Went to get ice cream last night. The shop was set up great, a tape which cordoned off to create a line with markers. One person taking orders, another scooped the ice cream and one who took the money, electronically given to them from a pad that took your order. All the employees had masks.
Great, right? Except that I was the only other person wearing a mask. We ate in our car and during that time, I was the only person wearing a mask. Families came in, people ignored the very well thought out line and passed through the dining area, moving and touching the chairs.
Bars, big music concerts: 9
Sports stadiums: 8 (the experts believe that alcohol is a factor in bars & stadiums)
Gyms, churches: 8
Indoor restaurants: 6
Hair salons: 6
Dentists: 4 (but with considerable disagreement)
Getting groceries: 3
Tennis: 1
That’s not the entire list; click for more. The paper didn’t ask about protests, but judging from their criteria for other events, protests would probably be ranked at 8 or 9.
DH has a separate credit card with a low $150 limit and that is what he uses for transactions he deems potentially unsafe, such as phone transactions. He will only use his “regular” credit card for in-person transactions with a chip reader. It is a little bit overkill since even chip readers aren’t ironclad either, and the banks deal with the fraud, but that’s what helps him sleep at night.
Pictures from protests around the US show most people wearing masks, most appearing to try (not always successfully) to keep social distance. (This is my conclusion, not the conclusion of the Times photo essay.)
In your life, do you notice women being more likely to wear masks than men? Someone on my Twitter timeline asserted this. I’m now going to see whether it’s true in my experience.
People here never really adopted masks very well, but once the stay at home order was lifted they ditched them completely. Mask wearing is at maybe 10% except at Costco and Trader Joe’s. We live near the bustling downtown restaurant area of our city. It filled right back up when the restaurants reopened. I’d say from deserted to maybe 40-50% of normal. No masks anywhere down there. We wore masks to get takeout coffee at our local shop and got strange looks.
A friend manages a city pool. Swimming is a HUGE summer activity here. They reopened at 50% capacity. It’s typically not a busy pool and averages maybe 25% capacity in a typical summer. They’re hitting 50% every day now. People are driving in from other cities where the pools aren’t open yet. I guess it’s an outdoor activity at least.
The other dynamic is that it really heated up weather-wise over the last two weeks. 110 degrees some days. That drives everyone indoors, into air conditioned spaces, when they aren’t outside in the pools. It also drives away tourists, so that’s one positive.
I really don’t understand the resistance to masks and I hope (Not holding my breath, just hoping) the governor will make them an order when he finally has to acknowledge the current spike isn’t just due to the “increase in testing.”
Since the middle of May, test positivity in Arizona has been going steadily up, from a seven day average of 3.7% then to a seven day average of 11% as of yesterday. An increase in testing without an increase in cases makes the positivity go down, not up.
In Arizona new cases per day is going up, test positivity is going up, hospitals are filling up. I hope this bad news will encourage people to wear masks and practice social distancing in Arizona.
“The governor is accelerating the reopening timeline, he said, as coronavirus statistics continue to decline statewide. Just 781 of more than 60,000 tests came back positive on Saturday – a return rate of about 1.3 percent, the lowest percentage since March 16, he said.“
How much of the positive testing in Arizona is on reservations…or of folks from reservations? This population is getting very very hard hit. And they have precious few medical facilities available to handle major medical issues.
I imagine that propensity for mask wearing would be correlated with two psychological trait characteristics: agreeableness and risk aversion. (There are no doubt other correlates as well.)
Women are higher on each of these, on average, than men so I would expect higher mask usage, both due to compliance with mandates or recommendations (agreeableness) as well as safety concerns (risk aversion).
@“Cardinal Fang” - re: Arizona positives. As the temperatures went up, people packed into AC cooled buildings, which is what typically happens in AZ in the summer.
I’d offer at least one more reason for people to wear masks - feelings of civic duty and responsibility. I’m not particularly agreeable and anyone .who knows me would fall on the floor laughing at the idea that I’m risk averse. I also agree with many of your points about Florida, risk associated with the virus and how the various governments have handled the pandemic. But - I wear a mask in stores and when I’m close to other people. Why? Because if there’s even a small chance that it might cut infection rates it seems a minor imposition. I’m willing to be a little uncomfortable to give others a feeling of comfort or in the remote chance that it might prevent someone vulnerable from getting sick.
For podcast listeners. Another interview with Amesh Adalja from JHU Center for Health Security.
He tends to emphasize the need to keep an eye on hospital capacity, learning to live with the virus & assessing personal risk, and the need to find balance (all health sectors, the economy, mental health, etc)
On the other hand, if the protesters were packed inside buildings with no masks and no social distancing, and there were not that many new cases, then I would agree with you.