My daughter hasn't worn a mask, gloves, or sanitizes anything, including gas pumps, (unless she has to to enter a store) since the scare started and she does all of the shopping for her family. Plus, she raises chickens and blows dried chicken poop around the yard with a leaf blower and doesn't wear a mask then either. (I would be wearing a hazmat suit if I did that!) So far this year neither she nor her family have been sick.
I rode up to Alice's Restaurant with three friends yesterday. We all brought masks with us as they won't sell you takeout food unless you are wearing a mask. There were a number of motorcyclists that arrived after we did, none were wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Shortly afterward a sports car club drove up and started to congregate in the Restaurant's parking lot (not a mask in sight), until the owner ran them off.
Yesterday I watched a new Itchy Boots video. She is riding around the Netherlands on her new Himalayan showing off her country, until she can return to South America to finish her trip. During the video she said that the Netherlands was pretty much open, including schools, playgrounds, hair and nail salons, massage parlors and just about everything else - except for bars and in-dining restaurants. So why are the Netherlands, or many other countries in Europe, different from the U.S. and its various states, which all have different random rules on how to live with the virus?
So I have to ask myself, which is worse, the chance that you might become sick from the virus or the fear of getting sick of the virus? The news media, politicians and local health officers are certainly pushing the fear angle as hard as they can. But in the meantime the economy is collapsing, Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, are using the fear of the virus to hand out free future taxpayer money to their various constituents in the hopes that will get them elected this November.
Meanwhile people are becoming jobless, have no income and are starting to be kicked out of their homes for lack of money to pay rent. They are becoming homeless and perhaps even starting to wonder where their next meal is coming from. Rome is burning and it seems as if there is little being done to put out the economic fire that will keep the fire under control for more than a few months. People and businesses need to return to work this summer so that they can feed their families and go on living their lives.
As an example: Two weeks ago my county said that its residents could not travel more than 5 miles from home to exercise. Last week they changed that to 10 miles. But what is the difference between 5 miles and 10 miles from one week to the next that will keep you from getting or spreading the infection. If you are actually sick it is unlikely that you will be out jogging miles from home. Plus, it is the only county to have a rule like that. Why are the rules so different from one political jurisdiction to the next? Isn't the virus the same everywhere? Another crazy example is that different Bay Area county health official says that it is OK for large groups of people in his county to meet in a parking lot as long as they stay in their cars, but it is not OK for motorcycle riders to congregate in a group. That is the only time I have heard a rule like that before.
The economic situation caused by the fear of catching the virus is becoming catastrophic and I think it is about time we gave that some thought. I think we should all take common sense personal precautions against picking up the infection, but let's not make rules that are so draconian and mostly unproven (except in various health officers imaginations) that the world comes to a stop.