The dead are bushed an' stoned to keep 'em safe below

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit! I am having a great deal of difficulty with my state continuing to reopen as our delta cases spike. I was obliged to be inside two buildings for purposes of errands this afternoon and while I appreciated that more masks were in evidence than not, it did not make me feel as safe(r; safe as an absolute has been out of the question for some time now) as it might have even a month ago. I was just about the only person wearing a mask on the street. Somerville is recommending indoor masking, but not requiring it; Massachusetts as a whole has not reinstated the mask order it rescinded in May. We are officially no longer in a state of emergency. Please ignore the rates of community transmission blooming red across the map. It feels a bit like living in that blown-off splinter of reality in Diana Wynne Jones' Witch Week (1982), except I don't think there's much chance of merging into a healthier worldline. As of this week, spatch has returned to work in person. At least he is mostly interacting with dust.

Comments

[kore]

Very few people are masking in stores even right now, and nobody's masking on the street at all (which includes eating outside in those damn little "outdoor dining patios/sheds," which take up a lot of the sidewalk). Meanwhile the state's infection rate has skyrocketed, despite King County having an amazing vaccination rate of above 80%, but that's mostly people above fifty -- fewer than half of the people 18-30 are vaxxed. In spite of that, good old Jay Inslee, who just got props from Grampa Prez Biden about climate change, declared "I do not want to have to shut down a single business in the state of Washington" and, the news said, "he is not making the state's new masking recommendation a requirement because he doesn’t want to take away the benefit of numerous residents who got the COVID-19 vaccine so that they wouldn’t have to continue wearing masks." Meanwhile the state's been fully open for weeks with no pandemic restrictions. But vaccination levels continue to drop and infection rates continue to go way up.

It feels a bit like living in that blown-off splinter of reality

That really is what it feels like. It's unreal. -- And the eviction moratorium just ended today, too. It's all just so....fucking baffling.

[sovay]

"numerous residents who got the COVID-19 vaccine so that they wouldn’t have to continue wearing masks."

What a nonsensical and divisive way of framing it. I got the vaccine so I wouldn't catch and transmit a lethal virus. My nervous system would love it if I could leave the house without a mask, but it wasn't exactly a factor in my calculations. My behavior didn't change.

-- And the eviction moratorium just ended today, too. It's all just so....fucking baffling.

I saw. It really is.

[kore]

I got the vaccine so I wouldn't catch and transmit a lethal virus. My nervous system would love it if I could leave the house without a mask, but it wasn't exactly a factor in my calculations

YES, exactly! I was frantic to get the vaccine because I was worried about getting terribly sick! And I was having panic attacks at first over having to wear a mask longer than five minutes, but eventually I got accustomed to it. I don't WANT to leave the house without a mask, not with all the unvaxxed people out there, and especially not if even vaxxed people can transmit Delta.

It's just like a whole lot of the government and state govs and ordinary people have decided to behave like the pandemic is over, and no, it's starting to look like the pre-Delta pandemic was the warmup. I just don't understand how the reaction to something like 78% of infections in the US being due to Delta translates as "let's hold Lollapalooza." And that giant motorcycle rally in Sioux Falls is going to start this Saturday, again, too.