"Non-essential" businesses are not any more prong to get Covid

Right now grocery stores, restaurants, and big boc stores are open because they're considered "essential."

When you walk inside, guess what, there are people inside. The people that the government is afraid could spread the disease. So to protect the cashiers they put up a plastic shield at the register.

Guess what, a "non-essential" business can do the same too. You think an owner of a spear engraving business can't put up a plastic shield so he can open his shop? Are they essential? Nope. Can I wait to get my spear engraved? Yep. Can they put up a shield at their register just like Kroger? Yep. Will the shield protect them just the same? Yep.

 

It really is pretty stupid when you think about it. I'll grant some businesses have a higher contact rate, but for the most part why is it any "safer" for folks to spend every day wandering the grocery store, the Dollar Stores, and the Walmarts, than it is to go to nearly any other "nonessential" retail store? (Answer: it's not any safer, it's just a false sense of security we've given ourselves, convincing ourselves that somehow Walmart is safe but the little widget shop is not.)

 

I agree. Shutting down the nation due to a panic -- when the numbers and projections offered up turned out to have been based on both Communist Chinese and suborned WHO lies -- in order to 'protect' people at the expense of a crashing and burning economy was the height of foolishness. I would blame Trump for that, but the Left's either panicked or cynical leadership -- using their propaganda device of the MSM -- took that out of his hands by directly panicking the people themselves.

In our grocery store -- because the store could not get its hands on gloves or masks -- most of the employees were themselves without protection while dealing with customers for about two thirds of this lock down. I noticed the -- aside from the plastic shield itself -- check out people finally got gloves and masks only last week while most of the sackers still didn't have what they needed. This lockdown was symbolic rather than meaningful.

 

But somehow we've "flattened the curve" and "saved lives", despite the fact that there is no evidence that any curve was flattened in any significant manner, and the fact that "curve flattening" is a tactic to prevent hospital resource consumption and not to lessen the number of infections

 

You nailed it.

 

I agree with your logic. It's a shame that the political Party that deliberately stampeded this nation into an across the board panic did not utilize the same sort of logic before they unleased the propaganda power of the Mainstream Media. The national economy was made to crash and burn for nothing while vast numbers of people were economically ruined on an individual basis by their demanded lockdown.

 

I can never tell if you're serious or trolling.

The general point of the various lockdowns around the world is to reduce contact between people and so reduce the scale of cross-infection. We were never going to eliminate it entirely but reducing and slowing the rate of infection is the key to making it manageable by our healthcare infrastructures. If the "non-essential" stores remained open, more staff would be travelling (included on public transport) and more customers would be going to multiple stores, vastly increasing the number of contacts and therefore the risks of cross infection.

 

Democrats are essentially suggesting that there is "safe" revenue... ie ad velorum taxes and sin taxes... and then those that are not... ie any outdoor activity that doesn't generate ad velorum taxes to the till..... Liquor stores are essential, you know.. for mental health reasons. Pot stores are essential, you know... for mental health reasons... of course, isn't it liberals who define what "mental health" is these days??

 

Seriously?! Do you believe this or are you trolling too?

Nobody said grocery stores are "safe", that's why various protective measures are put in place to reduce the risks. The fact remains that people need to shop for food but nobody needs to go camping. Any interaction with other people poses a risk of infection. The policies in place are designed to reduce the interaction to what is strictly necessary.

 

We can put this to bed pretty quickly.

Would you walk into a barber shop in NY City right now for a trim? Would you feel just as comfortable doing that
as going to food store with six foot separation? Would you go to a gym in New Orleans and feel just as comfortable
as going to get a roll of toilet paper?

People talk proud and invincible on the internet, but the reality is that they wouldn't feel as comfortable in some situations
of "non-essential" business settings as essential ones where the six-foot rule could not be a practice.

Internet Bravado is hardly a good way for determining public policy.

 

Your argument, and the one promoted by various department of health officials and Governors, is that casual contact between workers and customers with "social distancing" being practiced would spread the virus.

I'm not seeing the evidence to support continuing lock down or closure of "non-essential" this. It sounds plausible but does it track with reality? We now have more data on the issue and we're just not seeing the transmission in casual contact. It takes close contact.

Show where "essential" workers that interact with customers face to face with casual physical contact (think grocery store cashier) have become vectors for the virus or that the occupation has seen higher rates of infection. We aren't seeing cashiers becoming overwhelmed with viral infections.

It doesn't exist. If we aren't seeing higher rates of infection in "essential" workers that interact with 1,000's of customers a day then the same would apply to every other retail employee.

End it now! It might have been prudent at first when our knowledge of this virus was limited, but not now. End it now!

 

... the point of quarantine isn’t to stop businesses because of economics. It’s supposed to incentivize you to stay home. Yes you can put up a shield, but then you will be traveling around when the best practice is to stay home.

 

If people were only going to "essential" stores to buy essential items and at limited intervals (weekly, etc), then your argument might have more merit. But a) what is considered "essential" sometimes borders on absurd and is certainly abused, b) people are not simply buying necessities and then leaving, they're wandering around browsing out of boredom, c) they're dragging the whole damn family with them because everyone is so stir crazy bored at home, and d) they're going almost every damn day because there is nothing else to do.

Meanwhile things like camping have been shut down. Camping. Which really requires no other interaction than the basic check-in. If it makes you feel better, shut down (or limit) the public restrooms since most of those rigs have their own facilities anyhow.

You are absolutely more likely to catch/spread the coronavirus in a Walmart with Suzy and her baby-daddy and their passel of younguns putting their hands all over the merchandise and picking their noses and whateverthehell else on their daily excursions, than you are camping.

Another case could easily be made for opening the outside seating of restaurants. There is really little difference between that, and customers mulling around or sitting at the outside tables anyhow, hanging out and chatting with each other while they wait for their "to go" food to be ready.

And (as nonessential as it is) why not go ahead and reopen hair and nail salons with limitations on crowding etc. You don't honestly believe people aren't "sneaking" in to get their hair and nails done anyhow? It's reached the point where the hair and nail salons are a bit of a game on Facebook since so many people are still getting their hair and nails done, but now it is "secretly" wink wink.

Face it, @Gatewood nailed it when he said this lockdown is symbolic rather than meaningful.

 

There's no incentive to stay home. I stay home, spear remains unengraved.

 

Big businesses are open. Small businesses are locked down. That's not scientific.

You can go to Home Depot but not to the park. That's unscientific.

 

My guess is it's people who do not connect with nature who make these decisions.

 

Would you go to the store to get your spear engraved if you knew the store is closed?

 

No, but the spear engraver and I can still go to Wal-Mart and get exposed to more people.

 

Yes, yes you can.

But while the spear engraver is closed, you won't be going there which means you're being incentivized to stay home.

 

No, I'm incentivized to go to Wal-Mart. And so is the engraver. He could have been home engraving my spear, but now he's at Wal-Mart looking at tackles.

 

And the spear engraver is probably bored, with his business shut down, so he'll be at Walmart too

 

Exactly.

 

Right...? And what would happen if one person at that Walmart got sick there? Then they would know to shut down that store to prevent it from spreading, instead of having to track down lots of different stores.

 

All of this. It's natural for human nature to rebel. It also isn't a 100% contagion, or we all would've gotten it and died by now. As big as that 3 million number is. It's but a SPECK in the global population of 7 BILLION. And likewise, 1 million of 330 million is like SMH.

And even if you multiply all cases by a factor of 10, 100 or 1,000 the denominator is basically the same. This Virus has not spread in proportions once feared. Texas's response is what we should've done from the beginning. Contact trace, isolate THOSE cases and the rest of the non-infected population should be able to go about their lives.