If social distancing and masks are not necessary in thousand-person clusters of protesters, then WHY ARE ANY BUSINESSES, MASSES, AND ACTIVITES STILL S

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Masks aren’t required because people aren’t required to wear masks outdoors. There isn’t a limit on gatherings that aren’t at a venue.

People should be wearing masks and trying to keep some distance from people outside their households, all the same. Although aerosol droplets dissipate much more quickly outdoors where there is very high ventilation, there is still a lot of shouting, a lot of people standing near the same other people for a long time and a lot of excited people who probably ought to be staying home who are going out, anyway. Some people are trying to do those things, but the crowds as a whole seem like a good way for one super-spreader to infect a lot of people in a day.
 
It was not the lockdown that “paralyzed our health care system.” The coronavirus did that, and while the system was overloaded, even overwhelmed, it was not paralyzed. Insofar as the educational system is concerned, it too was not shut down but changed to remote, online learning. I must admit that, for me at least, remote learning is not as good as “the real thing”; however, it did result in many teachers and professors learning a new set of technological skills which they had not used before.

Who says the lockdown was a scam? Most experts agree that it probably saved many, many lives, and that premature reopening is probably costing many lives. I do agree that the protests may very well result in a spike of cases and that there is a kind of hypocrisy on the part of mayors and governors who defend the demonstrations yet ban other gatherings, especially religious ones, as non-essential services. And so I would have either banned both or instituted strict mitigation measures regarding both. But I certainly would not have permitted everything to reopen because of one large misstep. That would only make matters worse for everyone.
 
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We can hope that the protests, being outdoors, won’t be the source of too many COVID-19 clusters. I’d like to see a lot more silent protests with distance and masks, though. The sooner the virus is tamped down, the better for everyone.

I agree with you that this outbreak has forced a lot of old dogs to admit they can learn new tricks. I kind of wish that not so many involved instant yeast, but I suppose I can put up with some inconvenience if it is so that a whole new generation can learn the joys of home-baked bread and simple things.
 
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I read somewhere that one can make a sourdough starter without yeast! One used a specific beer, another used a potato!!
 
TheLittleLady said:
I read somewhere that one can make a sourdough starter without yeast! One used a specific beer, another used a potato!!
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I’m just not a big sourdough fan, and I don’t want a pet in my refrigerator to care for. I could do it, but my jar of instant yeast hasn’t quite run out yet. I’m just making more quick breads and hoping the supply catches up with me before too long.
 
After about 2 calls the mayor closed all the parks and basketball courts for weeks, but I think the cops also said something to the effect that they weren’t going to enforce the “no groups” rule. This is a college town so they would have been cracking the whip a lot.
 
Yes, unemployment went up by millions and the CARES Act was created so we could get haircuts.

This is the post of someone who likely clings to their “stay home!” signs while not losing an ounce of income during the pandemic. Just stop.

I thought the virus didn’t discriminate?
 
I’ll just assume you didn’t lose your job or close down your business due the pandemic? You can trivialize other people catastrophes all you want, but that is hardly the right thing to do.
 
I have a problem with masks, too. I can put one one and it’s more or less ok, till I move, like look down to read something, and then it rides up and the top edge is virtually in my eyes. And then they say, Don’t mess with your mask, it isn’t sanitary. Well, neither is having part of it in my eyes.

A friend gave me a surgery mask that works better than most. Otherwise, I’d have nothing that I could wear. Previously, I was using creative bandana folding, which really seems to be as good as anything else.
 
I think we’ll see in a week or so if there’s a major spike in hospitalizations and deaths in areas with extensive protests.
 
I acquired a sourdough starter during the lockdown, who lives in the refrigerator. His name is Howard (after the Ryan O’Neil character in ‘What’s Up, Doc?’
 
MikeInVA said:
I think we’ll see in a week or so if there’s a major spike in hospitalizations and deaths in areas with extensive protests.
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I think there will be an increase, but probably not massive. Remember that even a protest of 10 or 20,000 people is small compared to a million or more people getting on public transportation, going to school, going to work, going to restaurants and concerts, etc. Not to say its not a problem. In fact, going back to the OP question, I would say most of the news reports on the protests that I saw raised the issue of social distancing, so its not like its being ignored.
 
At the root of every scam is either power, money or sex. I have not been able to figure out who gets rich, powerful or hooked up due to the shutdowns.
 
MikeInVA said:
I think we’ll see in a week or so if there’s a major spike in hospitalizations and deaths in areas with extensive protests.
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We have to be careful here.

The protests were out-of-the-ordinary events involving hundreds and in some cases, thousands of people, and in some cities, these folks came from all over the state or even all over the country.

This meant that a lot of people were exposed to “new” viruses that they didn’t have natural immunity against. And of course, it’s very likely that some of the protestors had an active COVID-19 infection, but for many reasons, were not experiencing symptoms serious enough to force them to stay home.

Adrenalin can cause ill people to be capable of powering through their symptoms and even being unaware that they are ill. The protest certainly would cause most participants to have a big rise in adrenalin that would keep them feeling well during the protest activities.

But…there’s also a stress factor, which is what adrenalin is supposed to combat. However, if the stress was greater than the adrenalin could handle, that could increase someone’s likelihood of becoming ill with a virus; e.g., COVID-19.

The stress could be exacerbated by the lack of sleep, lack of a normal meal schedule, lack of liquids, and exposure to sounds, odors, sights that are not part of a person’s regular life. Again, when someone is under stress, their body’s ability to fight off infection is compromised.

I’m guessing that all of us who watched the protests from the relaxing comfort of our family room sofas will probably not be as likely to come down with COVID-19 as the protesters are.

So to sum it up, the protests were/are an extraordinary event that has increase the likelihood of COVID-19 infection. But going to stores, schools, and churches, enjoying a concert or sporting event, going out to eat and sitting INSIDE the restaurant, having a big family get-together–these are not “extraordinary events” but rather, are just “ordinary life” for most Americans, and I think that the possibility of infection by COVID-19 is not as likely if we return to these ordinary American pasttimes.
 
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