States split on COVID-19 responses as cases surge

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Governors across the country are grappling with an alarming surge of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, so far putting forward a fractured response.

Despite the escalating public health crisis, many governors have taken only modest actions; most states still allow major sources of spread such as bars and indoor restaurants to remain open.

President Trump on Friday touted progress on a vaccine but did not announce any major new steps aimed at slowing the spread of the virus in the short term, and he is leaving most of those decisions to states.

Experts are urging governors to impose stronger measures such as closing bars and gyms, prohibiting indoor dining, mandating masks, and advising people to limit in-person gatherings.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/states-split-on-covid-19-responses-as-cases-surge/ar-BB1b0RxR?li=BBnb7Kz

[BusyBeingBest]

1. I'm not a believer in lockdowns (closing basically all non-essential businesses)

unless regional hospital capacity/staffing is overwhelmed--but a lot of places are getting there. I AM a believer in masks and mask enforcement and social distancing enforcement in public spaces--I can't believe how many people I still see wandering shopping aisles with no mask at all, or dick-nose, and NOBODY TELLS THEM TO LEAVE. Every large business should have security to escort these disease-spreading fuckers right out the door. Workplaces are also not enforcing mask-wearing among employees, and also not quarantining those who were exposed anymore--now you have to show symptoms to get any concern about covid from management (at least where my family members work), and even then they won't make you test, that's up to you--so who wants to test positive and miss two weeks of work? Better to secretly hope it's strep or flu or a cold, right?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Because you keep on seeing unmasked people in stores,

you have made a very strong case for lockdowns. Waiting for hospitals to be overwhelmed is a classic example of locking the barn door after the horses have escaped.

Also mandatory masks.

And to think that Republicans consider themselves the party of personal responsibility. Oh, the irony!

[liberal_mama]

3. If people aren't wearing masks or abiding by social distancing rules,

that means it's time for a strictly enforced lockdown.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Right.

Here in my part of New Mexico people are mostly very good about wearing masks and wearing them correctly.

Our numbers aren't as bad as in a lot of other states, but our wonderful governor, Michelle Luhan-Grisham is putting the state back on lock-down effective tomorrow. I'm glad.

[Volaris]

8. Yep. Have all the personal responsibility you can handle. But if you're not doin that,

Well then, fuck you it can also be done by force of law.

'But my freedumbs...tyranny..soshilizm...'

Nope you had your chance. Now we do it the OTHER way, cause you couldnt be bothered or inconvenienced to actually use your freedumb to BE personally responsible for yourself OR anyone else.

And it's not just the idjits; the bankers complained about the haircut Obama wanted them to take and they called it socialism, and nobody had the stones to tell them:

Well, ya cause that's the only alternative left after you guys DESTROYED FUCNCTIONAL CAPITAL-ism.

Nation wide lockdown for one business quarter (only essential open)
Masks. Work from home. Stimulus help, all to buy time for VACCINE DISTRIBUTION. If, after 90 days, you can demonstrate that your county is at an 85% immunization rate, you can have your economy back. Oh, dumbass antivaxxers wont get? Fuck you, STAY CLOSED and suffer more then. I'm tired of this anti-science bullshit from them.

This is not unreasonable; 250K dead and 200K NEW INFECTIONS A DAY, in less than another week. 80 percent of this was PREVENTABLE.

[BusyBeingBest]

4. If businesses want to stay open, they're going to have to be

more aggressive with enforcing the policies that they have posted by every entrance. They are going to have to invest in visible and active security, same as they do with undercover security for shoplifters. Workplaces where employees cannot work from home (such as that of my husband and one of my sons) need to tell their employees to wear masks all the time or go home, and they need to be more invested in sending exposed employees for testing, AND allow paid time off (not just employee's PTO). This is truly a weak link that we are seeing up close--my husband's management did not enforce mask-wearing, so most of his coworkers simply stopped, until a new outbreak started up the last couple weeks. They're also making some employees use their own PTO for exposure quarantining, which results in an incentive NOT to quarantine. Businesses are creating their own self-serving rules and shortcuts, and few state governments seem to be paying attention.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. You've summarized it nicely.

Unfortunately, far too many people aren't going to get the seriousness of this until they get it themselves. Or someone close to them gets very sick and perhaps dies.

I've been known to say that what is actually needed is for several high-profile celebrities of some kind to get sick, very sick, and then die. Not that I'm actually wishing that for any specific person, but one genuine down side to Trump's recovering so quickly is that it fed into the idea that this isn't such a serious disease after all. Plus, of course, the fact that so many people get the virus and don't get sick at all. Which is nice, but makes this seem less dire than it is.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. As a hint from one of my sisters on Friday

I decided to make a run to the state store (which we have here in PA) to pick up a couple bottles of stuff. She said that when her hubby went to the one near where they lived (Delaware County), it was packed, with people filling up carts with liquor. At the one near me, which is in Montgomery County (PA), it hadn't gotten to that point at the time (morning) but the business was starting to get "brisk".

But for the first time, I witnessed someone pretty much deliberately try to come into a state-run liquor store without a mask ("deliberate" in terms of her not holding one in a hand with the intent to put on nor was it around her neck or dangling from an ear, or anywhere near her face). And the employee immediately told her that she couldn't come in without a mask just as she was coming through the door pushing a cart. She stopped, dug around in her handbag, and eventually pulled one out and put it on, and then came the rest of the way inside.

We have been under a mandatory mask order here in PA since July 1st for everywhere (including outside if you might come within 6ft of someone).

So we are in trouble.

A consortium of 6 governors in 6 northeastern states (including PA) were scheduled for a an "emergency summit" today to discuss and coordinate their responses since people commute to work between these states. People are sensing it and are getting ready (I know I am).

Our daily positives in both the city of Philly and state of PA are TWICE as bad as they were during the peak in April.