Post 110 - June 29, 2020
Day 110…
I completely slept through the Pride march yesterday morning.
Most days, I go to sleep after about 1am and sleep through until about 10am. It’s not necessarily nine straight hours, though, because there are always interruptions.
Michael doesn’t go to sleep until after I do and then usually wakes up before I do. In the morning, whether or not there is still any food in his dish, the cat requires that attention must be paid. This can start as early as about 5am (so I’ve been told). I can sleep through most of all of that. Michael, however, can’t. If the cat’s needs aren’t immediately met, he will start knocking things over.
By the time I was up and running yesterday, the march was done. Later in the day, though, we decided that it was finally time to actually go out and celebrate Pride. We decided to get the frozen margarita that we’ve been talking about all weekend. So, we took a walk down Columbus Avenue looking for a place that seemed safe.
Phase two has seen the reopening of many restaurants in our area for outside dining only. Some have been more successful than others in setting up areas that feel safe. Sometimes the tables seem like they are 6 feet apart, but the chairs around them back up against each other which completely undercuts the safety guidelines. Sometimes people seem to be keeping their distance, other times they are all gathered together in a group.
It started raining as we walked which further limited table availability. Restaurants that had ten tables available, now only had two or three that were protected from the weather.
So, we kept walking.
Finally, when we got down to Lincoln Center, we saw that there were tables available at The Smith. The rain, which had gotten heavy at times with a lot of thunder, had stopped. The tables and chairs at The Smith were well distanced and everybody there was wearing a mask. We were told that we needed to wear a mask while we were interacting with our server but could take them down while we were eating. It seemed to make sense to us both.
It was a little awkward, but we are already so well on our way to being used to wearing them, that the masks didn’t really affect our night out at all.
I have a scar on the ridge between my eyebrows.
When I was quite little, a toddler I think, my mother had to stop the car suddenly and I slammed into the front dashboard. Blood everywhere. I needed to get seven stitches.
I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. As a toddler, I wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
On January 1, 1968, a few years after my accident, the US government passed a law requiring that all vehicles, except buses, install seat belts in the designated seating areas.
On December 4, 1984, New York became the first State that required people to actually wear them.
Today, in 2020, only 49 out of the 50 states have laws mandating the wearing of seat belts by adults. New Hampshire is the sole holdout. Kids under 17 are required to wear them, but adults aren’t.
68% of adults, according to a Gallup poll in July of 1984 were opposed to being forced to wear seat belts. One of the arguments against them at the time was that it was safer to be thrown from a vehicle than it was to be trapped inside one after an accident.
The CDC says that wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death by 45% and of serious injury by 50%. People not wearing a seat belt are 30 times more likely to be thrown from a vehicle than those who have buckled in. 75% of the people who get thrown from their cars because of an accident, die from the injuries they receive.
When the law was first passed, people were up in arms. They cut the seat belts out of their cars and challenged the laws in court. A radio personality in Massachusetts went on a crusade against them and got 45,000 signatures on a petition. He was able to get a referendum on the ballot to strike down the law.
You don’t need to remind me to wear a seat belt. I look at that scar every single morning while I brush my teeth and shave. According to recent surveys, 90% of Americans now routinely use seat belts. Countless public service campaigns, enforcement of the laws later, it has largely become something that we don’t even think about doing anymore. We don’t have to. Every single time we get into our cars, they beep at us until we buckle up.
New Hampshire’s motto, which is on every license plate there is, “Live Free or Die.”
As recently as last year, a seat belt law failed to pass there. Overall, traffic fatalities in New Hampshire actually tend to fall below the national average. Despite the lack of laws mandating it, 70% of the people in New Hampshire admit to wearing their seat belts.
Worldwide cases of COVID-19 have now gone past the 10 million mark. We, here in the United States, account for 25% of those cases. Fully a fourth of all cases of this virus are happening HERE.
80 people tested positive for the virus in East Lansing, Michigan after they all visited the same bar two weeks ago. Apparently, the bar itself was following all the proper distancing and capacity guidelines.
The employees were all wearing masks. The customers, however, were not. They weren’t required to wear masks for entry nor were the rules requiring them to wear them inside enforced. The bar in question, was a dance club.
It took us fifty years as a country to get to the point where the majority of us routinely wear seat belts FOR OUR OWN SAFETY.
Only two states in the entire country are reporting a decline in their coronavirus cases - Connecticut and Rhode Island. New York is holding steady at our very low rate as are some others. Case rates are now RISING in 38 states.
The largest increase in new cases and new hospitalizations is happening in young people in their twenties and thirties. All of the people we are seeing going to dance bars and beach parties.
It took Michael and I thirty blocks yesterday to find a restaurant that we felt comfortable sitting in. The rest of the places we passed were either set up too close together or many of the people gathering there were not wearing masks. I have now seen pictures of Pride celebrations in other places around the city last night with hundreds of people gathering together outside bars on the street without masks.
For the most part, the Black Lives Matter marches of the past few weeks, while certainly risky, were not as risky as this. Most of the people marching wore masks.
Two weeks these days, seems endless. The case rise that we are seeing now, have more often than not been traced back to parties and bars rather than to the demonstrations. If 38 states are seeing rises in the cases today, what are things going to look like two weeks from now?
How responsible are we going to be over the 4th of July weekend next week?
It is no coincidence that the places where the numbers are spiking the highest are the places where support for the President and his Administration is the highest. These places are heading into crisis, but because of how the White House has dismissed and minimized the risk, they still not taking the health mandates seriously.
The Vice President has cancelled some campaign stops in these areas, so it is crystal clear that the White House understands the danger. Their continued messaging, however, has led people to believe that wearing a mask is not only unnecessary but also is a violation of their basic human rights.
It will be interesting to see how the President responds to the news today that Jacksonville, Florida has finally mandated the wearing of masks. Jacksonville is going to be the site of the Republican National Convention - chosen by the Republicans because of the lax to nonexistent anti-virus legislation there.
Use a seat belt. Use a condom. Use a mask.
The use of these things is not a violation of any of our rights. The use of all three of these things, instead, helps to keep each of us safe.
Inconvenient? Really?
There are risks inherent is most everything that we do. Over time, we learn to weigh them.
Getting behind the wheel of a car entails a certain level of risk every single time we do it. We weigh our sobriety, wakefulness and other things before we decide to drive or not. One drink? I think I’m OK to drive. Buckle up.
To have sex or not to have sex? How much do we really know about the other person?
In the early 80’s with AIDS it was pretty much a blanket “No Sex” for a few years. Then there came the ability to somewhat quantify risk based on specific behaviors. OK, I’ll do that, but I won’t do THAT.
We haven’t been around COVID-19 long enough to really be able to judge the relative risks properly yet. Based on the behavior of similar viruses and from early reports, however, there is a general understanding of relative risk. Outside good or maybe just better, inside, not so good.
Michael and I are probably not going to go out again to eat for a while. We had a wonderful meal yesterday. We probably ate and drank too much. No frozen margaritas, alas, but I had an excellent Moscow Mule instead. Well, two.
We weighed the relative risks as we understand them now and figured out using as much commonsense as we could muster, what our personal risk relative to the situation was.
Nothing that I have read so far anywhere has indicated anything to me other than by wearing a mask I am safer - both to myself and others. There is no such thing as safe sex. What there is, is safER sex. Wearing a condom is safer. Wearing a mask appears to be safer.
So, until somebody who doesn’t seem like an irrational kook, presents a compelling argument against it, we are going to wear a mask. If we can wear a mask in the 85% humidity and heat in New York these days and have a good night out, then honestly anyone can.
If you won’t do it for yourself then do it for everyone else out there around you. If you test negative for HIV, you know you are clear of it until the next time you have sex with somebody who’s status you don’t know. If you test negative for COVID-19, that only means that you were negative for it at the time of the test. You could have gotten infected at any point afterwards - even while just leaving the doctor’s office.
Assume you have it and behave accordingly.
It took us a long time to learn how to have sex with each other again. We now have to learn how to eat and drink with each other again.
So, mask up and let’s begin to figure it out.