PhineasC

I don't think we are "there" quite yet... but we are not far away. Imagine if a renewed variant appeared that can more readily defeat the vaccines we have today and vaxxed people started dying again. I think the next step for a place like Canada that already has very strict lockdowns is sanctioned nationwide tattling and police action against "rule breakers" to send them to camps. The laws for that are already on the books in Canada, actually.

In late 2019, the idea that a governor could unilaterally close certain businesses and organizations over the protests of the state legislature and force everyone to stay in their homes indefinitely was considered a "conspiracy theory." (before anyone tries -- no one alive today remembers the limited times this happened during the Spanish Flu).

They are out there. If you are meek, compliant, proudly vaxxed, and double masked at home, you won't see them, FYI. That's probably why I am seeing them and you are not.

https://www.winnipeg.ca/police/press/2020/11Nov/2020_11_04.stm https://www.toronto.ca/home/covid-19/covid-19-how-you-can-help/covid-19-report-non-compliance/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6752215/coronavirus-isolation-how-to-report-covidiot/ Canada has been the world leader in encouraging neighbors to snitch on each other so the police can come.

I personally don't think we are all that far from tattling on your neighbors and black vans pulling up to take them away ("in the interest of public health"). Stuff like that has already been recorded in Canada and the UK. It can't really be a conspiracy theory if it's already happening...

I hear ya'. For me, I need to at least make people aware of the mask policy at my office as a liability thing. For every dude who says "face diapers are a prison" there is another guy who says having to come to work literally endangers his life and he is calling a lawyer if he sees people not following the rules.

Yeah, I was unclear in my post. I actually follow all posted mask rules. I don't think I have willfully violated a mask rule ever during this whole thing. If the rules are posted, I follow them or I leave that place. I just don't think the rules make sense (sometimes), nor do I allow myself to get to the point where I simply give up and decide this is how things have to be. I have noticed people getting to that point, especially with the vaccine which they had resisted getting before. I find it sad that we are forced to give in and give up like that.

I have a guy who works for me who claims he hasn't worn a mask this entire pandemic. He says he just strolls into places and no one says anything. He had been teleworking all year, so no way to verify, but he is big and brash like that so I could see him doing it. I saw him at the office for the first time in a year a couple weeks ago, and I told him about the Federal policy that he needed to wear a mask inside. He seriously claimed he didn't own a single one but he had a rag in his car that he tied around his face... LOL He made me feel like a Karen for sure.

Is @UMB WX going to actually join the conversation or just throw tomatoes from the cheap seats? LOL

You got that from a post simply about how not wearing a mask is my preferred default behavior?

LOL I don't tend to mindlessly perform pointless rituals just because everyone else is doing it and then feel super-content I care so little about my mimic behavior that I don't even notice I'm doing it. That is a level of chill bordering on lemming-like. I don't spend all day spazzing out about masks, I wear them when I have to and then happily remove them as soon as I can. My default "normal" is no masks. If your normal is now to be masked everywhere, that's fine. But you are the outlier, I think.

That's kinda sad, to be honest. To each his own, however.

My muscle memory is to forget to put it on, versus forgetting to take it off. Wearing a mask is not my default behavior... nor do I want it to be.

I can't think of many examples in the last 30 years where manufacturing consent was not a bad thing, though. I can see how it could be used positively, but it seems to be abused a lot more frequently.

Yes, it is scary for some of us to think what the powers that be could condition these people to do next.

Unlike the geniuses of South Boston?

Definitely running into more people now who are fully vaxxed but still scared to fully emerge. They are “not comfortable” with restaurants, airplanes, or other more crowded places yet because of variants and other unknowns. I assume the vast majority of them will eventually come around, assuming they “trust the science.” The “scary double mutant” talk was really unhelpful to these people, Fauci/CDC... cut it out. It still cracks me up the reaction I get from certain people when I tell them I travel all over and eat out all the time without the vaccine. Their jaws drop and they are rendered speechless, as if I was skydiving without a parachute and bragging about it. A few have then asked, “How do you do that?” All you can do is just laugh and shrug, really. I can’t explain to other adults how to not be scared of Home Depot or Olive Garden.

Sure am glad people can get the vaccine and be safe.

Cool, glad folks are getting protection. Now let’s get back to normal. Thanks.

Vaccinating people who had COVID within the last 3-6 months is ridiculous and unhelpful.

We will probably get vaxxed once it is not a science experiment and has full approval. Also, if it looks like COVID is still a thing at that time. We get the flu vaccine each year. The flu is actually dangerous for kids, unlike COVID.

LOL

Is it a "Q" or MAGA thing to not be afraid of going to the grocery store now? LOL

Little bit of hail just now in Kingsville.

Yes, agreed. That’s why an obsession with case counts is pointless and unhelpful.