Santa Barbara County Move to Yellow Tier

Mask if you drive a Prius, unmasked if a Ford pickup.

NONBIDENARY - are Fords immune to the virus? Why does it matter what car you drive?

I drive a Honda...

+1

The science is very clear. If you're fully vaccinated, there is no need to wear a mask in any context because your chances of contracting COVID are very small and, if you do, you will be asymptomatic or have very minor symptoms. Furthermore, the viral load you would shed would be so miniscule you are incapable of infecting another person.

And yet the mask mandate continues in spite of the CDC's announcement that they are no longer necessary for vaccinated people. And I don't see any retreat in California from compulsory mask-wearing.

Unfortunately, it has become so politicized you have the hard right Trumpers on the one hand who refuse to wear masks and get vaccinated. On the other hand, there are self-righteous liberals who continue wearing masks and insist on everyone else wearing them, even when it's not necessary.

Both sides are fanatics and both sides are ignoring science.

Politically I am far to the left of the liberals, but what matters for me is not ideology but a faith in science.

I don't believe that fully-vaccinated people should be compelled to wear masks, and with the vaccine rollout now in its seventh month, no one should be required to mask up.

Let the chips fall where they may.

What if you drive a Ford and a Toyota

A Ford pick up, a honda, a toyota, and a subaru. I guess I'll be double masking indefinitely even though I am vaccinated.

Loose Cannon, that is a very cogent response to the situation with masks et all today. Sometimes I wonder if we will all be required to wear masks until the infection rate goes to zero. As with all infectious diseases where vaccination is available, is it a moral imperative for the majority to limit their activities to protect a minority who refuse to mask?

Great article on this topic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberals-covid-19-science-denial-lockdown/618780/

The science was clear early on that older people were most vulnerable, followed by obese people and diabetics.
A Scientist from Harvard med was silenced for saying shutdowns went against the science and proposing that we sequester to susceptible and let the younger less vulnerable carry on. Literally silenced in that the Social Media sites blocked his work from their sites and additionally was silenced by Harvard.
Turns out he was right.
It isn't so bad that people did not take his advice, its bad that his ideas on the virus were scrubbed like the old Soviet Union.
Remember when the Soviets banned photos of Western Supermarkets and department stores with all the bountiful choices? Not allowed because the Soviet system of communism was run by bureaucracy that chose what option the people should have: Monday stand in line all day for three rotten potatoes and no protein, but it is free of charge. Tuesday all day in line for three cups of barley. Wednesday one pair of pants, wrong size, crappy material. Two mismatched shoes, same size, but not your size.

NONBIDENARY - since you dodged my question, here's another: I'm pretty liberal, but I drive a Chevy and a Honda. How does that work? Does the Chevy counteract my liberalism, therefore negating the need to wear a mask? I'm really intrigued by your car theory. Tell us more!

I ride a Kawasaki; does that mean I wear a mask while riding, but take it off when I go inside? Or the other way around? I'd LOVE to know....

LOOSECANNON - I think when you talk about "both sides" it's hopefully more of a bell curve than any other shape. I have been very cautious all along, but was happy to send my kids back to school. We gather with friends outdoors (maskless). I swim in an indoor pool. My kids have summer camps and lessons. I still mask up indoors because of the requirement, and still mask up in places where my youngest (who isn't able to be vaccinated yet) has to mask up.

Most of the people I know who are still masking have reasons...typically they are at risk or they have close relatives at risk. You'd better believe that when I hop on a plane to visit my family, one of whom is a cancer patient, I'll be masking.

A fair % of the Trumpers I know are actually vaccinated also...so there's that.

EDNEY, the thing is, obese people and diabetics still have to go to work and go shopping. That's the reason to protect them at the beginning of a pandemic. Unless we are going to flat out pay the bills of all obese people and diabetics...

While they were MOST at risk, others are also at risk. My sibling's best friend just died 2 weeks ago, at 47, after weeks on a ventilator. (Neither obese, nor diabetic. He contracted COVID before he was eligible for a vaccine in his state. He also had to continue working during this last year.)

I didn’t dodge your question, I ignored it because it was worthless. I thought it was pretty obvious I was making a joke, but I guess it shot right over everybody’s head.

NONBIDENARY - a joke? Huh.... I don't get it. Why don't you explain your humorless and awkward joke?

For your safety....

“For your safety” was a good argument in March 2020 but it’s a joke in June 2021

How about ‘Out of an abundance of caution’ then?

Overabundance would be more accurate...

An overabundance of caution and an inability to asses risk.

They got tired of trying to figure out what would be allowed and when, so they went with the safest option, administratively speaking. What if they’d planned on an in-person ceremony and then got closed down? Much easier to go with the virtual, until things settle down and rules aren’t changed every few weeks.

Ratchet back to: due caution appropriate to the known risk - 99.9% recovery rate ,unless known co-morbidities drops to 94% recovery rate, IF you get exposed and contract this upper respiratory infection from a symptomatic carrier, who is coughing or sneezing in very close proximity. What the long-term data is now telling us in 2021.

The tier thing is going away, but many of the restrictions and mandates will remain in force. Fully vaccinated people, for no good reason, will continue to have to wear masks on public transport, at work, and in a variety of settings for purely ideological, nonscientic reasons. It's no joking matter.

I agree Loose Canon, too many brush off our concerns thinking the mask is the issue when it isn’t, it’s the extreme governmental overreach we’ve seen the past year. Many don’t realize what has been taken away from them because they’re blinded by the “it’s just a mask so why not where it” thought.

Where?

wear. but you knew...

@LOOSECANNON. At work? Is that true? Can you point me to that? (I'm not doubting you, I just really want to know. ) I wear a mask when I go to work, unless I close my office door - but I don't have a private office. I was sort of looking forward to when I don't have to do that, and I was hoping it would be up to the company to decide when that is, not the state.

I feel embarrassed for the public health officials when they try to explain why fully vaccinated people have to continue to wear masks because they know that there is absolutely no scientific basis for the universal mask mandate. Sounding foolish and hypocritical, they undermine their authority. They may have MDs after their names, but these public health bigwigs are just propagandists at the end of the day, and the messaging from them during this entire pandemic has been a complete debacle.

The public health officials seem to be acting less on pure science, and more on various interpretations of what the public can understand. They simplify their message to make it understandable to even dimwitted people, but then it lacks the detail and nuance that comes with actual science.

We didn't do better than Florida! We killed more older people (per 100k) than Florida...we just have less older people and more younger people. We accomplished nothing...unless we count the school/many businesses that shutdown because of people in power here in CALI peddling the same fear mongering as you. You never did answer the fatality rate question Pit...still at 3% or did you look at a COVID report from somewhere other than Milan circa March 2020???

They have done better than CA. Nearly identical covid stats, (worse if you include the higher population of older people) while we kept schools closed, businesses closed, beaches closed, parks closed, destroyed livelihoods, achieved the highest unemployment and sent $30 billion (that's Billion with a B, and that amount keeps increasing the more they discover) out of state in fraudulent EDD claims. If you're going to pull what CA did you better be damn sure you're right, but we were wrong.

I think I did a quick "back of the envelope" calculation here a couple weeks ago. According to CDC numbers, when adjusted for population, California did marginally better over the course of the year. I believe the death rates and infection rates of TX and FL were maybe 3-5% worse than CA when averaged throughout the year. Obviously, a lot of factors at play but one can easily argue both sides here. The real question is, were the restrictions California applied worth the relatively small gain? Maybe. Were the restrictions fairly and smartly applied? I'd say no. Hopefully, there will be a good unbiased, scientific, study done real soon on the what worked and what didn't and what the true costs were.

The study has already been done. Masking and shutdowns were significantly helpful. A lot of the freedumbers misconstrued the study's results showing a percentage reduction in infection rates as being a percentage reduction in total cases, and erroneously concluded that they were not very helpful.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-posts-distort-cdc-study-supporting-masks-mandates-to-reduce-covid-19/

To quote the relevant part:

How Growth Rate Finding Was Distorted
On March 6, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham tweeted that the study found mask mandates and restaurant restrictions “have a small impact” on COVID-19 cases and deaths. Later that day, an unreliable Twitter account called Breaking911 created a tweet thread about the new study, falsely claiming that it found “mask mandates lower COVID cases by around 1.5% over a two month period.”

But as we already explained, the study is not showing a decrease in the number of cases and deaths but a decrease in the growth rate of the daily cases and deaths.

“Because the growth rate is exponential,” the impact compounds, José Luis Jiménez, an analytical and atmospheric chemist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the study, told us. “So, it’s kind of like your mortgage — you change your interest a little bit, and then you save a ton of money. Because the cases compound.”

Except...the numbers aren't that different...and when you look at Florida's older population, Florida did AT LEAST as good as California...if not better. Now that's not saying masks don't have an effect...they do! Masks indoors during periods where things are spiking are invaluable. Same with targeted and specific shutdowns...think school for 2 weeks...not 13 months!

Yeah, it's just a few more dead people, and the disparity is growing as time goes on and their rates remain high, but who cares about a few thousand more dead folks in an entire state?

For some odd reason you think that by proving masks did something, that somehow means California's over the top insane response that involved schools closed for over a year was somehow right. They are not competing ideas...Masks made sense in many scenarios throughout the last year...but schools being closed for that long did not make sense.

We killed more (per 100k) of the people (the elderly) who make up the vast majority of COVID deaths. So...your statement makes sense...as long as it's directed at California...

DUKE - why does it matter anymore? We're open and everyone is out enjoying life again. Why does it matter if CA did the same as FL or TX? It really doesn't. We need to focus on the now, not the past. Come bring your passion to the fight against homeless concentration camps with me!