Honestly, the buck stops at management. Enforce it with consequences. There are other cooks looking for work, I’m sure.
If they can’t follow health/safety guidelines for Covid-19, I’d question their ability and willingness to follow food safety/health guidelines. It’s not rocket science. If I was a customer and saw this, I’d be taking my business elsewhere. But, I’m sure others - including some posters here - would have no problem doing business there.
I’m considering starting a thread on antibody testing. To share studies, reports, experiences. I know it’s been discussed sporadically throughout this thread, but just thought it may be useful to have a more focused thread, as tests become more available and more people get them.
Would people be interested in that?
Yes, it is starting to look that way. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late and has to be like that. It does mean we need to know how and why the current situation isn’t working so we don’t continue down that path, though.
Already a thread.
Thanks @emilybee I should have known!
Well, I can tell you from personal knowledge from top management at Home Depot that the corporate policy is not to get into a confrontation with customers over the masks. You clearly don’t understand retail and that the first goal is to protect your employees. That’s why there are policies about not chasing down shoplifters. Does it happen? Of course. Managers want to protect their stores- but they aren’t supposed to do it. Yes, retailers tell the non-mask folks what the policy is and offer them masks and alternative shopping methods. All the customer has to say is “I have a medical issue” and no further questions can be asked. Police have been called for enforcement of the mask policy, but the greeter/store employee is not to be the enforcer if things escalate.
Ugh, this discussion is reminding me of my workplace and what might happen with a “you must wear a mask” policy. I’ll just say that our customer (i.e., member) base is known for being litigious, so the people in charge decided to not post a “no guns allowed” sign at the entrance a few years ago.
Just dandy.
“Inhibitions — and masks — have been shed across America, as crowds flooded newly reopened beaches and videos from Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks showed packed pools and patios, where revelers ignored social distancing guidance. White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx said Sunday that she is “very concerned” about people neglecting to maintain a safe, six-foot distance.
Even before the busy Memorial Day weekend, some experts were warning of a second wave of coronavirus cases across the Midwest and South. A new study estimates the virus, which has infected at least 1.6 million people in the United States, may still be spreading at epidemic rates in 24 states; Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said his state is facing a “second peak” after a cluster of infections emerged at a pool party.
“I again remind everyone that the coronavirus is not yet contained,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Twitter. “It is up to every individual to protect themselves and their community.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/25/coronavirus-update-us/
You let one person in a store without a mask and it emboldens others to do the same. Businesses need to set a example of offenders so others don’t feel the policy is optional.
Maybe where you live, businesses are wishy washy with their enforcement, but here in LA all businesses that I frequent have strict adherence to mask wearing if you go into a supermarket, a to go restaurant, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, etc and the compliance is 100%.
Wearing a mask is the new normal in many counties and the general public needs to get use to it.
Again, I think some are making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be.
China should have addressed the virus at the st
The people who suppressed the doctor in Wuhan were local officials, not national ones. There is a big difference. I lived in China for a time and had dealings with local (district) officials who were not representative of the higher up officials at the city level. The city officials overruled the local officials in that case. I’m not sure what you mean by your post. The decision to make the doctor sign a statement he would not talk about the virus was done on the local, not national level. That decision was highly criticized by the public in China as well as the national government.
I don’t know about now since our last day out was Thursday (groceries + take out) due to heading to visit FIL in two weeks. On Thursday only one older lady in the grocery store wasn’t wearing her mask over her mouth and nose - she had it down around her chin. Otherwise, all employees and shoppers in the grocery store and all cooks, order takers, and shoppers at the take out places were wearing them. The take out is in a marketplace food court so one can easily see everyone involved in making the food. They have several options there.
I’m thankful to live in such a considerate area (south central PA) having read what some of you are seeing. We’re used to taking care of each other around here. Maybe that makes the difference?
Our area of PA partially reopened on Friday, so maybe things are a little different now. I won’t know for at least 3 weeks except by word of mouth. We’re taking no chances with FIL.
@socaldad2002 What you are observing speaks more to the desire of your local customer base to comply than it does to the necessity of the stores policing the mask policy. I am not reporting to you based on “my area”. I am reporting to you based on my multiple conference calls a week with just about every major retailer in the country. As I’ve said, MOST customers are respectful of the policies and will comply. States like Michigan with the “freedom” movement are more of a problem. I have no doubt that LA County is compliant.
Germany’s states have recently opened up restaurants and places of worships; the regulations vary but all include rules about social distancing, under which circumstances (ie when moving as opposed to when sitting and eating) and for whom (ie servers vs patrons) masks are required, how to sit, whether to sing…
The outbreak after a Baptist mass which caused (so far) 40 infections/six hospitalisation has already been mentioned a few pages back.
I haven’t seen the outbreak in a restaurant mentioned. 18 infections so far, expected to rise with 118 people in quarantine,
In both cases, those responsible insisted all the rules had been observed.
I call bovine manure. As far as the restaurant is concerned, testimony has surfaced that it was an opening party with invited guests rather than table service, with hugs and maskless mingling going on. Not the sit down service with desks spaced apart that is required.
As far as the service is concerned, the denomination concerned is German Baptists, a tiny fringe denomination recently swelled by Russian immigrants. I posit that what they have in common is rather less trust in authorities and rather more trust in a God than the very “established” (not in law, but in fact) main denominations (Lutherans and Catholics , who have shown themselves extremely compliant so far. Without any positive evidence, I’d bet there was a lot more mingling than admitted.
It’s not that hard to take away what’s important. Don’t have parties. Don’t meet up in large groups (all states are now allowing two households and relatives in the direct line meeting) in ways that are like parties. Bars, restaurants, family events, spectator sport events, funerals and other services with lots of hugging, handshaking, loud enunciations (responses, singing, shouting…).
No other outbreaks have been heard of so far, presumably because these rules work’ but only if they are actually being followed.
I will repost this on the college thread as well, because I believe it is even mor important in that context. Most everything that usually happens on campuses can happen
The people thinking stores can enforce mask wearing must not have much experience dealing with the general public. Yes, they should post signs, and possibly remind customers once. But there are enough people that get confrontational quickly that it isn’t worth doing more. Many people are just terrible at managing conflict, and expecting low wage retail and hospitality workers to “force” anyone to do anything at all is asking for trouble. Unless you are willing to hire bouncers and use force you have to rely on voluntary compliance.
I am in favor of PSAs, peer pressure, and social shaming, but absolutely opposed to penalizing store managers or employees as long as signs are prominently posted. There is a lot of crazy in the world.
I do wonder what makes Michigan and Maine such outliers
I was planning to fly somewhere in early March. I was very, very worried that the trip was not safe. I tried to monitor the spread of the virus in the US but could not because we were not testing enough to do so. As it turns out, I got sick and we didn’t go on the trip.
Flying domestically is not the same as instituting airport screening for international flights as other countries that were successful at controlling the virus have done. This would mean things like fever screening, knowing all the outbreak areas and including all of them in the screening or screening all travelers, not just those from Wuhan, having some type of rapid test at the airport (Korea got this going very early on), having PPE for screeners (ours did not and some got sick as a result). It would have meant not having those going through screening bunched up close together waiting for long periods of time.
It would also have meant allowing independent labs to test and not requiring labs to send samples to the CDC in Atlanta, not keeping the test criteria for people in the USA limited to an illogically narrow criteria long after we knew the spread was beyond Wuhan.
What I would have done differently are so many things. I would not have taken several huge planeloads of people out of Wuhan and brought them back to the USA with no testing done (since we didn’t have a workable test at that time back in January). This happened Jan 20-22 in the days leading up to the Wuhan lockdown. I would not have warned of a travel ban before enacting one. Many rushed back here from the warning until the ban actually happened. The ban didn’t stop people from coming here. People continued to come after the ban.
I am tired and this is a rambling reply. But there is a big difference between what I would have done if I were in charge in terms of trying to keep out or slow down the spread of the virus into the country and what I would do in terms of flying or not domestically when the case numbers were still low. I didn’t believe our case numbers were accurate and thought the virus was spreading across the country but I didn’t know for sure as we were not testing and so the data didn’t exist to know. Turns out now that the virus was probably here in our state in December according to my doctor. The reason I was nervous about flying is that I felt we were not doing what it would take to keep the virus from spreading and I was right!
When all this began in March, there were reports of people stranded in other countries, trying to get home. For example, someone had a flight that changed planes in Peru and by their morning flight out, the country was locked down. Have there been updates, are people around the world still stranded abroad?
Michigan is an easy answer. The Governor was perceived to have greatly overstepped by what she was permitting to remain open and to be sold. That generated a lot of blow back, protests and the formation of the “freedom groups” that organized. One of their goals was to challenge the mask requirements and any other “impositions” on their civil liberties. If a retailer wouldn’t let them in, there were big social media posts about that retailer (didn’t ever get much traction). I talked to one Michigan crazy lady who found her way up the chain to me who claimed to work for “the ADA and HIPPA (sic)” and said that people were denied entry to retailers after stating that they had a medical condition. She was unable to verify this, and a look at her facebook page revealed that she was just another “freedom group” nut.
Maine- not sure what the deal is there. Just some pockets claiming their right to enter any establishment on their own terms.
US State Dept has been arranging flights, some still ongoing.
That helps explain it. The popularity of local or state government leaders who are urging mask wearing probably matters a lot.