« If they go home and infect their grandmother … they will feel guilty for the rest of their lives. »
They’ll feel guilty for the rest of their lives if they come home from the protest and infect grandma and grandpa, she tells Chris Wallace. Will they? The more aggressive “reopen now” messengers on social media often remind skeptics that a certain number of the vulnerable will inevitably die in the course of restoring America’s economic vitality.
Nothing would signal commitment to the cause of liberating U. S. states from the tyranny of lockdown like sacrificing one’s own ancestors.
Health risks aside, it’s exquisitely stupid of protesters as a political matter not to follow basic good practices on preventing infection while demonstrating. At best they look reckless, at worst they seem denialist about the threat from the virus. I suspect people who might otherwise be persuaded that it’s time to lift the restrictions watch the footage and come away thinking, “They’re either idiots or cranks.” The infestation of anti-vaxxers in the ranks doesn’t help.
Watch: Dr. Birx says on Fox News Sunday that protesters gathering without face masks in Michigan is « devastatingly worrisome » pic.twitter.com/crUn4NRInM
TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) May 3,2020
The protests are uninteresting. More interesting and much more consequential for a second wave of the epidemic are state experiments on reopening certain businesses. I looked at data yesterday that proves Americans are going out more, but that data didn’t show whether they’re getting more slack about social distancing. For instance, they tended to patronize fast-food spots and liquor stores but not the type of businesses where one might linger indoors for long, like clothing stores or dine-in restaurants. Today’s Wall Street Journal story about states that are reopening does show an uptick in traffic to businesses like that, though:
In Georgia, more than 4 million people visited stores on Saturday, the most since March 19, before the state’s stay-at-home order went into effect. Saturday also brought the most foot traffic retail shops in Oklahoma and South Carolina have had since March…
The biggest draw in two of the states were travel-related, which includes visits to hotels, booking agencies, airports, train and bus terminals.
