[FRIAM] Pandemic Over!

[Steve Smith]

Glen -
> Yeah, I think we (Thurston) are doing about as well as Santa Fe. (See attached: I don't know if you're in SF county or not.) 
I suspect there are a lot of locales where things are *mostly* under
control...  I hope your Pub can find a way to establish some outdoor
space... that has been the upside for me, places which could have had
outdoor before are now making it happen.

I'm technically in the county (by about a 1000 meters), but my public
engagement is split between SF co, Los Alamos co, and Rio Arriba co... 
Each county has it's own presumed demographic/behaviour characteristics
around this pandemic...   I DO feel mildly different in each community.  

My primary community of engagement is Pojoaque (grocery, hardware,
takeout, eat-outside) where all businesses have to follow the Pueblo
guidelines which took about a week to normalize after each state-wide
change, but became very consistent/normalized across businesses (they
effectively all have the same landlord which appears to provide very
good consistency).   Espanola was where I felt the most "wild west"
response right after the first letup...  lots of traffic (and aggressive
driving, though that may have just been *my* not having driven in
traffic for months?), but they have normalized to state/regional
standards well.   The same guys who would have charged into Lowes Home
Improvement there without a mask a month ago are now carrying it to the
6-ft spaced lineup to get in and donning it there or at least as they
approach the entrance where it is required *for entry* and inside I've
not seen anyone unmask when they were near anyone else.

> What tickles me is that the non-maskers think wearing a mask is about protecting yourself when it's really about protecting those around you (by analogy cf our seat belt and ATGATT argument).
Though I think the risk presented by not wearing a mask to others is
much more direct than the seatbelt/helmet where only (mostly) emergency
response personnel have to be confronted directly with the consequences
of non-compliance.  I haven't met/seen any angry anti-maskers (just
scofflaw types) but the ones I see on the idiot box seem convinced that
masks are a conspiracy against the population and not only resent being
"forced" to participate in the hoax, but feel compelled to chide
everyone else who might choose to participate.   As if anti-helmet
bikers made fun of helmet wearers with the accusation: "don't you know
that nobody dies from head-injuries, that's a liberal media hoax!"
>  I've often argued that we should *encourage* nutjobs to get swastika face tattoos and put confederate flags on their trucks so that we KNOW who the idiots are. The (lack of a) mask works, too. When walking into Fred Meyer, I feel almost exactly like I feel when I go to a gun and knife show.
That was how Lowe's felt to me the couple of times I turned around and
left.   On one of my first trips to the grocery in Los Alamos, I did
encounter someone wearing a bright red Trump 2020 mask...   I'm still a
little surprised there are not more masks being used as bumper stickers...
> My mom's in a particularly bad situation. She recently broke another hip and a rib by falling out of bed. She thinks COVID-19 is a *storm* and we all have to stay in our rooms because we might die in the storm. At one point her story changed. She talked about being stung by a *bug* and the bug was flying toward another resident (she's in assisted living, but agumented with more EoL-type care -- she can't be moved to a nursing home at the moment) so she "ran" after the bug and swatted it down, saving the other resident from being infected. In micro, it's funny. And she has fun telling the story. So that's good. In macro, it's horrible because deep down, I don't think she has any idea what's happening.

That's an interesting anecdote... I'm glad she is enjoying the moment
however she can.  My mother isn't quite that confused, but it has been a
moment to observe her own mental/emotional state.   Her TV is stuck on
the Fox Channel.   But she is also very compliant and her facility was
being very careful right from the start.   I am sure there was a period
of time where what was coming out of the TV was in acute opposition to
what her facility and family (including my sister's family near her
whose TV is also tuned only to Fox) were telling her.   "This is real
and it is especially important for YOU to be careful." Within a few
weeks, she was actually criticizing the one woman in her area who wears
a red-hat full time who was charging around the facility unmasked trying
to talk up-close, unmasked and  face-to-face using Janine Pirro's style
of communication.    She joins us biweekly on a zoom meeting which she
has to be helped through signing on (over the phone) each time. 

My maternal grandfather lived with us twice as I grew up (age 3-4 and
8-9).  He was born before automobiles and lost his first wife in the
1918 influenza....   and while I think his cognition was fine, his
life-experience was just out of sync with the "modern world"...   he
truly didn't seem to track most of what was happening outside of the home. 

- Steve