Here it’s store by store, so I really appreciate Costco and their strict mask policy. A few days ago I went to the supermarket nearest me, a regional chain called Hornbacher’s, and although all the employees were masked, at least 90% of the customers were not (there was one woman who had one around her neck but not over her face…what’s the point of that?).
It’s right there handy if someone tells her to put it on or leave the store.
I honestly think some believe a mask is a magic talisman that will protect them if it’s somewhere near their head.
I’ve seen some things on Facebook recently about what kinds of things might happen if kids had to wear masks at school. Using them as slingshots, or superhero x-ray vision masks, or teasing a child who doesn’t have the “right kind” of mask, etc. etc. etc.
Also on Facebook, we have a local gardening group, and about 90% of the questions are obviously from people who are growing vegetables for the first time and just don’t know what they’re doing, but they want to, and those of us who are experienced respectfully answer their questions and tell them what they need to do (or not do). A common one is “How do I make my plants grow faster?” For the most part, you really can’t, as long as they have adequate soil, water, and light.
Pretty sure that thing about kids at school was meant as humor.
Correct answer: plant radishes!
~VOW
I did, and now that some of the plants have bolted, I’m going to eat the seed pods (they look like miniature green beans and taste like - you guessed it! - a radish) and then let it reseed.
It just shows how one of the unanticipated aspects is that it showed how big of a childish, selfish asshole some Americans are. Bitching about their “freedom” because they’ve been asked to do the minimal thing possible to prevent the spread of disease - “doing nothing” and “wear a cheap paper mask”. Or how people are willing to risk lives just so they can get drunk in a bar. Or how they are so put out by actually having to deal with their children being home from school all day and they can’t go into the office.
Although, in all fairness I don’t wear my mask outdoors unless I start coming within 20-30 feet or so of other people.
I’m curious if there has been any ancillary reduction in cold/flu etc. due to the additional number of people wearing masks, sanitizing, etc.
Sure, Covid may be up but other diseases (that are also spread by contact or inhalation) may be down.
Flu is definitely down. Way, way down compared to most years, starting in March.
Unanticipated? Ski Areas.
I live and work in a resort community. Skiing and recreation is our ENTIRE economy. Bars, restaurants, hotels, B&B’s. Our population triples at least during ski season. You are not going to be social distancing on a ski lift or lift line.
I fully expect that this will be going on all next winter. I am very lucky as I can work from home. I work for County Government. We are definitely tightening our belts for what is to come.
Business failures in recreational communities are going to be colossal IMHO. They already run on a thin margin. I kinda hate the word, but the entire country if not world is going to need a new paradigm.
The AIDS epidemic (or pandemic, if you will) has a lot of similarities with COVID.
We in the US had warning, although some say not enough. Both coasts were clobbered, and the rest of the country went into denial. People were dying, being stacked like cordwood in New York, whilecollege aged kids flocked to the beaches, danced all night, and ingested alcohol and anything else they wanted. They blew off the pandemic as “old people’s disease,” or even some conspiracy by the Illuminati. 
I remember one young girl screaming at a reporter, “Look, we worked HARD at school, and we deserve a BREAK! It’s my life, and I am doing what I want!”
I have to wonder what she has to say today. I bet she’s still some kind of stupid.
COVID was somebody else’s problem. It was in New York, it was in Seattle, so what?
AIDS started out like that, too. It was in New York, it was in LA, it was in San Francisco, and besides, it was a gay disease.
The people with AIDS died horribly. COVID victims die strangling, trying to breathe. Both sets of victims died alone, too. The AIDS dead were unclaimed, abandoned, forgotten. COVID victims are set aside, to wait…for cremation or burial, at some later date, often interred with no mourners.
The humanization of AIDS didn’t even begin to happen, until famous people started dying, and when the disease infiltrated the nation’s blood supply and it became an infection ANYBODY could get.
COVID will spread throughout the US. Many many more will die, and then maybe, finally everyone will understand what the epidemiologists have been trying to explain.
~VOW
One thing I’ve seen is that a lot of really old people (older than me) are now comfortable using Zoom. The secretary of our club, who must be 80, even was able to use the record feature with a tiny prompt from me. I think the virus has forced some who resisted learning how to use their computers to do much to learn them much better.
The Times on Sunday said that there was a spike in the sale of lacy lingerie, high end stuff. Crotchless panties seems to be a trending search term. The women interviewed say that if they are quarantining alone they like to wear these during calls, but I wonder if Zoom sex has increased. We should invent a term on the order of sexting, VaVaZoom perhaps?
never mind. But I was agreeing with msmith.
Odd unanticipated aspect - I’m not able to get my favorite frozen meals.
I’m eating mostly frozen dinners because I’m WFH, and my favorite ones have not been in the stores the past couple of times. Has anyone heard of problems with Stouffer’s Turkey Tettrazini? They seem to know it’s hard to find, but are not saying why except “pandemic!”
Just tying these together…
Just an observation.
I don’t know why you haven’t been able to find your frozen meals. I can fully understand your reliance on them. Who wouldn’t get tired of chicken and dumplings five days in a row?
But I would not be surprised if “pandemic” isn’t the lazy way to explain something, simply because nobody wants to bother with finding out what the holdup is with Stouffer’s.
My dad was retired military, and my husband is retired military. Getting old records (military healthcare files, old service records, etc) takes an Act of God. If a records request gets sidetracked, misplaced, or just thrown in the trash, people cart out the old old OLD excuse about the fire in the Federal Records Depository in St Louis, MO.
For the most part, that answer is bullshit. But it also means you probably will never get the stuff you need.
Decades from now, people will be told, “Things are still tangled up from the COVID pandemic!”
~VOW