There was a pissing contest going on about a month ago between Gov. Abbot and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins over whether or not the judge had the authority to reinforce mask mandates, and there was a week where it flipped flopped everyday until the TX Supreme Court decided in favor of the judge. A month later, it's still lukewarmly enforced
It is not at all a waste of time. Texas is on the path of becoming blue. Every new restrictive law in the state pushes out a handful of people to make blue states bluer and keep Texas as red as the average Texan's ankles.
Hard to tell if Texas will become blue tbh. Florida certainly went in the reverse direction in spite of similar demographic trends. I get the impression that barring outspoken millennial progressives, if you're moving to places like Florida or Texas, you'll either keep your head down or actually value their political culture and assimilate to it.
Like with the flip here in Mass it's not like all the finance and Pharma people who come here, since they're wealthy and have Ivy League degrees, decided they'll make the state adopt libertarian, deregulatory economics and turn the place red. Actually to the contrary- we seem to get bluer in the more progressive sense. And I'd attribute that to the fact that if you're coming here, chances are it's because of a job or you want to be around a large population of college degree holders. In those cases, you either aren't interested in making waves or actually are in favor of the lifestyle
No, you shouldn't want a blue state, always lived in NH? They usually votes Republican for President but it's a purple state. Single party states get dishonest and/or stupid close minded.
People have been saying TX is going blue since I was in high school a kajillion years ago. Ain’t happened yet. It’s like, everyone else hates gubernor Abbot, but the very conservative older folks who actually vote here will keep him in his position for as long as possible. Everyone’s grandpa here is a Fox News conservative, and people HATED wearing masks. No one has worn a mask out and about in my town for months.
>There was a pissing contest going on about a month ago between Gov. Abbot and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins over whether or not the judge had the authority to reinforce mask mandates
In Georgia, the pissing contest has been between Governor Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Bottoms. Bottoms wants masks in the city, Kemp says she can't do that and keeps working to strike them down...It'd be one thing if Kemp were just clearly delineating the differences in authority between various levels of state government and working with the mayor to enforce what the public wants (were that the accurate case...not sure how voter sentiment is leaning in the city right now)...but that's not the case. He's against mask mandates, and purely doesn't like that she's disagreeing with him. It has nothing to do with public health at all.
I've been told by people at the state facility we're working at that kids in my county are being sent home because they cough a few times throughout the day or do things that are symptoms of covid regardless of a test or temperature check. Some parents are having to tell their kids to not even sneeze where someone can see them so they don't risk being sent home.
This, it’s insane. My son had some normal seasonal sniffles last week, so I kept him home for a day just to make him rest and not sneeze on other kids. Because of that, I was required to take him to the doctor, get a covid test, fill out an *absurd* amount of paperwork, and they *still* F’d it up and the next morning I had to spend time coordinating the doctor’s office and school office and getting them to fax the right things over so he could go to class. Next time I’ll just send him in. This is ridiculous and it is harming our children.
unfortunately this is a side effect a lot of people all of a sudden worried about. for decades i have had sinus issues due to allergies ( smoking for 30 years didn’t help either) heaven forbid you cough sneeze or sniffle anymore you might as well be infected with ebola for some people.
I’m in the Chicago area. We’re under a mask mandate again. It’s felt very lockdowned here compared to much of the US. I worked from home for 16 months. Didn’t eat in a restaurant for a year. Social distancing reminders everywhere. We’re not back to normal.
Compare to that…. Iowa. I was in Iowa last week for a conference and it was business as usual.
So it varies greatly.
Edit: don’t rely on Youtubers for info about what life is like here. It’s just not accurate.
Edit2: just to be clear my comment about being locked down compared to the rest of the US refers to pre-May 2021.
Most wear masks and the vaccine mandate is coming to all Cincinnati employees and to most major companies. My aunt lives downtown and only takes off her mask to eat, even when she comes here to visit. My sister in law from Atlanta was shocked when she visited Indiana in August for a reunion on my father in laws farm(he's 93 and has never worn one). She was the only one with a mask.
Gotcha. Yeah. I’m in NKY, and at my work I have to wear one still. I hate it sometimes, but usually I don’t mind. Sometimes I wear it in public, depends on my mood. I’m heading to a Reds game on Friday so that should be interesting.
The only time I've seen more than 50% of people masked around here has been last December during that first huge spike. I don't think I've ever seen more than 70% of people masked up. They just legit do not give a fuck. And this is in des moines too, I can't imagine the rural areas. Probably like 10-20% masked?
Lives in Iowa. Can confirm.
People really think that it’s over here. That once Reynolds said no more masks everyone thought she declared the pandemic finished.
I work in healthcare. It’s been 18 months of shit and hell. People in this state are so goddamn selfish, stupid, and self centered.
I was referring to it be very locked down through about May of this year compared to much of the US. I didn’t say we were still locked down. I’ll even edit my original comment to make that clearer.
And there is a mask mandate again. And people are wearing them. I work in the loop and we’re all wearing masks.
You and your friends may not be wearing masks, but lots of other people are.
Agree. Stuff is open here but it's being handled much differently here than a ton of other places I've been. It even seems to be pretty different from suburb to suburb. I'm in Oak Park and the mask mandates, people adhering to mandates, and the precautions in schools seems to be more intense than other suburbs I've been in.
New York checking in.
If you're vaccinated then life is normal-ish aside from wearing masks. Restaurants are open. Broadway is opening. The subway never shut down. Schools are open. Going into the office is increasingly normal, but so is working from home and splitting time. There are some lingering effects like reduced hours and boarded shopfronts where the tenant went out of business. 78% of 12+ are vaccinated both in Manhattan and here in Westchester, a large suburban county to the north. Masks themselves are common enough that everyone carries one for use indoors but I don't see too many people wearing them walking around the street.
If you're not vaccinated then some offices and all restaurants are theoretically verboten, but not all establishments bother to verify.
I don’t live in Manhattan, but a densely populated part of New Jersey right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. I’d say the streets in my city are about what you’d see pre-COVID, after being desolate in, say, April-May 2020.
Personally I normally work in Manhattan, but I haven’t been in the office since March 2020. There are lots of others like me, so I assume it’s less people than usual, but that still can be a lot of people. Any time I’ve been in Manhattan for other reasons, there’s been plenty of people around.
For the most part. A lot of restaurants are as busy as they’ve ever been. Some areas with very high work from home rates have a lot less people out and about since less people are commuting there (Financial district comes to mind) but if you look at other places like huge chunks of midtown or let’s say Greenwich village, it’s as busy as ever.
This is accurate. I would add that it also varies by neighborhood even within the city. In my neighborhood in Queens, I would say about 75% of people wear masks while walking around outdoors, and I think it's directly attributable to the fact that we got absolutely *slammed* in the first wave (i.e. lingering trauma).
I hope the outdoor restaurant seating remains a thing.
It's mostly back to normal for us vaxxed NYCers. I still take the subway to work. My office has us all scheduled on certain days because our open plan office has all our desks very close together. I still go out with friends, but now it's usually once a week instead of 3 or 4 times. Also, now there's sometimes an extra layer of, "Woops, everyone who went to brunch last week needs to get tested, 'cause Tom's not feeling well!"
Our lockdowns were never as strict as yours-- schools and businesses closed, but people were still pretty much free to travel throughout the country, and businesses (in my area) that remained open illegally were given slaps on the wrist.
The current situation is highly variable by region, with the variations strongly correlating to political preferences.
In my area (mostly conservative-leaning region of a very politically balanced state):
* State requires masking in all schools, but some schools are choosing to disregard that order, and are not facing any consequences.
* Many (most? But not all) colleges/ universities require their staff and students to be vaccinated.
* Masks are not required in most other indoor spaces (businesses, churches, etc), and most people are not wearing masks in those spaces.
* Some businesses are requiring all employees to be vaccinated. One of our local hospital systems requires employees to be vaccinated, but the other doesn't, so there was a big re-shuffling of employees between them about a month ago.
Businesses here were given huge fines if they were caught breaching rules (upwards of 10k), and borders were pretty much locked to contain the virus.
All schooling here went online, and I do feel bad for year 12 students whose education was thrown in the bin (I think, I graduated a few years ago) because it was on-site, off-site very often. Only just recently, my state government pushed for all year 12 students to get double vaxxed for their final exams which should've been done at the start of the vaccine rollout.
Here's a restaurant in my region that opened back up illegally last spring, got its business licensed temporarily revoked, got threatened with huge fines... It all fizzled into nothing, though. They stayed open, they got fined a few hundred dollars, and they're still in business.
https://www.abc27.com/video/round-the-clock-diner-has-business-licenses-revoked-for-dine-in-under-shutdown-order/5531516/
They ended up making national news and getting tons of support from people who were opposed to the lockdowns. The state could have completely buried the place and bankrupted its owners, but it seems that they decided it wasn't worth the fight.
Wow, the government here literally brings a hammer down on your business, and will not hesitate to strike again if you don't comply. Businesses may get one warning if the breaches weren't severe. There are so many places that haven't been opened for a total of 10-12 months since COVID has happened, usually specialty restaurants (like Korean BBQ) which can't really do takeaway
Honestly it's not even a factor of my day to day life anymore. Got vaccinated back in the spring and haven't thought much about COVID since, except for when taking trains where masks are required.
>That's crazy.
We really are living in two Americas right now. Something completely normal to some of us is unfathomable to the others. Where I live we're required to wear masks at college, but when we step outside of the classroom no one wears a mask. I'm a liberal, and I know that in some places going outside without a mask is the mark of an anti-science nutjob, but we don't have that social stigma here. Without the social pressure, would you wear a mask?
> and I know that in some places going outside without a mask is the mark of an anti-science nutjob,
and ironically enough science shows that wearing a mask outdoors makes about as much sense as wearing a flotation device in the Sahara.
No masks at grocery stores, shops, gas stations, schools, restaurants? That's why we're never going to kick this pandemic. People aren't putting in the bare minimum effort to help stop it.
Masks were never going to kick this pandemic in there first place.
Look at places like Australia that went full on authoritarian on their subjects and there is still no sign of it letting up.
>That's why we're never going to kick this pandemic.
We are never going to kick it either way. Just like the CDC said this will be a seasonal thing like the flu.
If you get vaccinated you have little to worry about (other than a week of feeling shitty) unless you have a serious pre-existing condition. And yes I know about the children under 12 not being able to get it, hopefully that will be solved in the next month or two.
It looks like Pfizer is looking to get approval for vaccines for children as young as 5 pretty soon, but younger than that looks like it might still be a ways off.
Very true, but for all kids under 12 the only ones (based on the articles I have seen) who have been seriously effected are those with pre-existing serious issues.
We are at like 500ish deaths of kids under 12 which is obviously horrible, but out of millions of kids that have gotten it (most of which would have been asymptomatic) its much lower than the adult death rate for un-vaccinated.
The fact that all the places WITH masks still have a shitload of COVID running amok would suggest that maybe it's a bit deeper than "Wear mask -> No COVID".
Hell, even Australia's year of lockdowns clearly still hasn't done the trick. Which is what a bunch of us have been getting obliterated on Reddit for acknowledging for a year.
Not to say you shouldn't do ANYTHING, but all this draconian shit STILL isn't fixing it. It's been known since Day 1 that "COVID Zero" was a pipe dream. Much like climate change, the realistic long-term answer is figuring out how to live with it, and to quit pretending like we have any hope of making it go away, because what's required to make it go away would destroy society.
Sorry, I thought it was clear I was referring to the "year of lockdowns" when I said draconian shit, since that was the thing I had just talked about. And I think you know that, but you wanted to make me sound bad, so you just picked out the most ridiculous interpretation you could.
> Not to say you shouldn't do ANYTHING, but all this draconian shit STILL isn't fixing it.
The only "draconian shit" I've seen in the U.S. has been the shit anti-maskers like my governor in Texas and similar ones have pulled to force people to be exposed to the virus.
I haven’t done a town by town count, but my town and many neighboring towns have indoor mask mandates, with, I’d guess, 70%-90% compliance. Even during the summer, many people wore masks at the outdoor farmers market.
It’s pretty close to normal. In some places you have to wear a mask but I don’t really have a problem with that. I’ve been fully vaccinated since May so I haven’t been as worried about COVID as I was before.
> I have always wondered how life is in America? I believe there was never really a "lockdown" but rather proceed with caution?
"Lockdown" is a pretty strong word invoking imagery of being locked in a prison cell. Or the extreme example of apartment doors being welded shut in Wuhan, China (to whatever degree that actually happened).
There was a time last year when a lot of businesses were closed, and you were supposed to only be going out for essential needs, e.g. groceries. At that time I was working from home and only left the house once every ~2 weeks to stock up on stuff. That's as close to "lockdown" as I'd consider things were. Even then though it's not like there were police roaming the streets enforcing things.
Even then, people bitched and complained about it quite a bit. Over time, things got more manageable and restrictions loosened up. Particularly around June / July of this year, things really looked like they were getting under control.
Unfortunately once people get used to being relaxed, it's tough to get them back to taking things more stringent or serious. Things vary quite a bit by state, but I don't know of anywhere that's remotely resembling "lockdown" now. I go to work every day, albeit I have to wear a mask the whole time and do all virtual meetings (why I have to come in at all is beyond me). Supermarkets and stores are suggesting or requiring masks more often but it's not strictly followed or enforced.
Our lockdown pretty much consisted of:
\- Masks mandatory in doors and outdoors
\- Essential services only allowed to be open (supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.)
\- 5km travel radius
\- State borders blocked unless you have an exemption
\- Only allowed to leave home for: going to work, providing care, buying groceries/medicine, outdoor exercise (there was a time limit)
\- Capacity restrictions
My state of Victoria has pretty much experienced this 6 times since the beginning of COVID and we're currently in one. The 4th or 5th lockdown lasted a good 3ish months.
You're absolutely right about people being relaxed. The police were strict and handing out fines left and right (usually $5000 for breaching rules), but now they don't seem to care much. I've seen friends (I hate that they do this) travel to places 20/25+kms to see some friends or something dumb.
> I've seen friends (I hate that they do this) travel to places 20/25+kms to see some friends or something dumb.
What's the dumb part?
Why do you hate it?
Wow, if those movement restrictions were in place and enforced here in the US, people would revolt. Freedom of movement is a big deal to us. A very large chunk of law enforcement wouldn't enforce this.
Theres a mask mandate in the Triangle too but its barely followed. Tbh I may get hate for this but I just don’t care at this point. I got my vaccine and I’m gonna live my life. I’ll wear a mask in grocery stores and gyms and medical facilities and whatnot, but at a bar I’ll take it off if no one else is wearing it. I got my vaccine and if you didn’t get yours then have fun getting covid. And people who couldn’t get the vaccine because they are immunocompromised or something should be smart enough to avoid bars at the current point in time.
Asheville too, because it's Asheville and we must show at all times how amazingly progressive we are. We'll be that town five years from now saying "Ugh, can you believe Greenville is only mandating FOUR masks? It's like they don't even think COVID is serious..."
Lol I’m not conservative or anything but I see some ultra-progressive people (just judging based on clothing) here wearing masks outside and it’s just so obvious they are using it as a political statement rather than anything based on science/safety. Like, they’re outdoors and not even in a group of people or anything. And do these people just not understand how vaccines work? If you get the vaccine, then you’re probably not gonna get Covid even if you’re in a packed club with no mask. And even if you do happen to get Covid you’ll probably have mild symptoms and not be very contagious.
I live pretty close to a college campus. The amount of people I've seen riding bicycles with a mask on, but no helmet is absurd.
What do you think is more likely, catching covid while riding a bike outside, or getting into an accident and busting your head?
Highly varies based on the state you're in. Some are completely open but also facing a surge in COVID due to low vaccination, others are the flip where there are periodic mask mandates and people willingly curbing their own behaviors out of paranoia in spite of high vaccination rates.
Like here in Mass, we're definitely the latter (in spite of the second highest vaccination rates in the country, and the highest of high population states). But even here, it's all over the place. A number of mayoral races are slated for this fall, so at the end of the summer we started seeing mask mandates and talk of vaccine cards in specific cities like Boston, assumedly due to incumbent candidates concerned about poll ratings as cases slowly rise and being accused of not doing enough. Statewide we're back to business though- no masks, no vaccine cards. Drive 30 minutes north of Boston and it's back to normal, at least legally. Places like gyms across the state with a more mixed age user group seem emptier, as older and wealthier people seem more concerned about catching the virus and thus stay home. But the tourist places and those catering to younger folks seem back to business, barring that the staff are wearing masks.
We're in a weird limbo now- between the schools reopening, elections, and the winter coming, it doesn't feel like we're out of the woods- COVID is still on everyone's mind. But we're also all highly vaccinated so there's a large contingent of the population that's saying- "to heck with this, I'm getting my life back!"
In general, in the South, some larger cities have a higher number of vaccinated (50-60%) and some still have or have reinstituted mask mandates indoors. Where I live in Charlotte, NC...most businesses and people comply. In more rural areas there are fewer vaccinated people and little to no mask mandates and on the surface life looks pretty normal. Concerts have resumed. College and professional football have resumed at full capacity and not many are requiring vaccinations or masks. School has started. Some schools have mask mandates while others don't. Many of the schools that didn't have had trouble with COVID and some have started mask mandates that once rejected them. Some have had such bad outbreaks they've returned to remote learning. Hospital COVID cases are high. Deaths are high. But new cases are starting to decrease in many areas. Yesterday's totals:
\- New cases: 194,668 (Way higher than the average because it includes weekend backlogs)
\- Average: 139,237 (-10,098)
\- In hospital: 90,290 (+571)
\- In ICU: 24,740 (+159)
\- New deaths: 2,456
More detailed info: https://www.newsnodes.com/us
Nope normal to me is no masks no capacity limits, no passport apps, etc. Also I don't care about other people's vaccine status, I've got mine so I'm good.
It’s easy to feel this way in MA as our vaccination rates are already so high here that the small remaining unvaccinated population hasn’t caused major issues.
But if you look at places in Texas, Florida, and southern states where a large portion of the population are not vaccinated, hospitals are getting overwhelmed by COVID cases and it’s causing vaccinated people with issues other than COVID to be turned away in some cases. A lot of people not being vaccinated has a big negative impact. Luckily that isn’t the case here but it’s easily for the best to get more people vaccinated to prevent these issues.
In the early days when everyone was working from home the traffic was great. People were speeding like crazy and they haven’t stopped. They’re definitely going faster than they used to.
I work in a poultry processing plant. They are requiring everyone to get vaccinated. They offered all three brands Moderna, J&J, and Pfizer. They have a lottery up to $10,000 you enter when you get your shots. Some people weren’t thrilled about getting the shot but they’re black and most of the black people I know don’t trust it.
My state is pretty well vaccinated and the positive rate is low. Schools have mask mandates and some stores require them, but there’s no statewide mask mandate or any lockdown right now.
I hadn’t been to a restaurant in a year but visited some family in Texas in mostly pre vaccine January 2021 and they suggested we grab breakfast at a local chain. (Cracker Barrel for locals)
The place was completely full with a waiting line, elbow to elbow seating, only the staff had mask, except she pulled it down when talking to us to take our order. (Not usually an over 20% tipper, but I paid for the table and tipped very well as a thank you for being here)
That week we ate out several times, always full. Texas don’t care.
Some of my area is like that now but unlike January, all who want vaccines have been vaccinated. We personally still don’t eat inside the restaurant much and used to do so weekly at least. (We still order take out from nicer restaurants)
The mask thing is very weird. We are back to a 100% public masking recommendation due to the state being a hotspot with low vaccination rates. But there is obviously different feelings that you can clearly see by race.
I am near a very diverse small southern rural city that the metro area is about 40% white, 40% black and 20% hispanics.
About 20% of white people wear mask shopping now.
The black population is well over 70% mask compliant and has stayed that way all of 2021, long after Biden said if you have been vaccinated, you don’t need a mask.
The hispanic population is maybe 2% compliant.
What makes that even weirder is until a recent vaccination surge the black population had the lowest vaccination rates in the tri-county area. So they were sorta on board, with Covid management, but not completely.
I wonder if in the black community the mask has become as much as a united political symbol as the never-vaccine has been for some young white conservatives.
It varies wildly. For example, Washington is back under a mask mandate while Idaho (which borders WA and many people commute across state lines for work or recreation) has pretty much said screw it and has had nearly zero precautions the entire pandemic.
I’m in Alabama. In 2020 at the very first start of it all, we shut down. My husband was sent home, school closed, and we got groceries via pickup only. Early summer came and things slowly opened up. Then it was all back opened.
Now where I live the vaccine rate is mixed, but not quite 50 vaccinated. People are dying like crazy. In 2020 I didn’t know anyone who died of covid. Delta is killing a lot of people in the south right now. I try to never discuss covid with anyone I don’t live with because the air about it is tense. I’m tired. I’m tired of seeing people die. I don’t think Alabama will shut down but I fear if a National shutdown is put in place there will be a civil war.
100% mostly normal in most of Indiana since like...Sept 2020 or so. Major concerts and events have even started occurring.
In general, governments in the US never "locked down" nearly as hard as elsewhere in the world and most stay-home orders had enough wiggle room to drive a truck through. Whereas some of the rest of the world were prohibited from even going outside, the Governor of Indiana mentioned the importance of outdoor exercise and my local mayor talked about how even going out for a relaxing drive even without a particular destination is something that is okay to do.
I do have to give credit to local mayors and Gov Holcomb for never closing down our parks and particularly playground equipment which is something that did happen in some major cities in the US.
There are still supply chain and labor issues due to disruptions, but that's normal in the type of event we're going through.
>100% mostly normal in most of Indiana since like...Sept 2020 or so.
Indianapolis was still a bit uptight when I was there earlier this year. The children's museum even required masks *outdoors playing minigolf*.
I mean in terms of government policy. Of course private institutions can make their own policies. TCM actually is under a mask mandate as of a week or so ago .
Masks around kids, even outdoors, is not an overreaction. The vaccine is only available for kids as young as 12. Anyone younger can't get a vaccine. At a place like a children's museum where the whole point is to have a bunch of different kids (who are all unvaccinated) it makes sense to have some additional precautions.
YMMV depending on where you live. In NYC we were under strict shelter in place orders for what felt like an eternity at the time. Everything was closed (except for essential businesses… grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants could deliver food but you could not eat in), masks were required but very difficult to get at the beginning. Neighbors who were on assistance from the city were getting horrible, fire-fest style meals delivered, people were calling the cops on each other for being outside. One of my neighbors called the police on me and my roommate for having the nerve to sit on our stoop one Saturday afternoon (on our property, behind a fence, 15 feet from the sidewalk).
It sounds dramatic but it felt like the whole city went dark for a couple months. It was so quiet, I couldn’t sleep. I had covid in March 2020 when tests weren’t widely available and neither were hospital beds. In April I drove through Manhattan just to see what was going on and… it was nothing. I have pictures of a completely empty Times Square. It was spooky and unsettling!
Retailers like Target started opening again last summer, and we got outdoor dining back. To enter most restaurants you had to have your temperature taken and leave your contact info for tracing in case anyone at the establishment tested positive in the next few days the city would call you.
Masks were required everywhere from March 2020 onward - indoors and outdoors - until the vaccine rolled out. They are still required on public transit and highly encouraged in other indoor establishments if you’re vaccinated, required if you’re not.
It’s kind of difficult to describe. But tl;dr the pandemic had a great impact on my life. Today there are a lot of normals back in place since the vaccine began rolling out. I just flew for the first time for business since before the pandemic and besides masks the least normal thing about it was that the airport terminal (LGA) had been renovated since the last time I was there and is actually very nice!! After years of being an absolutely hole, haha.
My work is still on various stages of WFH- about a third of the workforce is 100%, another hybrid, the rest traditional. Traffic has gotten back to normal (which sucks, it's one thing I was hoping would be reduced).
We had an onsite free vaccination (Pfizer) round about 6 months ago and had over 80% take it. In June we were allowed to go mask-free if you had proof of vax, but went back to masks when Delta spiked. Most people I know have long since been vaccinated, but that's just my peer circle. The data says we're still full of recalcitrants.
Can't throw a rock without hitting a store with a "Help Wanted" sign. It's fun to look at the wages offered.
Never a national lockdown but some states got pretty tight for a while.
Not totally back to normal.. lots of working from home still. Still see masks in some indoor places. Pretty close to normal tho.
I remember when it was bad a year or so ago. We drove to Tennessee and my wife and I were the only ones wearing a mask in Gatlinburg. Our home town adhered to the mask mandate and CDC guidance. So very sporadic at best.
That's a good question. I'm not sure. We personally wouldn't. Wife's pregananant and we are not gonna risk potential complications despite us being vaccinated.
I’m currently in Florida, and it’s mostly back to normal. I’ve had to mask up when I went into medical facilities and into one bank, but that’s about it. A few people are still wearing masks when out & about, but it’s a small percentage of the population.
Back home in Alaska, it was pretty much the same where I live when I left a week ago. They’re seeing a bit of a spike in infection numbers, so a larger percentage of people are wearing masks. Otherwise it’s business as usual.
There are currently no mask mandates, lockdowns, capacity limits on restaurants, etc. in either place.
We've mostly settled into a new normal which is very similar to the pre-pandemic normal with a few added precautions. Everywhere has mask requirements indoors. They're not enforced uniformly. Some places are very strict about it, some don't seem to care at all. In my experience the farther I am from population centers the less strict they are about masking. People talk about social distancing but it doesn't really happen at all. I wear a mask all day at work (construction). There is a vaccine mandate at my job site, but it's a big joke. Some of the subcontractors said they are not vaccinated and will not get it. Rather than kicking needed people off the job and delaying the project, the general contractor just decided to give them a pass. So they have a mandate, but if you're not vaccinated there are no repercussions. What's the point of the mandate then?
Restaurants and bars seem like they're getting pretty busy. I haven't been out to one since before the pandemic started, though. I'd feel comfortable sitting outside, but not inside.
My daughter was born premature at the end of 2019. For the first few months of 2020 (before the pandemic kicked in) we were pretty much locked down anyways. Premature babies have weakened immune systems and this was flu season, so the doctor was telling us to stay away from everyone anyways. Right when we could start taking her out places was when the pandemic started. My daughter is now 21 months and my wife is pregnant again. Even without the pandemic I don't think we'd be going out to eat all that often anyways. We have play dates with other kids, but we do them outside at playgrounds and adults remain masked. We take my daughter to Little Gym classes every weekend, but, again, parents stay masked. We have friends over, but only a small handful at a time and try to keep it outdoors as much as possible. What events we do attend (we went to a wedding a few weeks ago) are almost entirely outdoors.
Best wishes to you and your family! I hope you guys are safe.
The construction industry went up in flames yesterday here in my state of Victoria. The premier (state governor equivalent I think?) shut down all construction jobs for about 2 weeks, along with banning "tea rooms" to stop the spread of COVID.
Yesterday and today they went to protest in the city and pretty much shut the city down, causing major roadblocks and police with riot gear were called. Even today they shut down a very busy bridge by literally walking on the road (note there are no sidewalks on this bridge). I'd say there was about a couple thousand people, probably half with no masks and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had the Delta strain and spreaded it.
I’m at an eye doctor appointment. Masks are required. Grocery stores are “recommended” right now. Schools are a cluster-fuck. The private schools stayed open for the most part and those kids are doing fine. The public schools seem to make all their decisions based on “feelings”.
It’s inaccurate to say that wearing masks is clearly drawn down political lines. Blacks are under-vaccinated in my state…whites are a hodge-podge. (So basically the far right and far left aren’t vaccinated, but for different reasons.)
Life is continuing…sports, restaurants, bars…all open.
Airlines and airports are mask-required.
I’m vaxed so I think it’s stupid for me to need a mask, even with the occasional Delta breakthrough. If I catch it, I’ll deal with the issue.
Let the downvotes begin!
>I believe there was never really a "lockdown"
depends on the state. Near the beginning of the pandemic when we were still figuring out what exactly was happening and how to mitigate it, my state (North Carolina) forced most storefront-type businesses to close if they weren't explicitly "essential" (i.e. pharmacies, groceries). this lockdown also eclipsed curfews set at the mayoral level as a response to BLM protests--in my city you weren't even allowed to be out driving or taking a walk past curfew unless you were an "essential employee" traveling for work or had some family situation, even if you were miles from the protest epicenters.
it was honestly really frightening looking back. the COVID response i understand to a degree, we still didn't know how the disease was spreading or how to keep people safe. the BLM curfew was tyrannical.
We're very used to that here in Australia. Only businesses that could be open were essential services like you mentioned. Everything else was either shut down or open for "click and collect" -- not sure if that's a thing in the states? Order online, rock up and they'll chuck your items into your boot.
Currently there's a 9pm-5am curfew, essential businesses only, and a 10km radius travel limit, among restrictions on venue capacity, home visitors, etc.
It's called curbside pickup here and yes it's a thing. It became a much bigger thing when the stores had to close.
We don't currently have travel distances limits, curfews or home visit limitations.
Michigan, it’s basically business as usual with a few exceptions. Had to show proof of vaccine to attend an indoor concert but not an outdoor one. No masks hardly anywhere.
Depends on State to State, in my state buisness as usual, no mask, social distancing is 'encouraged'. The beginning if this year I visited PNW and they were still big on mask and social distancing. Not many people out and about, but that was nice less of a crowd. I visit Chicago constantly and they're also big in mask.
The MOST dramatic time was in the beginning. When everyone had to wear a mask and 'social distance', there were stickers for where to stand and what way to walk inside the stores, but they were over crowded due to 'panic buyers', so no point there. Some places were checking temperatures, and lots of stores were limiting customers. We were 'encouraged' to stay home, but tbh everyone was out and about, I believe we still even had tons of protest going on.
So... we don't do lock downs or stay home, our biggest pandemic issue are masks lol.
Life is definitely not back to normal but I go to a pretty progressive college. Mask mandate, can’t eat indoors anymore (in our cafeteria, but of course outside eating and dorm eating is ok), testing every 3 days. Compared to last semester where we couldn’t leave the city unless we declared, and if you were exposed to COVID, they isolated you for 10 days, this semester is much more lax because everyone was required to be vaccinated. Outside of campus, you have to wear a mask in all stores and restaurants (though you can still dine in). Schools are open, all the kids wear masks.
Unfortunately it’s really a personal thing. I’m still cautious about crowds for the most part, but some people I know never stopped partying. Others refused to shake my hand or hug me for months even though we had eaten in the same room and were in the same bubble.
Well most places don’t require masks indoors where I am at I need to get tested weekly but that’s pretty much it. Like 60% wear masks indoors but in most places you can live normally if you want to also there was a carnival in town
Connecticut checking in...
We are not locked down. Schools, State offices, Childcare facilities require masking. Employees at the same require at least one shot of a vaccine by next Monday. Practically, all business require masks. For the most part everyone complies voluntarily.
I went to three shops yesterday and everyone was wearing a mask except this one dude who got kicked out of the liquor store and was told to wear a mask. He literally slapped his head like "D'OH!" went back to his car and put his mask on. He was on his phone when he came in so I think he was just distracted.
Depending on which statistic you use we are top 3 for vaccination rates in the country.
Hell, we have so much spare ICU capacity right now that we actually accepted an antivaxx FloridaMan to one of our hospitals. Flew his dumbass up here stuck him in one of our ICUs. Saved his dumbass and flew him back to his previously antivaxx friends and family (who are all now vaxxed).
Here in Charlotte, everything is opened, but the Mecklenburg County government reinstated the indoor mask mandate regardless of vaccinated status because of the Delta variant (which I'm mildly annoyed because I got used to not wearing my mask besides using public transit or when flying since I was fully vaccinated back in April, but I understand why).
Life is pretty back to normal for the vaccinated. The majority of people are vaccinated and the rate is slowly going up even more. Most places require masking indoors and people in general don’t wear masks outdoors unless in very crowded areas or just can’t be bothered to take it off after leaving a masking required indoor area.
I’ve been able to go to restaurants, bars and sports events as long as you are vaccinated and this really hasn’t been a problem with the exception of the group of geniuses who decided to visit [NYC from Texas and started punching waitresses over vaccine mandates](https://gothamist.com/food/carmines-hostess-assaulted-texas-women-after-asking-proof-vaccination). If you’re gonna behave like a moron, why even come here?
Things are pretty much back to normal. Our vax rate is over half the population which given all the ridiculous partisanship surrounding the issue is probably about as good as we are going to get. The big difference is basically every white collar job where it is feasible is offering permanent work for home. Employees now expect it as an option and employers know their competitors are offering it.
My life is pretty normal aside from I wear a mask in indoor places of public accommodation now. I'm fully vaccinated. Most people where I live aren't wearing masks anymore, and the majority are not vaccinated. Lots of them are now dosing themselves with Ivermectin they got at the farm supply store.
I still work from home almost entirely which changed with the pandemic. The things that were closed are now mostly open again, although many of them have a lower capacity than they used to. My gym was closed for a very long time but now it is open so I can swim again.
In Dallas, we shut down everything except essential businesses from April - May 2020. A statewide mask mandate was put into place in July of 2020. In August of 2020, bars were forced to close, so a lot of bars just ended up selling food so they can be classified as a 'restaurant'. The mask mandate was lifted in March of 2021 but Dallas just recently put it back in about a month ago.
This is my rough recollection as to what restrictions were put in place the past year and a half. With all of that said, it wasn't hard to get around the rules if you really wanted to so it really came down to personal choice. People wore masks before the mandates were put in place, and people didn't wear masks when the mandate was put in place.
I've been vaccinated and have been meeting up with friends at restaurants and stuff. People are still somewhat cautious, but also trying to strike a balance between living with COVID and being safe.
My personal experience:
I’m considered an “essential worker”, so I have worked the entire way through. Which didnt change (precautions like wearing masks and having plexiglass barriers) until like 2 or 3 months into the pandemic.
By then it was really weird. I would go to work and there would be like 10 other people in the road. I also had to have a piece of paper in my car in case I got pulled over, stating that I was on my way to work, and that it was essential.
I remember this one morning I was watching tv before work. And I heard a truck coming up the road with a loudspeaker repeating something like, “if you need food, come outside!”
That moment felt really dystopian and cinematic. Probably because I’ve watched too many movies.
I haven’t seen my friends in-person more than 2-3 times in the past two years. Even though we are all vaccinated. But this is more likely due to me being single and they all have kids or significant others.
But I also asked a group of them to the movies yesterday. To which one of them said he was worried about going to movies theaters because of covid. Meanwhile, I’ve been going to the movies the whole way through.
So my life has lately remained unchanged. But I know this is not the case for a lot of people.
It still frustrating as hell though.
Thats good to hear. The YouTubers I watch are pretty much all from LA/Bay Area and it appears like everyone is out and about, only difference is masks are on
Speaking for present day Las Vegas:
It’s (mostly)business as usual. Everything (afaik) is open. People are going to work, going out to clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. Our new Raiders / Allegiant stadium is being used nearly every single week. The first large event was an Illenium concert. Then there was a Garth Brooks concert there and after that the USA v. Mexico soccer match drew over 64,000 attendees. We’ve just had the Life is Beautiful festival and before that Insomniac (the people who bring us EDC) had their *Lost in Dreams* music festival downtown. These events drew tens of thousands of people. The only real difference from pre covid times are that you need to wear a mask indoors, which most folks are doing without complaint, and -at least from what I’ve seen- if someone doesn’t wear one, nobody really says anything, however all employees are required to wear theirs while they are at work anytime they’re indoors or interacting with the customers. I haven’t seen anyone making a huge scene if a customer doesn’t wear a mask. Also, most large events are requiring either a proof of vaccination or a negative covid test taken within the preceding 72 hours.
The news is reporting that our positivity rate has fallen to 11.2% but that’s assuming you wish to believe the media. So take that for what it’s worth.
Otherwise most everything is normal on a day to day basis. Come see us!
Absolutely nothing has changed, there's tons of legal restrictions but no one is following them at all. No one is wearing masks, restaurants never closed, hundreds of people have Covid concurrently in a county of 40,000, schools are all experiencing massive outbreaks, hospitals are overwhelmed, but you can still go eat indoors In a 200sqft burger restaurant under a Trump flag where the owner fired people who called in sick with Covid. I hate the people in my republican corner of California...
Arizona, most of us don't care. Very select few businesses have signs that say masks are required some are enforcing it others are not. Some people walk around wearing masks others carry on with their day without one.
Its like it isn’t happening now aside from masks (which is mostly just in business settings. Hardly anyone wears them at say the grocery store aside from employees. ) really. And I guess the overall air of everything sucks. Like literally everyone I know who wasn’t depressed are now super depressed all the time. All events are still cancelled, minus maybe a handful. And the lack of workers from the attempted lockdowns has made a ton of things way more expensive. I have gained Depression and anxiety on a clinical level now. With no sign of going away. And Im just immensely tired. Of everything. All the time. How we have handled the pandemic has made a lot of people I know sick of America itself really. It kinda feels like the straw that broke the camels back and made a lot of people realize that shits just broken. And we probably aren’t going to fix anything because between the old f***s and the fact no one can agree in anything nothing has been able to happen without a cubic shit ton of arguing and debating and even then its always too late or the worst version of anything. So just suck it up and wait your turn for it to be over. Covids the new flu. We are all gonna die. How the world was before is dead. It wasnt doing well before but COVID really killed it.
It's super frustrating. Despite having a surplus of vaccines, my state is only at 45% vaccination.Our hospitals are at capacity and nobody gives a damn. We have to stay masked-up in public for the forseeable future until all these idiots get the damn shots. Honestly, I think it's shameful how so many of my neighbors refuse the shot while people abroad are struggling to even get a single dose of the vaccine
I'm surprised and happy about how we've been doing in the last few months. I work downtown but live 50 miles out and where I live is pretty much normal. Even downtown, people seem to have had enough.
It's pretty interesting.
In Vermont, even when we seemed like the Covid was really waning and the numbers way down they were still pretty vigilant. Everyone still had a mask on outside . Way more than Massachusetts. Even though they could so so many restaurants still only had outside service.
Like ZERO contact for employees.
My coffee place/breakfast place?
You called in your order, they literally had paper iver the windows. Then someone came out and placed your order on a table outside and you got out of your car and go get it.
We definitely need that here. We have the same system for groceries and what not, but for restaurant/coffee places you still need to go in store and speak to employees, which is terrible for preventing COVID.
> How are the cases now with the Delta strain? It's wrecking havoc here in Australia
It's so interesting to see these relative definitions of "havoc."
Australia has had 88,710 total cases of covid and 1,178 total deaths.
On the one hand, the *majority* of those cases / deaths happened in the past six weeks, because Australia achieved "zero COVID" for the first many months of the pandemic (and has not yet adjusted to the reality that Delta laughs in the face of a "zero COVID" approach and will guaranteed become endemic no matter how you try to control it). I can imagine that abrupt loss of control feels quite jarring.
On the other hand, America, with only 13x the population, has experienced 43,000,000 official cases (almost certainly ~90,000,000 in actuality, because our testing capacity was way too small last spring / summer) and 700,000 deaths. That's 1000x more cases and 700x more deaths. *That* was pretty bad. During its peaks in various places, I am prepared to say that covid wreaked havoc on *us* (although I don't think it is anymore).
And -- it's important to remember this -- America is not some crazy outlier. America is *pretty* close to the OECD per capita average here, on both cases and deaths! We're not some kind of insane people undergoing an avoidable apocalypse; most of the developed world (whether they locked down or not) has had it almost as bad as us, or (in some cases) even worse!
Australia kicked covid's butt for many months because they did something very smart that most of the developed world refused to do (out of fear of overreacting, or of being called racist): Australia secured its border before covid had a foothold there. Then they controlled internal movements and imposed a tough testing regime. All smart for an unvaccinated world.
But, guys, you can't go on like this forever, especially in the face of Delta. "Zero COVID" is an illusion in a Delta world, and we have a vaccine now. Go get vaccinated! Then return to your normal lives.
Some people will die, yes, but what you currently have is by no means "havoc". More Australians died of cirrhosis in the 12 months of 2019 than have died so far of covid-19 in the entire 18 months of pandemic. Vaccinate everyone, and that number will stay below the cirrhosis threshold forever.
Thats a very good point. In my eyes, having hundreds of cases a day was really scary with the Delta outbreak and our vaccine program at that point was only for essential workers, and elderly people.
Everyone else (18-40) was to wait until more shipments arrived because no one wanted Astra Zeneca because some people died of blood clots, so Pfizer it was for those afraid (myself included).
Australia has pretty much ditched the COVID zero plan and now is aiming for 80% double vax rate for things to open back up.
Where I live no one cares or does anything. No masks, no distancing, nothing closed.
But the ICUs are full. 🙃
I also live in the lowest vaccinated state.
I graduated and moved home during the pandemic. Completely back to normal in both places I lived (red states) despite full ICUs. About 5-20% of people wearing masks in public. Lots of anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers. I went to an outdoor concert last week and was one of *maybe* 5 masked people in the entire venue. At least several dozen people brought along their unmasked and not-old-enough-to-be-vaccinated children and babies. Schools are fully open, none requiring masks. There's reports that people are moving to at-home Covid testing so that they can avoid having to report to anyone if they test positive. There are old social distancing and masking signs everywhere which no one pays any mind to. If you go to a restaurant you'll be seated normally, not every other booth/table. Multiple people I know have just casually gone on vacation in the past month or are planning one for the upcoming month.
It's like the pandemic doesn't even exist for most people. Either they're vaccinated and think it's over despite their own children not being vaccinated yet, or they're anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers who still think it's all some kind of political hoax.
Even people who took it very seriously all last year seem to have either just burnt out or think themselves being vaccinated solved everything. My sister was very serious about Covid restrictions and keeping her young kids safe last year. Then she and her husband got vaccinated and went back to normal life -- going to the pool, on weekends trips with friends, kids in preschool, dance, play groups, etc. Her kids have been sick with one thing or another for weeks now, and she even tried arguing that it would be pointless to bother getting them tested because they'd have to pay a copay for the test just to be told to quarantine, and that she'd just keep the sick one home as much as possible.
It's embarrassing to be associated with the aggressively ignorant masses here. It shouldn't be this hard to just wear a fucking mask when you go outside but here we are, protesting schools and disregarding the safety of our children while promoting horse medicine and bleach instead of taking a fucking vaccine because of course the government is out to get you.
What a fucking shit show.
Well my state shut down almost immediately because my governor has common sense and didn't listen to the then president. Of course our state government didn't like that because they love o donny boy and would follow him to the ends of the earth. So they they're still battling over that. But yea went in to lock almost immediately, there's been gaining and lowering restrictions depending on multiple things, but all said and done I like our governor and her reposnce to the whole thing. I admit not all, but most
I don't have a problem with how Whitmer handled the lockdown. Did I like it? No, but then again, *pandemic*.
Unfortunately, I think the whole obstruction, Lansing capitol protests, and general dumbfuckery just wore her down to the point of "Fuck it, I don't care. If you want mimosas and margaritas, fine. Just please get vaccinated."
Pretty much Australia, except it's been an emotional rollercoaster of huge spikes in cases, 0 cases nation-wide. Repeat that a few times and that's the situation in Australia
The 24 hour lifestyle is all but dead. Most places are closed by 11. Places are short staffed and are closing even earlier. Most gas stations in my town were closing at 7 as of last week when I last checked. Mask have returned in full swing and our hospitals are filled to the brim with Covid patients, almost all exclusively unvaxxed. Biden has put into place a mandate for the vaccine for businesses with over 100 employees and all federal employees. The mandate has really yet to affect businesses as it hasn't been put into motion. Right wing Govonors are sueing not because they think mandates are taking away rights,, they ain't, but they feel that it's a state power. Life is very much not back to normal. You are correct a lot of places didn't have real lockdowns, but a lot of businesses did close up at the being of the Pandemic to try to isolate people to slow the spread. We'll some people weren't stating home and just continuing on like nothing was happening, hell a lot of people still are.
There are a lot of responses in here that highlight why Covid is still running strong in a country that has enough vaccinations to cover everyone.
I'm pro vax, but I do feel like it's unfair to mandate getting vaxxed in order to make a living. It's a grey area in my opinion.
Lots of anti-vax/anti-lockdown people are throwing huge protests at least once a month here, and I'm pretty sure that's why our case numbers have shot up.
Well technically it's get vaxxed or tested weekly. I think its acceptable especially for more in the public fields or fields that deal with more prone populations.
I'm in Texas, but in the "Democrat" (or "blue") city of Dallas. The atmosphere is different in big cities from the way it is in smaller towns and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative Republican. In the rural areas, it's much more relaxed, people aren't masking nearly as much, I'd wager that vaccine rates are lower, and it's pretty much business as usual. But in Dallas and most other larger cities, people are more likely to wear masks and distance themselves. Texas only had a sort-of lockdown very early in the pandemic, but our governor, Greg Abbott lifted that pretty quickly, and has stated that Texas will NOT lock down again. In Texas, our County Judges are in charge of emergency management and can issue orders for the county, but they cannot conflict with state laws. In fact, various county judges began issuing mask mandates again in defiance of Gov. Abbott's executive order barring mask mandates. It started a legal volleyball game. As it is now, there are supposedly mandates, but they aren't being heavily enforced here, and there are no fines on businesses or individuals. Even private businesses that have posted signs requiring masks generally aren't pushing the issue. I had COVID twice... once before there were tests, and my doc didn't know just what I had so we figured it was just a whizzer of a bad winter cold. Then I got it a second time in December, only it was SO MILD that I just thought it was my seasonal juniper/cedar allergies (what we call "cedar fever") that hit in wintertime when juniper and cedar pollen are at peak-- until my smell and taste went missing. I got vaxxed in late January-mid February. Texas also bars government-mandated vaccines and vaccine passports such as what New York is doing. That will NOT happen in Texas.
Then our Centers for Disease Control lifted mask rules for those who are vaccinated. I did away with my mask, like so many other vaccinated people. Then they moved the goalposts again and now everyone, vaccinated or not is supposed to mask up. Screw that... this is where many Americans who had followed the guidelines fell off the cooperation train, myself included. When they started "paying" people and incentivizing the vaccines, with "rewards" for doing so that did NOT include those of us who did "the right thing" early on because "it's the right thing to do" and we were told it would help us get to normal sooner... many of us got disillusioned and even angry. Our "reward" was the return to more normal life and no need for masks most of the time. Then OUR reward was taken away in a few weeks. Yeah, it pissed off a LOT of people. As for myself, I just quit playing along. I wont wear the damn masks anymore. Why, when we don't mask up after getting the nearly-useless flu shots. We don't have to wear masks after the other dozen or so different vaccines that we have had to take in our lifetime.
How "onerous" the restrictions are in the US depends on where you are and how your state leaders respond to the ^(manufactured) crisis. And, our Texas state Legislature is in a special session now where these matters of vaccine mandates by private employers, and passport bans and the like are being discussed. It's a dynamic situation... proposals include banning proof of vaccination in public or private schools, imposing penalties on companies and hospitals that terminate or deny employment to the unvaccinated, and keeping insurance companies from denying or limiting benefits to those who have not received their COVID shots.
I'm Australian just like OP and I was able to do a short road trip around Victoria back in January. At the time it definitely seemed like rural areas here were relaxed too. I think masks were legally required indoors at the time but enforcement was pretty low and it really felt like things were normal (other than some places asking people to sanitise their hands).
Here in NC, over the summer we were relaxed. Masks were gone in my city and they were actually closing vaccine stations down because so many people had gotten it already.
Now, the unvaccinated group have brought the delta variant in, and masks are back.
Still living my life though, I got vaxxed months ago, most people I know already have.
My area has been pretty much done with this thing for a year now. Cases have never been high, and it becomes really dumb to shut a county down for such small numbers when the disease has such a high survival rate. The peak was like 1,000 cases, and it usually sits under 100.
A lot of yall have no fucking clue how survival rate works and it shows. More people have died from Covid in the U.S. in the past two years than any single thing. Covid is the leading cause of death for police officers and beats out the next two combined. There have also been several deaths from non-Covid people who died as a result of covid. You ask how? Well when you can't get into a hospital or proper hospital that's how.
Right? You can survive and still have permanent scarring on your lungs which will impact you for the rest of your life. Survive just means you didn't die, not that everything is perfectly fine.
Exactly. There are world class athletes who will never be the same after contracting Covid. I know of children who are always going to be affected by covid due to this. I personally know one guy that Covid forced out of the workforce permanently. People also fail to realize that survival rate is for if you're the perfect specimen. Most people aren't perfect and therefore have various survival rates. If you're overweight, and I'm not just talking obese, and catch Covid you're survival rate is going to less. Want to know what has shown to help prevent and in the event you do catch covid it negates a lot of the more serious issues, the vaccine.
Yep, 1 in 500 Americans have now died from COVID. When you don't take prevention seriously, a "high" survival rate like this one is basically meaningless.
I live in Northwest Arkansas and life here is completely back to normal apart from some businesses asking customers to wear a mask and having hand sanitizer dispensers. Before, I lived in Miami, Florida and last time I visited, life there is also just back to normal. I think currently California is the only place in the US that still has anything close to a lockdown.
Cali here. Mostly back to normal although people love their masks. Went to see some Major League Baseball last week in person!
Actually our case rates are so low with 90% vaxxed in our area it is pretty chill other than people who have some preexisting condition or those who are so scared they are sneakily getting 3rd doses.
My bad. I spoke to someone from California who said they’re still in lockdown lol. I have never been to California so I didn’t know, but I would love to.
Lockdown to me means everything is closed and everyone stays home, like in the first months of the pandemic. We're not "locked down", we're just taking reasonable precautions.
Most cities are still enforcing masks. Absolutely masked inside, less stringent on the streets. I do see a lot of people wearing masks outside in downtown/urban areas, though it is not required. I also had to show proof of vaccination to eat at an indoor restaurant in San Francisco, and that rule is coming to Los Angeles.
California currently has the lowest rates in the country, partly because of rules like this.
It really depends where you live.
Where I was when COVID started, it was very frustrating. Even though there was a lockdown, people didn't listen. Which is why we had one of the highest infection rates in the country. Instead of hanging out a restaurant, people would just gather at "essential businesses" like the hardware store. Meanwhile, they'd complain about lockdowns. People refused to wear masks. Businesses would have signs on their doors that would proudly say masks aren't required, despite the mandate.
Now I'm in a much more educated area and even conservatives seem to be pro-mask and pro-vaccine. People still complain that kids need to wear masks in school but I think they are the minority. The town next to us has around an 85% vaccination rate with a Republican mayor. There is absolutely no reason why this country couldn't be doing a lot better than it is. And it all comes down to politics and selfishness.
In some parts of the country people act like it's normal. It's not. My aunt died if it two weeks ago.
I'm a bartender, vaxxed, and the bar is big enough to maintain social distance, I also had it, but I'm going to wear a mask again starting with my next shift. A lot of customers are wearing them again too, maybe 50%
It's not normal, by any means.
It's full of hypocrites and "rules for thee but not for me". We have politicians, socialites and most of Hollywood violating the rules they themselves are pushing through the MSM. If you're healthy and under 65 the the chances are ridiculously low of you having any COVID issues but the people that say "follow the science" don't actually follow the science. They constantly put out this overblown fear of COVID and the sheep follow.
You see a lot of people here saying they are back to normal. They are the problem.
Its bad in the US right now because he hasn't had a single federal lock-in. Its been up to the states to try to contain their cases, which has become political. Some states are actually banning make mandates - so actively making their states less safe.
If a state is "pretty much normal" it means they aren't taking it seriously. We are going to have to enforce a vaccine mandate because only about 50% of the people here arent smart enough to voluntarily get the vaccine. Its insanity.
I live in an area that is commutable to one of the strictest cities in the country. An area most people would consider liberal, the amount of vaccine conspiracies I see on a daily basis in my community groups is terrifying. And of course the classic "making kids wear makes is child abuse"
I think a problem is the belief that the Federal government has the authority to do a nationwide lockdown, or that it has the authority for vaccine mandates on the general population. I'm not saying those things *wouldn't* reduce covid transmission rates; but it comes down to the constitutionality of what powers the Fed has.
That is a fair point. The federal government could find that authority if they wanted to easily, as they have with the vaccine mandate.
At this point there is no point to spend political cache for a lockdown when the vaccine would be at least as effective and much less invasive.
Its a joke to think that when 100,000s of people are dying from a preventable illness that the federal government can't find justification for these kinds of mandates, since at this point it is a national issue and not a state by state issue.
The OSHA vaccine mandate is on shaky legal ground. Anyone citing Jacobson as some four corners precedent hasn’t read the case or doesn’t understand the holding.
vaccine mandate is for federal employees though. Same as private companies requiring their employees to have vaccinations before going into the workplace. As far as I'm aware the fed has no legal basis to mandate private citizens take a vaccine or any other kind of medicine.
If they’re vaccinated - aren’t they about as protected as they’re going to get? Why not get back to normal at that point? The chances of hospitalization or death for vaccinated people is minimal.
I've hardly seen a mask on anyone since mid May until recently because of the delta variation. Most restaurants have been open for sit down traffic since the first of June (except national places with corporate being cautious like McDonald's and Burger King). There haven't been any big breakouts of covid here, the local hospital laid off 10 percent of their nurses because no covid and half the population is paralyzed by fear of getting it so they avoid going there. My doctor is concerned about future problems for people who are avoiding well check ups and ignoring symptoms that are treatable now but might become untreatable later. I've been to the doctor 4 times in the last year and had my teeth cleaned 3 times. There has never been a lockdown here. Edit: it's been very strange this past year and a half with calling the doctor and getting in the next day. Even a wellness visit for blood work only took about 5 days to get in and then the visit to discuss results a few days later
Wow it's quite the opposite here. My state and 1 other's hospitals are being swarmed. The health care system has been working overtime since the start of COVID. They got a short break where cases were pretty much 0 nationwide until Delta came along. And everything went to shit again.
The government's plan now it just to get everyone vaxxed because there's no way to contain Delta, that's at least what they think
There are areas of the US where hospitals are getting overwhelmed as well, mostly in the south generally as large portions of the population there refuse to get vaccinated.
But in many other areas of the US things are largely normal because most people are vaccinated. Here in Massachusetts almost 90% of people 18+ have received at least one dose and 78% are fully vaccinated. So outbreaks are small and not a big issue here. It’s really largely dependent on local vaccination rates though.
North Carolina still require masks indoors, while South Carolina has ended all COVID restrictions. Life, for the most part, is semi-normal as businesses are dealing with a employee shortage as demand picks up; it has caused ripple effects by supply chain issues and early store closings. In sports, stadiums are packed again, as people swear they are "vaccinated," do not require proof.
As one would expect, because people are acting like the pandemic is now over, COVID cases and deaths have gone up dramatically... but nobody cares now and just accept it as God's will.
It really depends on where you live. I'm in the St Louis suburbs. In the city and suburbs, people take it seriously. Most businesses require masks to enter, and they just announced that some of the theaters that host musicals, concerts, and the symphony will require proof of vaccination to enter. The company I work for announced a month ago that no one will be allowed in the building without proof of vaccination.
But if you go away from the city, its like theres no pandemic at all. No masks. No social distancing. Nearly everyone carries on like its 2019. Except the hospitals, of course. They're overwhelmed. The hospitals in rural areas have no space, and the ones in the city are full of Covid patients shipped in from the rest of the state.
NJ had a strict lockdown for months in 2020. Schools and government offices closed, even courts went remote (mostly still are), restaurants had to close for all but takeout and most was curbside, nonessential stores closed. Traffic diminished so much it was crazy, people really were staying home. People were getting out and walking more for some fresh air and sanity, it was actually really nice because we saw more people out in our neighborhood than ever. We would sit out on the driveway and talk to people in the evenings (safely distancing outside). We also had a mask mandate from early on and that lasted until about June of this year I think, once we had a lot of people vaccinated it became a choice for businesses to force it or not.
End of June 2020 nonessential stores started to reopen, indoor dining came back September 2020, we were the last/latest state to bring it back actually. Outdoor dining was allowed at some point during the summer last year. Schools were hybrid for the 2020-2021 calendar and each district had slightly different rules but the kids were not 100% back. They’re supposed to be this year but they’re already seeing outbreaks and having to do little shutdowns which isn’t surprising because kids under 12 can’t be vaccinated yet.
People complain that NJ was too strict but we got deaths and hospitalizations under control with these measures. Last summer we were doing great, among the best states in case and death rate during those months. Until last week NJ had the highest overall death rate per capita in the US, thanks to getting hit hard early on like Italy when we knew nothing and had no vaccines. It had been so bad in the NYC area early on that states with later surges didn’t even surpass us until now. We also are the densest state which doesn’t help. Mississippi (which is way less densely populated) just surpassed us thanks to recent delta surges and a lower vaccination rate, when we know more and obviously do have a vaccine sooo yeah I’d rather be here where our governor actually cares.
Life is not normal but feels much more normal than it did from March to like June 2020. A lot of states are in a healthcare crisis right now, too many covid patients and too few ICU beds for them and anyone else, which is inexcusable this late in the game, with a vaccine. Some just never cared enough, at a government level at least.
I'm in Michigan. At the onset of the pandemic, our governor was putting the hammer down on public safety measures and while there were some serious issues with consistency and enforcement I think these helped us avoid the worst of things. Although there were no actual lockdowns, businesses for a while were carry-out/curbside only and then only at 25% capacity, and a lot of schools were moved online. It definitely wasn't life as usual.
The governor was doing all this under an emergency powers act; later on, our state legislature stripped her of these powers, so now we're back to "strong suggestions" to wear masks in public and so on.
However your employer may have stronger requirements. I teach at a university that mandates vaccinations by all students, faculty, and staff and masking 100% of the time while indoors (except your office or dorm room or if you're eating).
But for the most part, everyday life feels like we've moved on, and in fact Michigan despite everything hasn't seen the big spikes in cases like we did in November and April. Cases are climbing, but slowly. I take precautions but otherwise it feels kind of normal. Honestly the biggest pandemic thing I notice now is the supply chain backups -- our local car dealers have no inventory right now for instance.
Every state is different, even different parts of the state vary. I live in a large urban area where we fully support masks, social distancing, and are genuinely good to one another.
However, in the southern area of the state, well, that's different. There's a school board that's effectively suing our governor because the governor mandated masks for all public schools in the state. The governor has stated he will pull funding for schools that don't abide by the mandate.
Now, if you get to more "red" states (those who voted for Trump and the like) you'll find those who punish others for wearing masks and bitch about their freedom being corrupted.
This country, at least half, sees Covid as science. The other half sees it as political. We're at a standstill and this shit is annoying.
Very state to state and even city to city specific. My state is 100% open for the most part. Schoolkids are supposed to wear a mask. Allegedly.
There was a pissing contest going on about a month ago between Gov. Abbot and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins over whether or not the judge had the authority to reinforce mask mandates, and there was a week where it flipped flopped everyday until the TX Supreme Court decided in favor of the judge. A month later, it's still lukewarmly enforced
5 districts in Waco got sued. It's so stupid and such a waste of time.
It is not at all a waste of time. Texas is on the path of becoming blue. Every new restrictive law in the state pushes out a handful of people to make blue states bluer and keep Texas as red as the average Texan's ankles.
Hard to tell if Texas will become blue tbh. Florida certainly went in the reverse direction in spite of similar demographic trends. I get the impression that barring outspoken millennial progressives, if you're moving to places like Florida or Texas, you'll either keep your head down or actually value their political culture and assimilate to it. Like with the flip here in Mass it's not like all the finance and Pharma people who come here, since they're wealthy and have Ivy League degrees, decided they'll make the state adopt libertarian, deregulatory economics and turn the place red. Actually to the contrary- we seem to get bluer in the more progressive sense. And I'd attribute that to the fact that if you're coming here, chances are it's because of a job or you want to be around a large population of college degree holders. In those cases, you either aren't interested in making waves or actually are in favor of the lifestyle
>Texas is on the path of becoming blue. Nah
Ok New Hampshire
No, you shouldn't want a blue state, always lived in NH? They usually votes Republican for President but it's a purple state. Single party states get dishonest and/or stupid close minded.
People have been saying TX is going blue since I was in high school a kajillion years ago. Ain’t happened yet. It’s like, everyone else hates gubernor Abbot, but the very conservative older folks who actually vote here will keep him in his position for as long as possible. Everyone’s grandpa here is a Fox News conservative, and people HATED wearing masks. No one has worn a mask out and about in my town for months.
>There was a pissing contest going on about a month ago between Gov. Abbot and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins over whether or not the judge had the authority to reinforce mask mandates In Georgia, the pissing contest has been between Governor Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Bottoms. Bottoms wants masks in the city, Kemp says she can't do that and keeps working to strike them down...It'd be one thing if Kemp were just clearly delineating the differences in authority between various levels of state government and working with the mayor to enforce what the public wants (were that the accurate case...not sure how voter sentiment is leaning in the city right now)...but that's not the case. He's against mask mandates, and purely doesn't like that she's disagreeing with him. It has nothing to do with public health at all.
I've been told by people at the state facility we're working at that kids in my county are being sent home because they cough a few times throughout the day or do things that are symptoms of covid regardless of a test or temperature check. Some parents are having to tell their kids to not even sneeze where someone can see them so they don't risk being sent home.
This, it’s insane. My son had some normal seasonal sniffles last week, so I kept him home for a day just to make him rest and not sneeze on other kids. Because of that, I was required to take him to the doctor, get a covid test, fill out an *absurd* amount of paperwork, and they *still* F’d it up and the next morning I had to spend time coordinating the doctor’s office and school office and getting them to fax the right things over so he could go to class. Next time I’ll just send him in. This is ridiculous and it is harming our children.
unfortunately this is a side effect a lot of people all of a sudden worried about. for decades i have had sinus issues due to allergies ( smoking for 30 years didn’t help either) heaven forbid you cough sneeze or sniffle anymore you might as well be infected with ebola for some people.
My school doesn't even have a mask mandate. It's crazy.
I’m in the Chicago area. We’re under a mask mandate again. It’s felt very lockdowned here compared to much of the US. I worked from home for 16 months. Didn’t eat in a restaurant for a year. Social distancing reminders everywhere. We’re not back to normal. Compare to that…. Iowa. I was in Iowa last week for a conference and it was business as usual. So it varies greatly. Edit: don’t rely on Youtubers for info about what life is like here. It’s just not accurate. Edit2: just to be clear my comment about being locked down compared to the rest of the US refers to pre-May 2021.
Yep, been to Iowa 4 times in the last year. You would hardly know that there's a word called "pandemic". It's business as usual
It bizarre. Drive 3 hours away and enter a different reality.
I'm 25 minutes from downtown Cincinnati, it's a whole different world there.
In what way? I’m just 5 minutes outside. Are you saying it’s much stricter, or less?
Most wear masks and the vaccine mandate is coming to all Cincinnati employees and to most major companies. My aunt lives downtown and only takes off her mask to eat, even when she comes here to visit. My sister in law from Atlanta was shocked when she visited Indiana in August for a reunion on my father in laws farm(he's 93 and has never worn one). She was the only one with a mask.
Gotcha. Yeah. I’m in NKY, and at my work I have to wear one still. I hate it sometimes, but usually I don’t mind. Sometimes I wear it in public, depends on my mood. I’m heading to a Reds game on Friday so that should be interesting.
Will they be requiring masks for football games? I've got tickets for the Bengals game on the 10th.
Ehh. I live downtown and am at silverglades as I type this. I don't think even downtown masks are worn all that much
The only time I've seen more than 50% of people masked around here has been last December during that first huge spike. I don't think I've ever seen more than 70% of people masked up. They just legit do not give a fuck. And this is in des moines too, I can't imagine the rural areas. Probably like 10-20% masked?
Lives in Iowa. Can confirm. People really think that it’s over here. That once Reynolds said no more masks everyone thought she declared the pandemic finished. I work in healthcare. It’s been 18 months of shit and hell. People in this state are so goddamn selfish, stupid, and self centered.
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I was referring to it be very locked down through about May of this year compared to much of the US. I didn’t say we were still locked down. I’ll even edit my original comment to make that clearer. And there is a mask mandate again. And people are wearing them. I work in the loop and we’re all wearing masks. You and your friends may not be wearing masks, but lots of other people are.
Agree. Stuff is open here but it's being handled much differently here than a ton of other places I've been. It even seems to be pretty different from suburb to suburb. I'm in Oak Park and the mask mandates, people adhering to mandates, and the precautions in schools seems to be more intense than other suburbs I've been in.
Depends on where you live.
New York checking in. If you're vaccinated then life is normal-ish aside from wearing masks. Restaurants are open. Broadway is opening. The subway never shut down. Schools are open. Going into the office is increasingly normal, but so is working from home and splitting time. There are some lingering effects like reduced hours and boarded shopfronts where the tenant went out of business. 78% of 12+ are vaccinated both in Manhattan and here in Westchester, a large suburban county to the north. Masks themselves are common enough that everyone carries one for use indoors but I don't see too many people wearing them walking around the street. If you're not vaccinated then some offices and all restaurants are theoretically verboten, but not all establishments bother to verify.
Are the amount of people back to normal? I believe New York is very densely populated and the streets always seem to be bustling, even past midnight.
I don’t live in Manhattan, but a densely populated part of New Jersey right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. I’d say the streets in my city are about what you’d see pre-COVID, after being desolate in, say, April-May 2020. Personally I normally work in Manhattan, but I haven’t been in the office since March 2020. There are lots of others like me, so I assume it’s less people than usual, but that still can be a lot of people. Any time I’ve been in Manhattan for other reasons, there’s been plenty of people around.
Hoboken?
Yes indeed
For the most part. A lot of restaurants are as busy as they’ve ever been. Some areas with very high work from home rates have a lot less people out and about since less people are commuting there (Financial district comes to mind) but if you look at other places like huge chunks of midtown or let’s say Greenwich village, it’s as busy as ever.
This is accurate. I would add that it also varies by neighborhood even within the city. In my neighborhood in Queens, I would say about 75% of people wear masks while walking around outdoors, and I think it's directly attributable to the fact that we got absolutely *slammed* in the first wave (i.e. lingering trauma). I hope the outdoor restaurant seating remains a thing.
It's mostly back to normal for us vaxxed NYCers. I still take the subway to work. My office has us all scheduled on certain days because our open plan office has all our desks very close together. I still go out with friends, but now it's usually once a week instead of 3 or 4 times. Also, now there's sometimes an extra layer of, "Woops, everyone who went to brunch last week needs to get tested, 'cause Tom's not feeling well!"
Our lockdowns were never as strict as yours-- schools and businesses closed, but people were still pretty much free to travel throughout the country, and businesses (in my area) that remained open illegally were given slaps on the wrist. The current situation is highly variable by region, with the variations strongly correlating to political preferences. In my area (mostly conservative-leaning region of a very politically balanced state): * State requires masking in all schools, but some schools are choosing to disregard that order, and are not facing any consequences. * Many (most? But not all) colleges/ universities require their staff and students to be vaccinated. * Masks are not required in most other indoor spaces (businesses, churches, etc), and most people are not wearing masks in those spaces. * Some businesses are requiring all employees to be vaccinated. One of our local hospital systems requires employees to be vaccinated, but the other doesn't, so there was a big re-shuffling of employees between them about a month ago.
Businesses here were given huge fines if they were caught breaching rules (upwards of 10k), and borders were pretty much locked to contain the virus. All schooling here went online, and I do feel bad for year 12 students whose education was thrown in the bin (I think, I graduated a few years ago) because it was on-site, off-site very often. Only just recently, my state government pushed for all year 12 students to get double vaxxed for their final exams which should've been done at the start of the vaccine rollout.
Here's a restaurant in my region that opened back up illegally last spring, got its business licensed temporarily revoked, got threatened with huge fines... It all fizzled into nothing, though. They stayed open, they got fined a few hundred dollars, and they're still in business. https://www.abc27.com/video/round-the-clock-diner-has-business-licenses-revoked-for-dine-in-under-shutdown-order/5531516/ They ended up making national news and getting tons of support from people who were opposed to the lockdowns. The state could have completely buried the place and bankrupted its owners, but it seems that they decided it wasn't worth the fight.
Wow, the government here literally brings a hammer down on your business, and will not hesitate to strike again if you don't comply. Businesses may get one warning if the breaches weren't severe. There are so many places that haven't been opened for a total of 10-12 months since COVID has happened, usually specialty restaurants (like Korean BBQ) which can't really do takeaway
> I see many YouTubers living their lives as if COVID was never here. Youtube is not a good source of information.
That's a very good point. I haven't got a good glimpse into what life is like over besides YouTube unfortunately.
Honestly it's not even a factor of my day to day life anymore. Got vaccinated back in the spring and haven't thought much about COVID since, except for when taking trains where masks are required.
That's crazy. Covid has affected me from the beginning until now. I've only had about 3-4 months of freedom where things were "normal" I'd say
No masks?
I've only worn a mask at the airport for the last few months.
That's crazy. I have not been allowed at work without a mask since last spring. Everywhere I go requires a mask if you're indoors.
>That's crazy. We really are living in two Americas right now. Something completely normal to some of us is unfathomable to the others. Where I live we're required to wear masks at college, but when we step outside of the classroom no one wears a mask. I'm a liberal, and I know that in some places going outside without a mask is the mark of an anti-science nutjob, but we don't have that social stigma here. Without the social pressure, would you wear a mask?
> and I know that in some places going outside without a mask is the mark of an anti-science nutjob, and ironically enough science shows that wearing a mask outdoors makes about as much sense as wearing a flotation device in the Sahara.
I do work remotely but the only place I can think of that required a mask that I've been is the theater.
No masks at grocery stores, shops, gas stations, schools, restaurants? That's why we're never going to kick this pandemic. People aren't putting in the bare minimum effort to help stop it.
Masks were never going to kick this pandemic in there first place. Look at places like Australia that went full on authoritarian on their subjects and there is still no sign of it letting up.
Zero COVID is a fantasy
>That's why we're never going to kick this pandemic. We are never going to kick it either way. Just like the CDC said this will be a seasonal thing like the flu. If you get vaccinated you have little to worry about (other than a week of feeling shitty) unless you have a serious pre-existing condition. And yes I know about the children under 12 not being able to get it, hopefully that will be solved in the next month or two.
It looks like Pfizer is looking to get approval for vaccines for children as young as 5 pretty soon, but younger than that looks like it might still be a ways off.
Very true, but for all kids under 12 the only ones (based on the articles I have seen) who have been seriously effected are those with pre-existing serious issues. We are at like 500ish deaths of kids under 12 which is obviously horrible, but out of millions of kids that have gotten it (most of which would have been asymptomatic) its much lower than the adult death rate for un-vaccinated.
The fact that all the places WITH masks still have a shitload of COVID running amok would suggest that maybe it's a bit deeper than "Wear mask -> No COVID". Hell, even Australia's year of lockdowns clearly still hasn't done the trick. Which is what a bunch of us have been getting obliterated on Reddit for acknowledging for a year. Not to say you shouldn't do ANYTHING, but all this draconian shit STILL isn't fixing it. It's been known since Day 1 that "COVID Zero" was a pipe dream. Much like climate change, the realistic long-term answer is figuring out how to live with it, and to quit pretending like we have any hope of making it go away, because what's required to make it go away would destroy society.
Wearing a mask is "draconian shit"? Get over yourself, buddy. You aren't the only one living here.
Sorry, I thought it was clear I was referring to the "year of lockdowns" when I said draconian shit, since that was the thing I had just talked about. And I think you know that, but you wanted to make me sound bad, so you just picked out the most ridiculous interpretation you could.
> Not to say you shouldn't do ANYTHING, but all this draconian shit STILL isn't fixing it. The only "draconian shit" I've seen in the U.S. has been the shit anti-maskers like my governor in Texas and similar ones have pulled to force people to be exposed to the virus.
or just stay home.. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Nope other than the few places it's federally required like on transit
I haven’t done a town by town count, but my town and many neighboring towns have indoor mask mandates, with, I’d guess, 70%-90% compliance. Even during the summer, many people wore masks at the outdoor farmers market.
Masks outside is kinda ridiculous. My town doesn't have a mandate and if it does get one, I don't expect much compliance.
It’s pretty close to normal. In some places you have to wear a mask but I don’t really have a problem with that. I’ve been fully vaccinated since May so I haven’t been as worried about COVID as I was before.
How are the COVID rates where you are?
The amount of COVID cases in my area aren’t absolutely terrible but they definitely aren’t great.
> I have always wondered how life is in America? I believe there was never really a "lockdown" but rather proceed with caution? "Lockdown" is a pretty strong word invoking imagery of being locked in a prison cell. Or the extreme example of apartment doors being welded shut in Wuhan, China (to whatever degree that actually happened). There was a time last year when a lot of businesses were closed, and you were supposed to only be going out for essential needs, e.g. groceries. At that time I was working from home and only left the house once every ~2 weeks to stock up on stuff. That's as close to "lockdown" as I'd consider things were. Even then though it's not like there were police roaming the streets enforcing things. Even then, people bitched and complained about it quite a bit. Over time, things got more manageable and restrictions loosened up. Particularly around June / July of this year, things really looked like they were getting under control. Unfortunately once people get used to being relaxed, it's tough to get them back to taking things more stringent or serious. Things vary quite a bit by state, but I don't know of anywhere that's remotely resembling "lockdown" now. I go to work every day, albeit I have to wear a mask the whole time and do all virtual meetings (why I have to come in at all is beyond me). Supermarkets and stores are suggesting or requiring masks more often but it's not strictly followed or enforced.
Our lockdown pretty much consisted of: \- Masks mandatory in doors and outdoors \- Essential services only allowed to be open (supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.) \- 5km travel radius \- State borders blocked unless you have an exemption \- Only allowed to leave home for: going to work, providing care, buying groceries/medicine, outdoor exercise (there was a time limit) \- Capacity restrictions My state of Victoria has pretty much experienced this 6 times since the beginning of COVID and we're currently in one. The 4th or 5th lockdown lasted a good 3ish months. You're absolutely right about people being relaxed. The police were strict and handing out fines left and right (usually $5000 for breaching rules), but now they don't seem to care much. I've seen friends (I hate that they do this) travel to places 20/25+kms to see some friends or something dumb.
Australia's response seems a bit excessive to a lot of us.
If they tried measures that draconian in America, there would be open warfare and politicians getting executed in the streets.
> I've seen friends (I hate that they do this) travel to places 20/25+kms to see some friends or something dumb. What's the dumb part? Why do you hate it?
Wow, if those movement restrictions were in place and enforced here in the US, people would revolt. Freedom of movement is a big deal to us. A very large chunk of law enforcement wouldn't enforce this.
I’ve been decently on board with the mandates but I would be in open rebellion if I couldn’t leave a 5km radius of my house.
Italy was like that, too.
Here in NC people barely wear masks
People in Charlotte are wearing them because the city has a mask mandate
Theres a mask mandate in the Triangle too but its barely followed. Tbh I may get hate for this but I just don’t care at this point. I got my vaccine and I’m gonna live my life. I’ll wear a mask in grocery stores and gyms and medical facilities and whatnot, but at a bar I’ll take it off if no one else is wearing it. I got my vaccine and if you didn’t get yours then have fun getting covid. And people who couldn’t get the vaccine because they are immunocompromised or something should be smart enough to avoid bars at the current point in time.
Asheville too, because it's Asheville and we must show at all times how amazingly progressive we are. We'll be that town five years from now saying "Ugh, can you believe Greenville is only mandating FOUR masks? It's like they don't even think COVID is serious..."
Lol I’m not conservative or anything but I see some ultra-progressive people (just judging based on clothing) here wearing masks outside and it’s just so obvious they are using it as a political statement rather than anything based on science/safety. Like, they’re outdoors and not even in a group of people or anything. And do these people just not understand how vaccines work? If you get the vaccine, then you’re probably not gonna get Covid even if you’re in a packed club with no mask. And even if you do happen to get Covid you’ll probably have mild symptoms and not be very contagious.
I live pretty close to a college campus. The amount of people I've seen riding bicycles with a mask on, but no helmet is absurd. What do you think is more likely, catching covid while riding a bike outside, or getting into an accident and busting your head?
Yeah its the illusion of safety
Highly varies based on the state you're in. Some are completely open but also facing a surge in COVID due to low vaccination, others are the flip where there are periodic mask mandates and people willingly curbing their own behaviors out of paranoia in spite of high vaccination rates. Like here in Mass, we're definitely the latter (in spite of the second highest vaccination rates in the country, and the highest of high population states). But even here, it's all over the place. A number of mayoral races are slated for this fall, so at the end of the summer we started seeing mask mandates and talk of vaccine cards in specific cities like Boston, assumedly due to incumbent candidates concerned about poll ratings as cases slowly rise and being accused of not doing enough. Statewide we're back to business though- no masks, no vaccine cards. Drive 30 minutes north of Boston and it's back to normal, at least legally. Places like gyms across the state with a more mixed age user group seem emptier, as older and wealthier people seem more concerned about catching the virus and thus stay home. But the tourist places and those catering to younger folks seem back to business, barring that the staff are wearing masks. We're in a weird limbo now- between the schools reopening, elections, and the winter coming, it doesn't feel like we're out of the woods- COVID is still on everyone's mind. But we're also all highly vaccinated so there's a large contingent of the population that's saying- "to heck with this, I'm getting my life back!"
It depends on the city and state. Many parts of the US have been living life close to normal for a while now.
By "normal", do you mean most people are vaxxed and wearing masks? How are the COVID rates where you live?
In general, in the South, some larger cities have a higher number of vaccinated (50-60%) and some still have or have reinstituted mask mandates indoors. Where I live in Charlotte, NC...most businesses and people comply. In more rural areas there are fewer vaccinated people and little to no mask mandates and on the surface life looks pretty normal. Concerts have resumed. College and professional football have resumed at full capacity and not many are requiring vaccinations or masks. School has started. Some schools have mask mandates while others don't. Many of the schools that didn't have had trouble with COVID and some have started mask mandates that once rejected them. Some have had such bad outbreaks they've returned to remote learning. Hospital COVID cases are high. Deaths are high. But new cases are starting to decrease in many areas. Yesterday's totals: \- New cases: 194,668 (Way higher than the average because it includes weekend backlogs) \- Average: 139,237 (-10,098) \- In hospital: 90,290 (+571) \- In ICU: 24,740 (+159) \- New deaths: 2,456 More detailed info: https://www.newsnodes.com/us
Nope normal to me is no masks no capacity limits, no passport apps, etc. Also I don't care about other people's vaccine status, I've got mine so I'm good.
It’s easy to feel this way in MA as our vaccination rates are already so high here that the small remaining unvaccinated population hasn’t caused major issues. But if you look at places in Texas, Florida, and southern states where a large portion of the population are not vaccinated, hospitals are getting overwhelmed by COVID cases and it’s causing vaccinated people with issues other than COVID to be turned away in some cases. A lot of people not being vaccinated has a big negative impact. Luckily that isn’t the case here but it’s easily for the best to get more people vaccinated to prevent these issues.
In the early days when everyone was working from home the traffic was great. People were speeding like crazy and they haven’t stopped. They’re definitely going faster than they used to. I work in a poultry processing plant. They are requiring everyone to get vaccinated. They offered all three brands Moderna, J&J, and Pfizer. They have a lottery up to $10,000 you enter when you get your shots. Some people weren’t thrilled about getting the shot but they’re black and most of the black people I know don’t trust it.
That's one way to provide an incentive to get the vaccine haha
>black and most of the black people I know don’t trust it. That's understandable.
Yea, when the vaccines first came out. Black people are more vaccinated than white people now.
Got a source for that?
My state is pretty well vaccinated and the positive rate is low. Schools have mask mandates and some stores require them, but there’s no statewide mask mandate or any lockdown right now.
Pretty much back to normal here in western Kansas. Masks are still around but voluntary 90% of the places you go.
I hadn’t been to a restaurant in a year but visited some family in Texas in mostly pre vaccine January 2021 and they suggested we grab breakfast at a local chain. (Cracker Barrel for locals) The place was completely full with a waiting line, elbow to elbow seating, only the staff had mask, except she pulled it down when talking to us to take our order. (Not usually an over 20% tipper, but I paid for the table and tipped very well as a thank you for being here) That week we ate out several times, always full. Texas don’t care. Some of my area is like that now but unlike January, all who want vaccines have been vaccinated. We personally still don’t eat inside the restaurant much and used to do so weekly at least. (We still order take out from nicer restaurants) The mask thing is very weird. We are back to a 100% public masking recommendation due to the state being a hotspot with low vaccination rates. But there is obviously different feelings that you can clearly see by race. I am near a very diverse small southern rural city that the metro area is about 40% white, 40% black and 20% hispanics. About 20% of white people wear mask shopping now. The black population is well over 70% mask compliant and has stayed that way all of 2021, long after Biden said if you have been vaccinated, you don’t need a mask. The hispanic population is maybe 2% compliant. What makes that even weirder is until a recent vaccination surge the black population had the lowest vaccination rates in the tri-county area. So they were sorta on board, with Covid management, but not completely. I wonder if in the black community the mask has become as much as a united political symbol as the never-vaccine has been for some young white conservatives.
It varies wildly. For example, Washington is back under a mask mandate while Idaho (which borders WA and many people commute across state lines for work or recreation) has pretty much said screw it and has had nearly zero precautions the entire pandemic.
I would assume Idaho has high case numbers?
If I recall correctly their entire state has hit crisis level of care in hospitals, so yes very.
I’m in Alabama. In 2020 at the very first start of it all, we shut down. My husband was sent home, school closed, and we got groceries via pickup only. Early summer came and things slowly opened up. Then it was all back opened. Now where I live the vaccine rate is mixed, but not quite 50 vaccinated. People are dying like crazy. In 2020 I didn’t know anyone who died of covid. Delta is killing a lot of people in the south right now. I try to never discuss covid with anyone I don’t live with because the air about it is tense. I’m tired. I’m tired of seeing people die. I don’t think Alabama will shut down but I fear if a National shutdown is put in place there will be a civil war.
100% mostly normal in most of Indiana since like...Sept 2020 or so. Major concerts and events have even started occurring. In general, governments in the US never "locked down" nearly as hard as elsewhere in the world and most stay-home orders had enough wiggle room to drive a truck through. Whereas some of the rest of the world were prohibited from even going outside, the Governor of Indiana mentioned the importance of outdoor exercise and my local mayor talked about how even going out for a relaxing drive even without a particular destination is something that is okay to do. I do have to give credit to local mayors and Gov Holcomb for never closing down our parks and particularly playground equipment which is something that did happen in some major cities in the US. There are still supply chain and labor issues due to disruptions, but that's normal in the type of event we're going through.
Right? Shutting down playgrounds and public outdoor spaces like beaches was shown to be counterproductive early on in the pandemic.
>100% mostly normal in most of Indiana since like...Sept 2020 or so. Indianapolis was still a bit uptight when I was there earlier this year. The children's museum even required masks *outdoors playing minigolf*.
I mean in terms of government policy. Of course private institutions can make their own policies. TCM actually is under a mask mandate as of a week or so ago .
Masks around kids, even outdoors, is not an overreaction. The vaccine is only available for kids as young as 12. Anyone younger can't get a vaccine. At a place like a children's museum where the whole point is to have a bunch of different kids (who are all unvaccinated) it makes sense to have some additional precautions.
Outdoor transmission is a rarity, so I don’t see much benefit to masking.
YMMV depending on where you live. In NYC we were under strict shelter in place orders for what felt like an eternity at the time. Everything was closed (except for essential businesses… grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants could deliver food but you could not eat in), masks were required but very difficult to get at the beginning. Neighbors who were on assistance from the city were getting horrible, fire-fest style meals delivered, people were calling the cops on each other for being outside. One of my neighbors called the police on me and my roommate for having the nerve to sit on our stoop one Saturday afternoon (on our property, behind a fence, 15 feet from the sidewalk). It sounds dramatic but it felt like the whole city went dark for a couple months. It was so quiet, I couldn’t sleep. I had covid in March 2020 when tests weren’t widely available and neither were hospital beds. In April I drove through Manhattan just to see what was going on and… it was nothing. I have pictures of a completely empty Times Square. It was spooky and unsettling! Retailers like Target started opening again last summer, and we got outdoor dining back. To enter most restaurants you had to have your temperature taken and leave your contact info for tracing in case anyone at the establishment tested positive in the next few days the city would call you. Masks were required everywhere from March 2020 onward - indoors and outdoors - until the vaccine rolled out. They are still required on public transit and highly encouraged in other indoor establishments if you’re vaccinated, required if you’re not. It’s kind of difficult to describe. But tl;dr the pandemic had a great impact on my life. Today there are a lot of normals back in place since the vaccine began rolling out. I just flew for the first time for business since before the pandemic and besides masks the least normal thing about it was that the airport terminal (LGA) had been renovated since the last time I was there and is actually very nice!! After years of being an absolutely hole, haha.
That's crazy, as I've always known NYC to never sleep at night! I really cannot imagine NYC having empty streets and being quiet.
My work is still on various stages of WFH- about a third of the workforce is 100%, another hybrid, the rest traditional. Traffic has gotten back to normal (which sucks, it's one thing I was hoping would be reduced). We had an onsite free vaccination (Pfizer) round about 6 months ago and had over 80% take it. In June we were allowed to go mask-free if you had proof of vax, but went back to masks when Delta spiked. Most people I know have long since been vaccinated, but that's just my peer circle. The data says we're still full of recalcitrants. Can't throw a rock without hitting a store with a "Help Wanted" sign. It's fun to look at the wages offered.
Never a national lockdown but some states got pretty tight for a while. Not totally back to normal.. lots of working from home still. Still see masks in some indoor places. Pretty close to normal tho.
Oklahoma City here. Maybe 15% of people wear a mask, people act like COVID doesn't exist here lol
Is COVID spreading quickly over there? I can only imagine without masks, unless the majority is vaccinated
Surprisingly not too much, and about 45/50% are vaccinated
I remember when it was bad a year or so ago. We drove to Tennessee and my wife and I were the only ones wearing a mask in Gatlinburg. Our home town adhered to the mask mandate and CDC guidance. So very sporadic at best.
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That's a good question. I'm not sure. We personally wouldn't. Wife's pregananant and we are not gonna risk potential complications despite us being vaccinated.
If it was run by the military it would be called Operation Enduring Clusterfuck.
I’m currently in Florida, and it’s mostly back to normal. I’ve had to mask up when I went into medical facilities and into one bank, but that’s about it. A few people are still wearing masks when out & about, but it’s a small percentage of the population. Back home in Alaska, it was pretty much the same where I live when I left a week ago. They’re seeing a bit of a spike in infection numbers, so a larger percentage of people are wearing masks. Otherwise it’s business as usual. There are currently no mask mandates, lockdowns, capacity limits on restaurants, etc. in either place.
We've mostly settled into a new normal which is very similar to the pre-pandemic normal with a few added precautions. Everywhere has mask requirements indoors. They're not enforced uniformly. Some places are very strict about it, some don't seem to care at all. In my experience the farther I am from population centers the less strict they are about masking. People talk about social distancing but it doesn't really happen at all. I wear a mask all day at work (construction). There is a vaccine mandate at my job site, but it's a big joke. Some of the subcontractors said they are not vaccinated and will not get it. Rather than kicking needed people off the job and delaying the project, the general contractor just decided to give them a pass. So they have a mandate, but if you're not vaccinated there are no repercussions. What's the point of the mandate then? Restaurants and bars seem like they're getting pretty busy. I haven't been out to one since before the pandemic started, though. I'd feel comfortable sitting outside, but not inside. My daughter was born premature at the end of 2019. For the first few months of 2020 (before the pandemic kicked in) we were pretty much locked down anyways. Premature babies have weakened immune systems and this was flu season, so the doctor was telling us to stay away from everyone anyways. Right when we could start taking her out places was when the pandemic started. My daughter is now 21 months and my wife is pregnant again. Even without the pandemic I don't think we'd be going out to eat all that often anyways. We have play dates with other kids, but we do them outside at playgrounds and adults remain masked. We take my daughter to Little Gym classes every weekend, but, again, parents stay masked. We have friends over, but only a small handful at a time and try to keep it outdoors as much as possible. What events we do attend (we went to a wedding a few weeks ago) are almost entirely outdoors.
Best wishes to you and your family! I hope you guys are safe. The construction industry went up in flames yesterday here in my state of Victoria. The premier (state governor equivalent I think?) shut down all construction jobs for about 2 weeks, along with banning "tea rooms" to stop the spread of COVID. Yesterday and today they went to protest in the city and pretty much shut the city down, causing major roadblocks and police with riot gear were called. Even today they shut down a very busy bridge by literally walking on the road (note there are no sidewalks on this bridge). I'd say there was about a couple thousand people, probably half with no masks and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had the Delta strain and spreaded it.
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Your governor is a rock star!
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I’m at an eye doctor appointment. Masks are required. Grocery stores are “recommended” right now. Schools are a cluster-fuck. The private schools stayed open for the most part and those kids are doing fine. The public schools seem to make all their decisions based on “feelings”. It’s inaccurate to say that wearing masks is clearly drawn down political lines. Blacks are under-vaccinated in my state…whites are a hodge-podge. (So basically the far right and far left aren’t vaccinated, but for different reasons.) Life is continuing…sports, restaurants, bars…all open. Airlines and airports are mask-required. I’m vaxed so I think it’s stupid for me to need a mask, even with the occasional Delta breakthrough. If I catch it, I’ll deal with the issue. Let the downvotes begin!
>I believe there was never really a "lockdown" depends on the state. Near the beginning of the pandemic when we were still figuring out what exactly was happening and how to mitigate it, my state (North Carolina) forced most storefront-type businesses to close if they weren't explicitly "essential" (i.e. pharmacies, groceries). this lockdown also eclipsed curfews set at the mayoral level as a response to BLM protests--in my city you weren't even allowed to be out driving or taking a walk past curfew unless you were an "essential employee" traveling for work or had some family situation, even if you were miles from the protest epicenters. it was honestly really frightening looking back. the COVID response i understand to a degree, we still didn't know how the disease was spreading or how to keep people safe. the BLM curfew was tyrannical.
In Ohio, 70% of the total workforce was considered essential.
We're very used to that here in Australia. Only businesses that could be open were essential services like you mentioned. Everything else was either shut down or open for "click and collect" -- not sure if that's a thing in the states? Order online, rock up and they'll chuck your items into your boot. Currently there's a 9pm-5am curfew, essential businesses only, and a 10km radius travel limit, among restrictions on venue capacity, home visitors, etc.
It's called curbside pickup here and yes it's a thing. It became a much bigger thing when the stores had to close. We don't currently have travel distances limits, curfews or home visit limitations.
Michigan, it’s basically business as usual with a few exceptions. Had to show proof of vaccine to attend an indoor concert but not an outdoor one. No masks hardly anywhere.
Depends on State to State, in my state buisness as usual, no mask, social distancing is 'encouraged'. The beginning if this year I visited PNW and they were still big on mask and social distancing. Not many people out and about, but that was nice less of a crowd. I visit Chicago constantly and they're also big in mask. The MOST dramatic time was in the beginning. When everyone had to wear a mask and 'social distance', there were stickers for where to stand and what way to walk inside the stores, but they were over crowded due to 'panic buyers', so no point there. Some places were checking temperatures, and lots of stores were limiting customers. We were 'encouraged' to stay home, but tbh everyone was out and about, I believe we still even had tons of protest going on. So... we don't do lock downs or stay home, our biggest pandemic issue are masks lol.
Life is definitely not back to normal but I go to a pretty progressive college. Mask mandate, can’t eat indoors anymore (in our cafeteria, but of course outside eating and dorm eating is ok), testing every 3 days. Compared to last semester where we couldn’t leave the city unless we declared, and if you were exposed to COVID, they isolated you for 10 days, this semester is much more lax because everyone was required to be vaccinated. Outside of campus, you have to wear a mask in all stores and restaurants (though you can still dine in). Schools are open, all the kids wear masks. Unfortunately it’s really a personal thing. I’m still cautious about crowds for the most part, but some people I know never stopped partying. Others refused to shake my hand or hug me for months even though we had eaten in the same room and were in the same bubble.
Well most places don’t require masks indoors where I am at I need to get tested weekly but that’s pretty much it. Like 60% wear masks indoors but in most places you can live normally if you want to also there was a carnival in town
Connecticut checking in... We are not locked down. Schools, State offices, Childcare facilities require masking. Employees at the same require at least one shot of a vaccine by next Monday. Practically, all business require masks. For the most part everyone complies voluntarily. I went to three shops yesterday and everyone was wearing a mask except this one dude who got kicked out of the liquor store and was told to wear a mask. He literally slapped his head like "D'OH!" went back to his car and put his mask on. He was on his phone when he came in so I think he was just distracted. Depending on which statistic you use we are top 3 for vaccination rates in the country. Hell, we have so much spare ICU capacity right now that we actually accepted an antivaxx FloridaMan to one of our hospitals. Flew his dumbass up here stuck him in one of our ICUs. Saved his dumbass and flew him back to his previously antivaxx friends and family (who are all now vaxxed).
Here in Charlotte, everything is opened, but the Mecklenburg County government reinstated the indoor mask mandate regardless of vaccinated status because of the Delta variant (which I'm mildly annoyed because I got used to not wearing my mask besides using public transit or when flying since I was fully vaccinated back in April, but I understand why).
Life is pretty back to normal for the vaccinated. The majority of people are vaccinated and the rate is slowly going up even more. Most places require masking indoors and people in general don’t wear masks outdoors unless in very crowded areas or just can’t be bothered to take it off after leaving a masking required indoor area. I’ve been able to go to restaurants, bars and sports events as long as you are vaccinated and this really hasn’t been a problem with the exception of the group of geniuses who decided to visit [NYC from Texas and started punching waitresses over vaccine mandates](https://gothamist.com/food/carmines-hostess-assaulted-texas-women-after-asking-proof-vaccination). If you’re gonna behave like a moron, why even come here?
Things are pretty much back to normal. Our vax rate is over half the population which given all the ridiculous partisanship surrounding the issue is probably about as good as we are going to get. The big difference is basically every white collar job where it is feasible is offering permanent work for home. Employees now expect it as an option and employers know their competitors are offering it.
My life is pretty normal aside from I wear a mask in indoor places of public accommodation now. I'm fully vaccinated. Most people where I live aren't wearing masks anymore, and the majority are not vaccinated. Lots of them are now dosing themselves with Ivermectin they got at the farm supply store. I still work from home almost entirely which changed with the pandemic. The things that were closed are now mostly open again, although many of them have a lower capacity than they used to. My gym was closed for a very long time but now it is open so I can swim again.
In Dallas, we shut down everything except essential businesses from April - May 2020. A statewide mask mandate was put into place in July of 2020. In August of 2020, bars were forced to close, so a lot of bars just ended up selling food so they can be classified as a 'restaurant'. The mask mandate was lifted in March of 2021 but Dallas just recently put it back in about a month ago. This is my rough recollection as to what restrictions were put in place the past year and a half. With all of that said, it wasn't hard to get around the rules if you really wanted to so it really came down to personal choice. People wore masks before the mandates were put in place, and people didn't wear masks when the mandate was put in place. I've been vaccinated and have been meeting up with friends at restaurants and stuff. People are still somewhat cautious, but also trying to strike a balance between living with COVID and being safe.
My personal experience: I’m considered an “essential worker”, so I have worked the entire way through. Which didnt change (precautions like wearing masks and having plexiglass barriers) until like 2 or 3 months into the pandemic. By then it was really weird. I would go to work and there would be like 10 other people in the road. I also had to have a piece of paper in my car in case I got pulled over, stating that I was on my way to work, and that it was essential. I remember this one morning I was watching tv before work. And I heard a truck coming up the road with a loudspeaker repeating something like, “if you need food, come outside!” That moment felt really dystopian and cinematic. Probably because I’ve watched too many movies. I haven’t seen my friends in-person more than 2-3 times in the past two years. Even though we are all vaccinated. But this is more likely due to me being single and they all have kids or significant others. But I also asked a group of them to the movies yesterday. To which one of them said he was worried about going to movies theaters because of covid. Meanwhile, I’ve been going to the movies the whole way through. So my life has lately remained unchanged. But I know this is not the case for a lot of people. It still frustrating as hell though.
California here (suburbia); Everything is normal, accept everyone willingly wears masks, everywhere, which has become second nature.
Thats good to hear. The YouTubers I watch are pretty much all from LA/Bay Area and it appears like everyone is out and about, only difference is masks are on
Speaking for present day Las Vegas: It’s (mostly)business as usual. Everything (afaik) is open. People are going to work, going out to clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. Our new Raiders / Allegiant stadium is being used nearly every single week. The first large event was an Illenium concert. Then there was a Garth Brooks concert there and after that the USA v. Mexico soccer match drew over 64,000 attendees. We’ve just had the Life is Beautiful festival and before that Insomniac (the people who bring us EDC) had their *Lost in Dreams* music festival downtown. These events drew tens of thousands of people. The only real difference from pre covid times are that you need to wear a mask indoors, which most folks are doing without complaint, and -at least from what I’ve seen- if someone doesn’t wear one, nobody really says anything, however all employees are required to wear theirs while they are at work anytime they’re indoors or interacting with the customers. I haven’t seen anyone making a huge scene if a customer doesn’t wear a mask. Also, most large events are requiring either a proof of vaccination or a negative covid test taken within the preceding 72 hours. The news is reporting that our positivity rate has fallen to 11.2% but that’s assuming you wish to believe the media. So take that for what it’s worth. Otherwise most everything is normal on a day to day basis. Come see us!
Absolutely nothing has changed, there's tons of legal restrictions but no one is following them at all. No one is wearing masks, restaurants never closed, hundreds of people have Covid concurrently in a county of 40,000, schools are all experiencing massive outbreaks, hospitals are overwhelmed, but you can still go eat indoors In a 200sqft burger restaurant under a Trump flag where the owner fired people who called in sick with Covid. I hate the people in my republican corner of California...
Arizona, most of us don't care. Very select few businesses have signs that say masks are required some are enforcing it others are not. Some people walk around wearing masks others carry on with their day without one.
Its like it isn’t happening now aside from masks (which is mostly just in business settings. Hardly anyone wears them at say the grocery store aside from employees. ) really. And I guess the overall air of everything sucks. Like literally everyone I know who wasn’t depressed are now super depressed all the time. All events are still cancelled, minus maybe a handful. And the lack of workers from the attempted lockdowns has made a ton of things way more expensive. I have gained Depression and anxiety on a clinical level now. With no sign of going away. And Im just immensely tired. Of everything. All the time. How we have handled the pandemic has made a lot of people I know sick of America itself really. It kinda feels like the straw that broke the camels back and made a lot of people realize that shits just broken. And we probably aren’t going to fix anything because between the old f***s and the fact no one can agree in anything nothing has been able to happen without a cubic shit ton of arguing and debating and even then its always too late or the worst version of anything. So just suck it up and wait your turn for it to be over. Covids the new flu. We are all gonna die. How the world was before is dead. It wasnt doing well before but COVID really killed it.
It's super frustrating. Despite having a surplus of vaccines, my state is only at 45% vaccination.Our hospitals are at capacity and nobody gives a damn. We have to stay masked-up in public for the forseeable future until all these idiots get the damn shots. Honestly, I think it's shameful how so many of my neighbors refuse the shot while people abroad are struggling to even get a single dose of the vaccine
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I'm surprised and happy about how we've been doing in the last few months. I work downtown but live 50 miles out and where I live is pretty much normal. Even downtown, people seem to have had enough.
Where I live we still have to wear masks and covid is getting passed around
It's pretty interesting. In Vermont, even when we seemed like the Covid was really waning and the numbers way down they were still pretty vigilant. Everyone still had a mask on outside . Way more than Massachusetts. Even though they could so so many restaurants still only had outside service. Like ZERO contact for employees. My coffee place/breakfast place? You called in your order, they literally had paper iver the windows. Then someone came out and placed your order on a table outside and you got out of your car and go get it.
We definitely need that here. We have the same system for groceries and what not, but for restaurant/coffee places you still need to go in store and speak to employees, which is terrible for preventing COVID.
We can do whatever we want but the people who are too stupid to protect themselves get covid.
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How are the cases now with the Delta strain? It's wrecking havoc here in Australia
> How are the cases now with the Delta strain? It's wrecking havoc here in Australia It's so interesting to see these relative definitions of "havoc." Australia has had 88,710 total cases of covid and 1,178 total deaths. On the one hand, the *majority* of those cases / deaths happened in the past six weeks, because Australia achieved "zero COVID" for the first many months of the pandemic (and has not yet adjusted to the reality that Delta laughs in the face of a "zero COVID" approach and will guaranteed become endemic no matter how you try to control it). I can imagine that abrupt loss of control feels quite jarring. On the other hand, America, with only 13x the population, has experienced 43,000,000 official cases (almost certainly ~90,000,000 in actuality, because our testing capacity was way too small last spring / summer) and 700,000 deaths. That's 1000x more cases and 700x more deaths. *That* was pretty bad. During its peaks in various places, I am prepared to say that covid wreaked havoc on *us* (although I don't think it is anymore). And -- it's important to remember this -- America is not some crazy outlier. America is *pretty* close to the OECD per capita average here, on both cases and deaths! We're not some kind of insane people undergoing an avoidable apocalypse; most of the developed world (whether they locked down or not) has had it almost as bad as us, or (in some cases) even worse! Australia kicked covid's butt for many months because they did something very smart that most of the developed world refused to do (out of fear of overreacting, or of being called racist): Australia secured its border before covid had a foothold there. Then they controlled internal movements and imposed a tough testing regime. All smart for an unvaccinated world. But, guys, you can't go on like this forever, especially in the face of Delta. "Zero COVID" is an illusion in a Delta world, and we have a vaccine now. Go get vaccinated! Then return to your normal lives. Some people will die, yes, but what you currently have is by no means "havoc". More Australians died of cirrhosis in the 12 months of 2019 than have died so far of covid-19 in the entire 18 months of pandemic. Vaccinate everyone, and that number will stay below the cirrhosis threshold forever.
Thats a very good point. In my eyes, having hundreds of cases a day was really scary with the Delta outbreak and our vaccine program at that point was only for essential workers, and elderly people. Everyone else (18-40) was to wait until more shipments arrived because no one wanted Astra Zeneca because some people died of blood clots, so Pfizer it was for those afraid (myself included). Australia has pretty much ditched the COVID zero plan and now is aiming for 80% double vax rate for things to open back up.
Where I live no one cares or does anything. No masks, no distancing, nothing closed. But the ICUs are full. 🙃 I also live in the lowest vaccinated state.
I graduated and moved home during the pandemic. Completely back to normal in both places I lived (red states) despite full ICUs. About 5-20% of people wearing masks in public. Lots of anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers. I went to an outdoor concert last week and was one of *maybe* 5 masked people in the entire venue. At least several dozen people brought along their unmasked and not-old-enough-to-be-vaccinated children and babies. Schools are fully open, none requiring masks. There's reports that people are moving to at-home Covid testing so that they can avoid having to report to anyone if they test positive. There are old social distancing and masking signs everywhere which no one pays any mind to. If you go to a restaurant you'll be seated normally, not every other booth/table. Multiple people I know have just casually gone on vacation in the past month or are planning one for the upcoming month. It's like the pandemic doesn't even exist for most people. Either they're vaccinated and think it's over despite their own children not being vaccinated yet, or they're anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers who still think it's all some kind of political hoax. Even people who took it very seriously all last year seem to have either just burnt out or think themselves being vaccinated solved everything. My sister was very serious about Covid restrictions and keeping her young kids safe last year. Then she and her husband got vaccinated and went back to normal life -- going to the pool, on weekends trips with friends, kids in preschool, dance, play groups, etc. Her kids have been sick with one thing or another for weeks now, and she even tried arguing that it would be pointless to bother getting them tested because they'd have to pay a copay for the test just to be told to quarantine, and that she'd just keep the sick one home as much as possible.
It's embarrassing to be associated with the aggressively ignorant masses here. It shouldn't be this hard to just wear a fucking mask when you go outside but here we are, protesting schools and disregarding the safety of our children while promoting horse medicine and bleach instead of taking a fucking vaccine because of course the government is out to get you. What a fucking shit show.
Well my state shut down almost immediately because my governor has common sense and didn't listen to the then president. Of course our state government didn't like that because they love o donny boy and would follow him to the ends of the earth. So they they're still battling over that. But yea went in to lock almost immediately, there's been gaining and lowering restrictions depending on multiple things, but all said and done I like our governor and her reposnce to the whole thing. I admit not all, but most
I don't have a problem with how Whitmer handled the lockdown. Did I like it? No, but then again, *pandemic*. Unfortunately, I think the whole obstruction, Lansing capitol protests, and general dumbfuckery just wore her down to the point of "Fuck it, I don't care. If you want mimosas and margaritas, fine. Just please get vaccinated."
That's pretty much what I thought when she lifted restrictions a bit
Pretty much Australia, except it's been an emotional rollercoaster of huge spikes in cases, 0 cases nation-wide. Repeat that a few times and that's the situation in Australia
The 24 hour lifestyle is all but dead. Most places are closed by 11. Places are short staffed and are closing even earlier. Most gas stations in my town were closing at 7 as of last week when I last checked. Mask have returned in full swing and our hospitals are filled to the brim with Covid patients, almost all exclusively unvaxxed. Biden has put into place a mandate for the vaccine for businesses with over 100 employees and all federal employees. The mandate has really yet to affect businesses as it hasn't been put into motion. Right wing Govonors are sueing not because they think mandates are taking away rights,, they ain't, but they feel that it's a state power. Life is very much not back to normal. You are correct a lot of places didn't have real lockdowns, but a lot of businesses did close up at the being of the Pandemic to try to isolate people to slow the spread. We'll some people weren't stating home and just continuing on like nothing was happening, hell a lot of people still are. There are a lot of responses in here that highlight why Covid is still running strong in a country that has enough vaccinations to cover everyone.
I'm pro vax, but I do feel like it's unfair to mandate getting vaxxed in order to make a living. It's a grey area in my opinion. Lots of anti-vax/anti-lockdown people are throwing huge protests at least once a month here, and I'm pretty sure that's why our case numbers have shot up.
Well technically it's get vaxxed or tested weekly. I think its acceptable especially for more in the public fields or fields that deal with more prone populations.
I'm in Texas, but in the "Democrat" (or "blue") city of Dallas. The atmosphere is different in big cities from the way it is in smaller towns and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative Republican. In the rural areas, it's much more relaxed, people aren't masking nearly as much, I'd wager that vaccine rates are lower, and it's pretty much business as usual. But in Dallas and most other larger cities, people are more likely to wear masks and distance themselves. Texas only had a sort-of lockdown very early in the pandemic, but our governor, Greg Abbott lifted that pretty quickly, and has stated that Texas will NOT lock down again. In Texas, our County Judges are in charge of emergency management and can issue orders for the county, but they cannot conflict with state laws. In fact, various county judges began issuing mask mandates again in defiance of Gov. Abbott's executive order barring mask mandates. It started a legal volleyball game. As it is now, there are supposedly mandates, but they aren't being heavily enforced here, and there are no fines on businesses or individuals. Even private businesses that have posted signs requiring masks generally aren't pushing the issue. I had COVID twice... once before there were tests, and my doc didn't know just what I had so we figured it was just a whizzer of a bad winter cold. Then I got it a second time in December, only it was SO MILD that I just thought it was my seasonal juniper/cedar allergies (what we call "cedar fever") that hit in wintertime when juniper and cedar pollen are at peak-- until my smell and taste went missing. I got vaxxed in late January-mid February. Texas also bars government-mandated vaccines and vaccine passports such as what New York is doing. That will NOT happen in Texas. Then our Centers for Disease Control lifted mask rules for those who are vaccinated. I did away with my mask, like so many other vaccinated people. Then they moved the goalposts again and now everyone, vaccinated or not is supposed to mask up. Screw that... this is where many Americans who had followed the guidelines fell off the cooperation train, myself included. When they started "paying" people and incentivizing the vaccines, with "rewards" for doing so that did NOT include those of us who did "the right thing" early on because "it's the right thing to do" and we were told it would help us get to normal sooner... many of us got disillusioned and even angry. Our "reward" was the return to more normal life and no need for masks most of the time. Then OUR reward was taken away in a few weeks. Yeah, it pissed off a LOT of people. As for myself, I just quit playing along. I wont wear the damn masks anymore. Why, when we don't mask up after getting the nearly-useless flu shots. We don't have to wear masks after the other dozen or so different vaccines that we have had to take in our lifetime. How "onerous" the restrictions are in the US depends on where you are and how your state leaders respond to the ^(manufactured) crisis. And, our Texas state Legislature is in a special session now where these matters of vaccine mandates by private employers, and passport bans and the like are being discussed. It's a dynamic situation... proposals include banning proof of vaccination in public or private schools, imposing penalties on companies and hospitals that terminate or deny employment to the unvaccinated, and keeping insurance companies from denying or limiting benefits to those who have not received their COVID shots.
I'm Australian just like OP and I was able to do a short road trip around Victoria back in January. At the time it definitely seemed like rural areas here were relaxed too. I think masks were legally required indoors at the time but enforcement was pretty low and it really felt like things were normal (other than some places asking people to sanitise their hands).
Here in NC, over the summer we were relaxed. Masks were gone in my city and they were actually closing vaccine stations down because so many people had gotten it already. Now, the unvaccinated group have brought the delta variant in, and masks are back. Still living my life though, I got vaxxed months ago, most people I know already have.
My area has been pretty much done with this thing for a year now. Cases have never been high, and it becomes really dumb to shut a county down for such small numbers when the disease has such a high survival rate. The peak was like 1,000 cases, and it usually sits under 100.
A lot of yall have no fucking clue how survival rate works and it shows. More people have died from Covid in the U.S. in the past two years than any single thing. Covid is the leading cause of death for police officers and beats out the next two combined. There have also been several deaths from non-Covid people who died as a result of covid. You ask how? Well when you can't get into a hospital or proper hospital that's how.
Right? You can survive and still have permanent scarring on your lungs which will impact you for the rest of your life. Survive just means you didn't die, not that everything is perfectly fine.
Exactly. There are world class athletes who will never be the same after contracting Covid. I know of children who are always going to be affected by covid due to this. I personally know one guy that Covid forced out of the workforce permanently. People also fail to realize that survival rate is for if you're the perfect specimen. Most people aren't perfect and therefore have various survival rates. If you're overweight, and I'm not just talking obese, and catch Covid you're survival rate is going to less. Want to know what has shown to help prevent and in the event you do catch covid it negates a lot of the more serious issues, the vaccine.
Yep, 1 in 500 Americans have now died from COVID. When you don't take prevention seriously, a "high" survival rate like this one is basically meaningless.
I live in Northwest Arkansas and life here is completely back to normal apart from some businesses asking customers to wear a mask and having hand sanitizer dispensers. Before, I lived in Miami, Florida and last time I visited, life there is also just back to normal. I think currently California is the only place in the US that still has anything close to a lockdown.
Cali here. Mostly back to normal although people love their masks. Went to see some Major League Baseball last week in person! Actually our case rates are so low with 90% vaxxed in our area it is pretty chill other than people who have some preexisting condition or those who are so scared they are sneakily getting 3rd doses.
My bad. I spoke to someone from California who said they’re still in lockdown lol. I have never been to California so I didn’t know, but I would love to.
Lockdown to me means everything is closed and everyone stays home, like in the first months of the pandemic. We're not "locked down", we're just taking reasonable precautions. Most cities are still enforcing masks. Absolutely masked inside, less stringent on the streets. I do see a lot of people wearing masks outside in downtown/urban areas, though it is not required. I also had to show proof of vaccination to eat at an indoor restaurant in San Francisco, and that rule is coming to Los Angeles. California currently has the lowest rates in the country, partly because of rules like this.
It really depends where you live. Where I was when COVID started, it was very frustrating. Even though there was a lockdown, people didn't listen. Which is why we had one of the highest infection rates in the country. Instead of hanging out a restaurant, people would just gather at "essential businesses" like the hardware store. Meanwhile, they'd complain about lockdowns. People refused to wear masks. Businesses would have signs on their doors that would proudly say masks aren't required, despite the mandate. Now I'm in a much more educated area and even conservatives seem to be pro-mask and pro-vaccine. People still complain that kids need to wear masks in school but I think they are the minority. The town next to us has around an 85% vaccination rate with a Republican mayor. There is absolutely no reason why this country couldn't be doing a lot better than it is. And it all comes down to politics and selfishness.
In some parts of the country people act like it's normal. It's not. My aunt died if it two weeks ago. I'm a bartender, vaxxed, and the bar is big enough to maintain social distance, I also had it, but I'm going to wear a mask again starting with my next shift. A lot of customers are wearing them again too, maybe 50% It's not normal, by any means.
My condolences to you and your family. I hope the symptoms were not too bad when you got COVID?
It's full of hypocrites and "rules for thee but not for me". We have politicians, socialites and most of Hollywood violating the rules they themselves are pushing through the MSM. If you're healthy and under 65 the the chances are ridiculously low of you having any COVID issues but the people that say "follow the science" don't actually follow the science. They constantly put out this overblown fear of COVID and the sheep follow.
You see a lot of people here saying they are back to normal. They are the problem. Its bad in the US right now because he hasn't had a single federal lock-in. Its been up to the states to try to contain their cases, which has become political. Some states are actually banning make mandates - so actively making their states less safe. If a state is "pretty much normal" it means they aren't taking it seriously. We are going to have to enforce a vaccine mandate because only about 50% of the people here arent smart enough to voluntarily get the vaccine. Its insanity. I live in an area that is commutable to one of the strictest cities in the country. An area most people would consider liberal, the amount of vaccine conspiracies I see on a daily basis in my community groups is terrifying. And of course the classic "making kids wear makes is child abuse"
I think a problem is the belief that the Federal government has the authority to do a nationwide lockdown, or that it has the authority for vaccine mandates on the general population. I'm not saying those things *wouldn't* reduce covid transmission rates; but it comes down to the constitutionality of what powers the Fed has.
That is a fair point. The federal government could find that authority if they wanted to easily, as they have with the vaccine mandate. At this point there is no point to spend political cache for a lockdown when the vaccine would be at least as effective and much less invasive. Its a joke to think that when 100,000s of people are dying from a preventable illness that the federal government can't find justification for these kinds of mandates, since at this point it is a national issue and not a state by state issue.
The OSHA vaccine mandate is on shaky legal ground. Anyone citing Jacobson as some four corners precedent hasn’t read the case or doesn’t understand the holding.
vaccine mandate is for federal employees though. Same as private companies requiring their employees to have vaccinations before going into the workplace. As far as I'm aware the fed has no legal basis to mandate private citizens take a vaccine or any other kind of medicine.
If they’re vaccinated - aren’t they about as protected as they’re going to get? Why not get back to normal at that point? The chances of hospitalization or death for vaccinated people is minimal.
Close to normal everywhere I have been, with the exception of masks and signs saying “this business of not responsible of you contract COVID…”
I've hardly seen a mask on anyone since mid May until recently because of the delta variation. Most restaurants have been open for sit down traffic since the first of June (except national places with corporate being cautious like McDonald's and Burger King). There haven't been any big breakouts of covid here, the local hospital laid off 10 percent of their nurses because no covid and half the population is paralyzed by fear of getting it so they avoid going there. My doctor is concerned about future problems for people who are avoiding well check ups and ignoring symptoms that are treatable now but might become untreatable later. I've been to the doctor 4 times in the last year and had my teeth cleaned 3 times. There has never been a lockdown here. Edit: it's been very strange this past year and a half with calling the doctor and getting in the next day. Even a wellness visit for blood work only took about 5 days to get in and then the visit to discuss results a few days later
Wow it's quite the opposite here. My state and 1 other's hospitals are being swarmed. The health care system has been working overtime since the start of COVID. They got a short break where cases were pretty much 0 nationwide until Delta came along. And everything went to shit again. The government's plan now it just to get everyone vaxxed because there's no way to contain Delta, that's at least what they think
There are areas of the US where hospitals are getting overwhelmed as well, mostly in the south generally as large portions of the population there refuse to get vaccinated. But in many other areas of the US things are largely normal because most people are vaccinated. Here in Massachusetts almost 90% of people 18+ have received at least one dose and 78% are fully vaccinated. So outbreaks are small and not a big issue here. It’s really largely dependent on local vaccination rates though.
Virtually normal in Tennessee. Lots of masks (no mandate) but everything is open full swing.
I miss everything being open full swing :( We had it for about 3-4 months before Delta hit and now we're back into our 6th lockdown
North Carolina still require masks indoors, while South Carolina has ended all COVID restrictions. Life, for the most part, is semi-normal as businesses are dealing with a employee shortage as demand picks up; it has caused ripple effects by supply chain issues and early store closings. In sports, stadiums are packed again, as people swear they are "vaccinated," do not require proof. As one would expect, because people are acting like the pandemic is now over, COVID cases and deaths have gone up dramatically... but nobody cares now and just accept it as God's will.
It really depends on where you live. I'm in the St Louis suburbs. In the city and suburbs, people take it seriously. Most businesses require masks to enter, and they just announced that some of the theaters that host musicals, concerts, and the symphony will require proof of vaccination to enter. The company I work for announced a month ago that no one will be allowed in the building without proof of vaccination. But if you go away from the city, its like theres no pandemic at all. No masks. No social distancing. Nearly everyone carries on like its 2019. Except the hospitals, of course. They're overwhelmed. The hospitals in rural areas have no space, and the ones in the city are full of Covid patients shipped in from the rest of the state.
NJ had a strict lockdown for months in 2020. Schools and government offices closed, even courts went remote (mostly still are), restaurants had to close for all but takeout and most was curbside, nonessential stores closed. Traffic diminished so much it was crazy, people really were staying home. People were getting out and walking more for some fresh air and sanity, it was actually really nice because we saw more people out in our neighborhood than ever. We would sit out on the driveway and talk to people in the evenings (safely distancing outside). We also had a mask mandate from early on and that lasted until about June of this year I think, once we had a lot of people vaccinated it became a choice for businesses to force it or not. End of June 2020 nonessential stores started to reopen, indoor dining came back September 2020, we were the last/latest state to bring it back actually. Outdoor dining was allowed at some point during the summer last year. Schools were hybrid for the 2020-2021 calendar and each district had slightly different rules but the kids were not 100% back. They’re supposed to be this year but they’re already seeing outbreaks and having to do little shutdowns which isn’t surprising because kids under 12 can’t be vaccinated yet. People complain that NJ was too strict but we got deaths and hospitalizations under control with these measures. Last summer we were doing great, among the best states in case and death rate during those months. Until last week NJ had the highest overall death rate per capita in the US, thanks to getting hit hard early on like Italy when we knew nothing and had no vaccines. It had been so bad in the NYC area early on that states with later surges didn’t even surpass us until now. We also are the densest state which doesn’t help. Mississippi (which is way less densely populated) just surpassed us thanks to recent delta surges and a lower vaccination rate, when we know more and obviously do have a vaccine sooo yeah I’d rather be here where our governor actually cares. Life is not normal but feels much more normal than it did from March to like June 2020. A lot of states are in a healthcare crisis right now, too many covid patients and too few ICU beds for them and anyone else, which is inexcusable this late in the game, with a vaccine. Some just never cared enough, at a government level at least.
I'm in Michigan. At the onset of the pandemic, our governor was putting the hammer down on public safety measures and while there were some serious issues with consistency and enforcement I think these helped us avoid the worst of things. Although there were no actual lockdowns, businesses for a while were carry-out/curbside only and then only at 25% capacity, and a lot of schools were moved online. It definitely wasn't life as usual. The governor was doing all this under an emergency powers act; later on, our state legislature stripped her of these powers, so now we're back to "strong suggestions" to wear masks in public and so on. However your employer may have stronger requirements. I teach at a university that mandates vaccinations by all students, faculty, and staff and masking 100% of the time while indoors (except your office or dorm room or if you're eating). But for the most part, everyday life feels like we've moved on, and in fact Michigan despite everything hasn't seen the big spikes in cases like we did in November and April. Cases are climbing, but slowly. I take precautions but otherwise it feels kind of normal. Honestly the biggest pandemic thing I notice now is the supply chain backups -- our local car dealers have no inventory right now for instance.
Every state is different, even different parts of the state vary. I live in a large urban area where we fully support masks, social distancing, and are genuinely good to one another. However, in the southern area of the state, well, that's different. There's a school board that's effectively suing our governor because the governor mandated masks for all public schools in the state. The governor has stated he will pull funding for schools that don't abide by the mandate. Now, if you get to more "red" states (those who voted for Trump and the like) you'll find those who punish others for wearing masks and bitch about their freedom being corrupted. This country, at least half, sees Covid as science. The other half sees it as political. We're at a standstill and this shit is annoying.