I just cancelled a backpacking trip I had booked in January

I apologize if my age comment offended anybody. If now it is mandated to wear masks in public I’d bring it up with the leader.

“Having full hospitals is nothing new. I have seen full hospitals many times over the last 40 years with the flu and respiratory outbreaks.”

Like what we saw inNew York and other parts of the north east? I don’t recall anything like this and I’m 65. I don’t recall elective surgeries being cancelled for months on end. I don’t recall nurses and doctors dying from treating flu patients.

Remind me of the the many times all of this has happened.

There was a Senator from Texas who claimed that people my age are happy to die if it means keeping the economy open and people free from masks. Such a bad look, ya know.

Sorry! I’m not that patriotic. Not an interesting perspective to me.

I’ve backpacked this year, but, virus-wise, being outside in the wild (with maybe a significant other/household members) is a far cry than holding court in a crowded indoor restaurant.    Same thing with hours of driving to a trailhead with non-household members … kinda relying on everyone in that car to self-isolate for at least a week before getting in said car if wanting to be a bit safer.

I may be wrong on this, but I don’t think so.  It is obvious to me that all of the resistance to wearing masks is politically motivated.  Which is silly.  As has been said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.  There is carping about “freedom!”, and then there is just being irresponsible and disregarding public health over something as trivial as wearing a mask for a little while.  I know that there are some people who just want to rebel about being told to do anything, but grow up.

The death toll in the US has already far surpassed our worst estimates for what we could expect with decent measures.  By about a third, in fact, depending upon which numbers you use- just a couple of months ago we were saying 85,000.  So pointing to “130,00 deaths is not significant!” is disingenuous.  What would it have been with no measures?  Probably well over a million by now.  Seriously.  Look up the estimates.  They run as high as 1.7 million.  And that is significant.  And we already underestimated once…

Someone mentioned a (fictional) disagreement among the doctors.  This is the same strategy used against climate change and it is just an attack strategy rather than an actual argument- nothing more.  Someone with an agenda will invite a doctor and some other wing nut doctor to discuss the issue, and then nod and thank both for their “opinions” as a way to make it seem like there is uncertainty about the issue.  But the reality is that the wing nut represents the opinion of a farcically small fraction of doctors.  So all that happened there was that the wing nut’s views were publicized far beyond their relevance by the guy with the agenda.

For the guy who said he opposes masks and chooses to just self-quarantine instead, I would point out that you have just sort of admitted that you are not opposed to taking measures during this time of crisis.  You are doing something responsible, by self-quarantining.  So you at least acknowledge that something should be done and, well, not everyone can afford to just stay at home with their 5-year stockpile of SPAM.  So I’m not sure why you are so vehement about masks specifically.  No one has asked you to wear a mask 24/7 while you are at home, just when you are out in public.

[/RANT]

“[/RANT]”

@acrosome: If this is a rant, please rant some more……this is badly needed!

Thanks much for forcefully stating what needs to be said…..

+10

Huh.  It truncated the last part that I wrote, post-Rant.  Here it is

The arguments about low-penetrance areas is a valid one, though.  Do I think that New York should just open fully for business and return to “normal” (whatever in the hell that is)?

No.  I don’t.  And I fully support fines or jail for violators there.

But should people in North Dakota stop wearing masks and self-quarantining?

Well, that’s a different question.  North Dakota only enacted measures for a brief period in April and AFAIK haven’t re-enacted any other than a 14-day quarantine for travelers from outside the country.  (That may be old data.)  Because, gee, it turns out that when your population density is that low then infectious diseases don’t spread well, and that changes the decision matrix.

I don’t have an answer on that one, since reasonable people can disagree on where the balance should be.

[RANT AGAIN]

But not in New York or Florida.  No one refusing to wear a mask there is reasonable.  Someone who “protests” by not wearing a mask in Times Square is just acting like a petulant infant.  So let them go refuse to wear their masks in a crowded jail.  (Hyperbole, there.)  After all, Boris Johnson almost died of fatal irony after he refused to wear a mask, and it sure changed his tune.

[/RANT]

Thanks Dean

Moving on,

Someone made a comparison to tobacco, and asked why the “evil scheming anti-freedom doctors” had never made such a fuss about tobacco.

Well, the answer is, we did.

The problem is that it was a different political environment then.  Also that there obviously are entrenched and very powerful financial interests who want to continue killing people for profit.  Because it’s a lot of profit.  So they tended to sue into oblivion anyone who dared to call them on it.  “Freedom!”  Only, gee, not freedom of speech I guess.  No, not that.

So, there are interests who want people to continue using tobacco.  But the only people interested in letting people continue to die of COVID are some politicians who want to be seen opposing anything that the “evil scheming freedom-hating liberals” want.  Which is what I say is silly.  And franky, evil.  We should be able to unite during all of this, but they see political advantage in disunity.  Because God forbid that we not be at each others throats about every pathetic little issue.

Of course the real irony is that now all of the former “freedom!” smokers are suing the tobacco companies as they die of their emphysema.

Note: For the record, and before anyone makes the accusation, I am not a liberal.  Just ask Jerry or Tom. :)

Oh, and before someone fixates on the issue, I’m also not talking about when you aren’t around other people, like a solo on a trail.  (Or at home, ahem.)  Because, well, you’re not around other people.  But even then, the few times I’ve gotten out on the trail during all of this I at least carried a mask just in case I came across other people.

I’m not even sure that ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ fits all that many people anymore anyway. There is such a huge variation within each label that the labels don’t really accurately portray many people stuck under those labels.

we seem to have found a topic Dean is passionate about : )

Hey, just because I’m an immoral pragmatic centrist doesn’t mean I don’t care, Jerry.  I’m hurt.

:)

I lust learned that the bit that I explained about lending legitimacy to wing nuts has a name.  it is Okrent’s Law.  Since I bring it up so often, I’ll try to remember it.

I just looked at that, yeah, good concept

I hate it when journalists will let one side of an argument say their side, then the other, and then leave it at that.  The journalists should do some analysis and identify B.S.

They shouldn’t just let the flat earthers claim the world is flat and leave it at that.  Obviously, the earth is (roughly) spherical

If our society does not have the ability to endure even trivially inconvenient things like wearing a mask in public, how much cause for optimism is there regarding how well we’ll face even larger problems in the 21st century? Is going down with the ship a coherent response?

I’m sticking with “America always does the right thing after they try everything else first”

I think things will get better

“America always does the right thing after they try everything else first”

I’m sure America (the physical place) will do just fine. It’s Americans I’m not so sure about…..given what we’re seeing….

Geeeze oh man guys! (to quote Radar O’Riley) I guess my post touched a couple of exposed nerves. Must be the enforced confinement. ;o)

What I forgot to mention to is the I’m 77 and thus in that “underlying condition” category, the “underlying condition” being old age. :o)  (Lord I hope Ryan’s new BPL website HAS EMOJIS!!) I can’t communicate properly W/O emojis – another sign of the times.

Anyway, I’m just doing solo backpacking this summer and very likely the Ruby Crest Trail in northern Nevada in mid or late September. Gotta use that Dyneema tent or feel SO guilty spending all that money for a “garage tent”.  Of course nobody else here has “garage gear” do they? Thought so. (heh, heh) (emoji, emoji)

🤪💩

I just canceled out of a 5 day trip I’d planned to the Sierras.  Two out of six folks went anyway and had a great time.  One member of the group and I went for an overnight backpack in our local mountains.  My friend who went with me, got home and had fevers for the following two nights and now is in search of testing.  I would have been a wee bit freaked out to be two days into the backcountry and have a participant running a mysterious fever.

I live in Southern California and the numbers of people sick are as bad as they have ever been.  No magic is coming like before the end of the TV episode.  We have to do what we can to stay safe and to keep the people around us safe.

Scott