I walked past a restaurant in my neighborhood last night

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if youre that worried you shouldnt be walking around.

Is walking a high risk activity now?

Unfortunately yes because the risky people are walking around Willy nilly.

I don’t know whether you are trying to be funny or not. Walking around Willy nilly isn’t the problem. Throwing a Christmas party in a restaurant is the problem! People can walk around, masked, Willy nilly all day long and they aren’t a risk to themselves or anyone else.

Skip the ugly sweater party this year, folks! Don’t have it at home, and definitely don’t have it at a restaurant!

[Anonymous]

I live in a dense urban neighborhood and this is my experience every night when I go for my run. I stay off the main commercial road through our neighborhood explicitly to avoid people, but I often cross it on my route and every time I pass a restaurant its packed inside (or the "outdoor" enclosed tent is packed, which, same difference). It's like traveling to another country.

On Saturday I saw literal crowds of college kids spilling out of bars, I presume because of the college football championships. They were drunk, hugging, unmasked, piling into cars 3-4 at a time. It was so stunning I actually stopped in my tracks. There were cops there that were theoretically breaking it up, but it's clear those kids were just leaving bars to go to private parties. And I'm sure most of them are traveling to see their parents for the holidays, maybe even grandparents too.

Honestly, I don't even blame these stupid, stupid kids, or the people crowding restaurants. And I don't blame the restaurants, who are just trying to pay their employees and their bills and stay alive.

I blame Congress and the President and our state and local leaders and our media, who have refused to do the hard thing, the responsible thing, and spend the money necessary to keep people home. We are the richest country on the planet. We could close bars and restaurants, limit travel, and pay people to stay home. We could save tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives this way. And we just choose not to.

We live in a dystopia.

[Anonymous]

We saw something similar in MoCo. Mind blown. It basically made my DH even stop the weekly grocery run. Now everything is being delivered. We are hunkering down more because people are pea-brained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry to say that I’m not surprised by this OP. Disappointed, but not surprised. Businesses are allowing whatever they can get away with to stay afloat, there’s no enforcement, and so many people don’t care or don’t think they’ll get it or thinking of it as an individual illness and not a public health issue.

What gets me is so much of DCUM insisting that the community spread is from going to the grocery store (masked) or passing someone on the sidewalk that isn’t wearing a mask. Nope, it’s from people living normal lives as if there isn’t a virus.

This is OP. I completely agree with this.

This was a large restaurant, so there were a lot of people there last night. Statistically speaking, chances are that someone had COVID and will spread it to someone else. And then what will that person say to all of his or her friends about how they caught it? Probably not “I was at a Christmas party at a restaurant.” Probably “I don’t know how I caught it! We’ve been so careful!”

[Anonymous]

I agree with you OP. However, I also know the "you're a murderer. How many at risk/health care workers have to die because of you?" Rhetoric doesn't work on them. They just roll their eyes and count you as another person overreacting. Their response is "I'm young I won't get that sick and need health care and expose workers. " Or " I just hang out with my friends and none of us are exposing people who are at risk".

Now, I don't really have any good ideas on how to get it through their thick skulls. Wish they could a spend a day working on the Covid unit with me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry to say that I’m not surprised by this OP. Disappointed, but not surprised. Businesses are allowing whatever they can get away with to stay afloat, there’s no enforcement, and so many people don’t care or don’t think they’ll get it or thinking of it as an individual illness and not a public health issue.

What gets me is so much of DCUM insisting that the community spread is from going to the grocery store (masked) or passing someone on the sidewalk that isn’t wearing a mask. Nope, it’s from people living normal lives as if there isn’t a virus.

+1

[Anonymous]

A lot of places aren't enforcing the rules. I went for a haircut back in September (I know, I know....seemed reasonable at the time) and the salon was definitely not enforcing six feet of distance rules. Not even close. They have this long skinny table (like a dining or conference table) that they cluster the hair dryers or heating lamp things around, and people were seated around that. Not 6 ft. What's that, 3 max?

Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am much less afraid of getting Covid now because we are basically staying home. When I do go out I can't believe the number of people out and about for sh*ts and giggles. Those are the people getting sick.

So when you go out you are appalled at people out.

[Anonymous]

These places should be shut down again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These places should be shut down again.

If they’re violating mandates, call the police. If enough people complain and report the violators we can make a positive impact.

[Anonymous]

When 99.98% of the people who get COVID don’t die or have any severe side effects, it’s hard for many people to get really worked up about COVID. And younger, healthy people have even better odds. They really aren’t at risk. Trying to get them to care about strangers they don’t know is hard over the long haul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When 99.98% of the people who get COVID don’t die or have any severe side effects, it’s hard for many people to get really worked up about COVID. And younger, healthy people have even better odds. They really aren’t at risk. Trying to get them to care about strangers they don’t know is hard over the long haul.

Where are you getting the stats that only 0.02% of people even have serious complications of covid? I’ve seen the actual death rate reported as higher than that. Honestly curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry to say that I’m not surprised by this OP. Disappointed, but not surprised. Businesses are allowing whatever they can get away with to stay afloat, there’s no enforcement, and so many people don’t care or don’t think they’ll get it or thinking of it as an individual illness and not a public health issue.

What gets me is so much of DCUM insisting that the community spread is from going to the grocery store (masked) or passing someone on the sidewalk that isn’t wearing a mask. Nope, it’s from people living normal lives as if there isn’t a virus.

I agree that what’s driving community spread is instances like these. Unfortunately, however, I do think it impacts how safely we can grocery shop and run necessary errands simply because more people have it. I still have trouble wrapping my head around the likelihood of getting it from someone I pass on the street, but I do feel slightly more at risk grocery shopping these days. I ran into Wegman’s this past weekend and it was packed! Parking lots everywhere look the same as any holiday season. I’ve done very, very little in-store gift shopping this year, and when I do, I’m basically running in to grab the items I’ve already decided on. Lots of people are crowding the aisles just browsing. I can’t imagine feeling that comfortable in a store right now.

[Anonymous]

Haven’t most people who already had Covid started to live their life again? It seems like it from my Fb feed. They’re done, who cares about others!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry to say that I’m not surprised by this OP. Disappointed, but not surprised. Businesses are allowing whatever they can get away with to stay afloat, there’s no enforcement, and so many people don’t care or don’t think they’ll get it or thinking of it as an individual illness and not a public health issue.

What gets me is so much of DCUM insisting that the community spread is from going to the grocery store (masked) or passing someone on the sidewalk that isn’t wearing a mask. Nope, it’s from people living normal lives as if there isn’t a virus.

+1

DP, and I think it's also from people who are doing less obviously risky things, but a lot of them. So, they're going to their half-capacity gyms AND their half-capacity nail salons AND eating outdoors AND popping into stores "quickly" etc., all while remaining smug because they're not in bars. They're a real problem, too.