Peon Awesome

Yeah the way it was handled wasn't good but the issue is far more convoluted than it's being presented. Let's start with a fact that hasn't changed a lot from the beginning. Masks aren't great in and of themselves for protecting the wearer from the virus. The biggest benefit is protecting others from you particularly since there are people with minimal symptoms that can spread the virus. So now let's go back to late February/early March when there were very few known cases in the US and people are being told that it wasn't necessary to wear masks if you have no symptoms. That's because the chance you had the virus with no symptoms was pretty low for the most part, particularly outside of the couple major hotspots like New York. So the benefit had to be weighed against the risk of people buying out masks and there not being enough in hospitals where there were bona fide COVID cases. I can attest in our hospital, we were rationing masks the first few weeks or so at least, having to wear the same mask for 5 days straight. Doctors were getting COVID because they couldn't be properly protected. The recommendations were presented with that in mind: masks had marginal benefit to the general public but tremendous benefit to health care workers. All that being said, the situation was still undoubtedly bungled. The explanation for why widespread masks weren't being recommended needed to be clear. Instead it was presented like masks were just generally worthless. They could have made the recommendation from day 1 to use cloth masks, advising people of the need to reserve N95s and surgical masks for the hospital while still curtailing community spread from the very beginning. Second, the recommendation to start wearing masks universally needed to come much sooner. We were being reactive instead of proactive. We shouldn't have waited until we were getting widespread outbreaks throughout the country before we started stressing the importance of mask wearing. At that point, you've let thousands more get needlessly sick or die. All that being said, the recommendations are coming out almost universally for masks outside of Trump and some alt right fringe sites. Republicans nationwide that aren't completely up Trump's ass (and even some who are) are urging people to wear masks. It's become a bit silly to make an excuse for it now regardless of how much they messed up the handling up front.

Asheville does have a lot of breweries with at least a reasonable amount of outdoor seating. Wicked Weed, Burial, New Belgium, Asheville Brewing, Bhramari, Sierra Nevada, Funkatorium, among several others I'm sure. Not sure how/if they are operating; I think if they have some food options, they can potentially get away with being open during phase 2. I guess technically they also double as "retail" since they sell their beers to go on site. Haven't quite figured out all the stipulations but I know there are at least some breweries near me open.

The park thing doesn't necessarily make sense to me either although I'd be willing to hear the rationale for it and could be swayed if it's convincing enough. But as far as why not open everything, I don't agree with that necessarily. The big ticket items that are closed in NC are gyms and bars. I get that. In a bar, people are talking loudly over music, can't realistically stay masked with having to drink their drinks and the whole environment is built around close social interaction. Now I can see certain bars that have spacious outdoor seating being able to get by, but that's how many bars, 1%? Doesn't move the needle much. If they wanted to allow bars that could do outdoor seating only and maintain 6 feet with patrons, that makes sense. But you'd still have 99% of bar owners pissed they can't meet those kinds of requirements. As far as gyms, there is frequent touching of surfaces by dozens of different people. Regular handwashing is inconvenient and impractical. Are you going to wash hands in between every set, then walk back and find someone else using your equipment? People don't like wearing masks walking in the grocery store. How many want to wear one while running on the treadmill? The videos of people fighting gym staff over mask requirements is going to overwhelm social media more than anything we're seeing now. Now are both of those things feasible if we have things under better control? Perhaps. That's why in North Carolina they would be open in phase 3. When cases aren't exploding and half of the people aren't presumed to be actively infected, maybe you have a fighting chance with social distancing measures and frequent sanitation efforts limiting the potential explosion of cases. It's still risky and you could argue against it even until we have an effective vaccine but at least you can have the conversation about it. Until things are under control though, you're just adding another variable to allow things to spiral much worse like we're seeing in Texas and Florida

Perhaps you mean why is Hawaii doing better than other states in spite of Trump? Listen, we get it, New Zealand had an advantage by being a smaller island nation and with that advantage, they mounted a remarkable response. The US required a monumental effort with the strongest and most effective leadership to get a fraction of those results and they failed spectacularly on many levels due to inept leaders and Americans working against their self interests. You elect your leaders to rise to the occasion for whatever challenges get thrown your way. New Zealand did and the US didn't. Let's put it in terms you might understand. New Zealand is like a white person born with privilege that grew up to become a wildly successful businessman. It didn't mean they didn't have to work for it or have lots of smarts and drive. But if you find their response not commendable then you probably should also invalidate the accomplishments of anyone born white, into wealth, or with any other distinction that gave them some leg up over others.

It's possible you are referring to my post since there was mention of 4-5 weeks in there and if so you may have misunderstood me. I mentioned the lag time from cases to deaths is about 3 weeks but followed that up to say if cases keep doubling every week in Florida, the deaths are going to look even worse in 4-5 weeks. I wasn't saying it takes 4-5 weeks for cases to translate to deaths. I haven't read every single post in this million page thread so if you were referring to someone else's post, I apologize.

You'll have to first explain how a trend in the right direction would take us from 128,000 deaths to 1 million.

Yeah the message may be starting to click. We still have a ways to go, but when republican governors (e.g. Texas) are begging their citizens to wear a mask and social distance, some people are starting to figure out it's not a matter of politics, but a matter of sheer ignorance.

Few points: 1. Florida is entering a frightening trend in the last week or so, with no end in sight. That's what we should be worrying about and focusing on. Does it really matter how much worse it is than New York? If New York is doing just as terribly (which it isn't), it doesn't make Florida's situation any better or less scary or demanding any less urgency to correct. Trying to focus the conversation away from that point is counterproductive. 2. The links you posted actually demonstrate the stark difference in trends well. New York's new cases has dwindled down and stayed down for weeks while Florida's has shot way, way up. 3. Notice I didn't mention deaths, which while Florida has more, it's not as striking as the new cases. I know you tried to reference the similar deaths earlier when implying the states are in similar situations. Time of infection to death is often 3 weeks or so. It's only been in the last week that cases started erupting in Florida. So it'll be another 2 weeks before the deaths even start translating. And if cases keep doubling every week like they have been, then it's going to be even scarier 4 or 5 weeks from now. We should circle back around and put the deaths side by side a month from now and see how you feel about it. 4. New York had lots of cases before most anyone was taking COVID seriously and there was little to no testing available in the US. They're an international hot spot; thousands of people from overseas, including contacts through China and other COVID epicenters, were making their way into NYC back when our leadership was acting like COVID was nothing and wouldn't hit the US beyond a dozen cases or so. No testing and no guidelines for social distancing and mask usage in a city that is so densely packed made an environment ripe for mass spread. Meanwhile, the world has known about the dangers of COVID for months and the need for social distancing and mask usage has been spread far and wide. Despite that, Florida (among others) is seeing frightening exponential growth. To say both deserve equal blame for mishandling the situation, although while admittedly not the important thing to focus on, is also inaccurate. That's not to say New York couldn't have done better or that Florida didn't make any effort. But equating the two situations is painting quite a selective brush.