Originally posted by Patrick Thistle
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Initially, we had that issue too. Stores that sold groceries were open, including the parts that didn't sell groceries, as were any stores that sold anything remotely essential, including the big hardware/home stores, Best Buy, Staples, etc, but they weren't stopping people from buying whatever they wanted. Of course, a lot of stuff wasn't in stock and fewer people went to the stores to buy things they didn't really need.
Closing off certain aisles wouldn't really reduce the risk of the staff to close off those parts of the store. It was just making life a little more difficult for everyone.
But what that meant was that independent small shops were closed while the big box chains like Wal Mart were open. That seemed very unfair because this whole fucking situation is unfair, but in the early days we were dumb enough to think this could be handled in a few weeks so it didn't seem like such a travesty. Besides, for a lot of items, the big box chains have already put all the little stores out of business anyway.
And when they did eventually reopen just about everything, it didn't seem so bad. It was done on a county by county basis, which isn't ideal, but the only other way would be to do it by municipality and that wouldn't work because we have way too many of those.
But now cases in Pennsylvania are officially "uncontained" once again. But I don't think the governor is going to go back to where things were in April. It's just politically untenable.
It's frustrating because if everyone would just wear a mask and stand apart, this would be less of an issue, and if we had proper track and trace, it wouldn't be much of a problem. The evidence is pretty clear that most cases are spread by less than 10% of carriers. We need to use that fact to our advantage. But we won't.
Bars, restaurants, theaters, and sports will probably still be unsafe for a long while.
I've thought about going to the cinema. I'm told the social distancing is pretty good and not many people come anyway, but I'd have to wear a mask the whole time. No thanks. I don't want to see Tenet that badly.
A friend of mine who owns what was a successful restaurant is now selling his house. I don't know the whole story, but it's upsetting.
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