Yesterday I was out getting craft supplies and stopped in at a 5 and Below store and an older lady walked in before me without a mask. I passed her by to get to the back of the store to look at something and the lady at the counter yelled, "You need a mask!" and then the manager went over to talk to the lady. I think they kicked her out
Besides the employees, she and I were the only ones in the store. It was hot out and all I could think is what if she was in there trying to get out of the heat for a few minutes? Is this what we've come to now?
It seems to me this is just creating a fault line in society even bigger than which way we vote.
Since the popular narrative is that if you go outside without a mask you're basically killing people around you, the great masses of unwashed believe that anything less than full compliance is not only risking lives but guaranteeing more deaths, more spread, more shutdowns and for longer, and so on. Of course as they parrot the latest talking point from whatever media source they choose they insist they are "following the science" even though many of them wouldn't recognise science if it ran them over. A lot of people seem to struggle with the notion that risk is a spectrum rather than a nice neat line between Safe and Dangerous, and few seem to consider even basic consistency of reasoning. Only last week I was talking to someone whose attitude was little more than "if there's even a chance this makes someone else safer" as a reason to wear a bit of cloth over her face. If you're willing to do anything "if there's even a chance this makes someone else safer" then logically you shouldn't drive your car either. Of course with this concept of a clear-cut line between "safe" and "deadly to everyone around you" in peoples' minds, how would you expect them to treat someone who clearly doesn't care about the safety of others?
The stupid thing is that we're apparently not allowed to judge anyone because we don't know what they are dealing with. So the person who weighs north of 500lb on a mobility scooter stuffing their face with a super-jumbo ice cream and their own body weight's worth of chips and popcorn can't be judged, even though a major contributor to their issue is not only within their control but very visibly so. But the person with a breathing condition that can't be seen, or severe claustrophobia, or whatever else that stops them wearing a mask, can apparently be assumed to have no desires in the world beyond killing everyone else, so they can be seen as akin to the guy who goes to his local store and shoots it up with an AR-15. Needless to say the guidelines about maintaining a physical distance from people cease to apply, so it's entirely appropriate to get right up in their face to harass them.
The other aspect of this virus is that it is increasingly perceived as everybody else's job to keep people safe. Never mind personal responsibility - that has been unfashionable for a while now and the virus just provides another reason for posturing, but the posturing encourages people to assume that Someone Else will keep them safe. Along the way they become less safe because there's less need to take your own precautions when everyone else is doing it for you. So people go to the store and expect the handle of their cart to be wiped down (by someone else, obviously) and then don't consider the implications of touching things on the shelves that someone else might have touched before them. Or they don't consider that the handle of the cart was wiped down but not the rest of the cart. As stores rushed to very visibly wipe things as soon as they were touched they not only missed most of the things that might be touched but also sent out a message that they had it covered. When even the credit card keypad is wiped after each use, why would you even need to wash your hands? Of course they didn't wipe the bagging area, where you'd be touching your own items and maybe putting hands down onto the surface. But of course any business that doesn't follow the endless posturing might as well put up a sign that says they don't care about you even though what they are doing is little more than creating a false sense of security.
I was in a shopping mall the other day where the management cared so much for my safety they turned the water fountain off. Presumably I might touch it and come into contact with something nasty. Sadly their deep concern didn't extend as far as the gents - apparently the lever to flush the urinal wasn't too dangerous to touch, and the only way to leave was to pull the door (i.e. touching the handle). Not only was the problem of touching something others had touched still very much alive and well but for good measure there was no way of knowing whether the people who touched it before me had washed their hands first. So it seems a water fountain will make me die of COVID if I touch it, but a heady mixture of the coronavirus plus whatever other unspeakables might be on peoples' hands in the gents is perfectly safe. You can buy things to screw to the bottom of the door that lets you open it with a foot but needless to say the mall's management doesn't care about my safety enough to, you know, actually spend any money to keep me safe.
