) Jewish wedding last week. They carried on with their plans – and hung a BLM sign in the window of the synagogue and the raucous reception. They were left alone by LA authorities.
Met a young lady today who quit her job because she can’t work in a mask, but it is mandatory for beauticians.
Hasn’t any of the rioters burned down a mask factory yet?
It was farcical a month ago.
Been out to eat twice. It’s not that great when you are confronted constantly with masked people (where I am at, it seems to be just staff, and no one interacts.) This cannot be a new normal, or we will become anti social and anti governable before long, which does perhaps explain the riots. I wonder if there is a cross over of people who protested the shut down with the riots.
One of my grandsons, had the C-virus, and didn’t tell us about it until he was almost well. Let us think it wasn’t all that bad. Now that he is back on his feet and telling us the truth, it darn near killed him. He is young, 28, and healthy. He felt as if his lungs and throat were stuffed with cotton, and he couldn’t breath through it, nor cough it out. He was in quarantined for more than a month. He lost a tremendous amount of weight, has lost his appetite, and also his sense of taste and smell. Ex high school football hero. Tears come to my eyes thinking how close he came to dying. This last couple of weeks, he has enrolled in a graduate on line program for his PhD. It will take him a long time to get back to his normal self. I thank G-d he was spared.
And as the ball crosses the plate and comes to a sudden stop in the catcher’s mitt and making a sharp sound, the umpire, arising from his hunched stance behind catcher and batter so that he can raise his voice to be heard throughout the stadium, yells, “Three strikes! You’re out!”
There seems to be no rhyme or reason. My sister talked of an athlete in peak physical shape, low body fat, that she saw interviewed on the Joe Rogan show. His story is similar to your grandson’s. The same athlete’s mother also contracted it and felt a bit off for a day or two and then recovered.
The mother told the son, “Honey, you need to eat more carbs.”
Not to make light of your grandson’s experience, I am so glad he was spared and hope he recovers completely.
I wouldn’t even think of going to a grocery or drug store without a mask, but it’s absolutely silly to wear a mask for a solitary walk outside. Frequently I even see people on bicycles wearing masks and can hardly believe it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a masked walker with a masked dog!
We have neighbors with whom we share a back fence (the fence isn’t much, just a couple feet of chicken wire). We never see the people who live there. In two years, I’ve seen them once.
Until a couple of days ago. The gentleman who lives there (30s?) spent all day on the back patio working on his laptop. And he had a mask on the entire time. Completely alone and if I was the closest person when I took out the trash, a distance of at least 50 feet.
So why is it 6 feet in the US and 1 meter in Europe? WHO recommends 1 meter also. Does Europe want to kill it’s entire population? It is an entire continent of grandama haters? This is all arbitrary bullscat.