[sfblah]

Where I live, in Alameda County, California, masks were required outdoors if you were within 30 feet of another person. This ridiculous policy lasted about a year and provoked all kinds of altercations. It also made exercise, a key way to say fit, much more difficult. So, in this case I would argue mask use was in fact “directed at” people.

[maxerickson]

When you say that, you are saying that the policy was put in place in bad faith in order to inconvenience the people that didn't like it. The argument is more ridiculous than the policy.

Here there was never an outdoor mask policy, so I didn't ever have a chance to evaluate my reaction to such a thing. There was apparently a policy banning stores like Walmart from selling seeds (which I interpreted as bureaucratic friction rather than intention, something that was born out relatively quickly in practice, and never in the minds of the reactionaries).

[sfblah]

There’s a fine line between a policy being intended to harm and just being stupid. Regardless of the rationale, I was just trying to demonstrate how such policies were in fact weaponized.

You can do some reading about the Bay Area and debates over whether government policies are in bad faith. I think it’s at least arguable that some are in fact in bad faith (meaning, no one really thinks they’ll serve any public purpose other than punishing groups of people).

[jeffbee]

Nothing was "weaponized" by this order, which 100% of people ignored.

[sfblah]

I wish what you were saying were true, but it just isn't. I'm a fairly serious runner -- 40-60 miles per week typically. The amount of nonsense I experienced during that year might surprise you. Dozens of different times I was yelled at on trails, in the street, etc. because I was "too close". I was threatened with violence multiple times. This was all in the context of trying as hard as I could in all cases to stay as far from people as possible -- 10 feet minimum -- and to pass them as expeditiously as I could. I avoided narrow trails in parks completely, etc. People went insane, and it was absolutely due to this policy.

[costigan]

I was in the south bay, and walked and exercised outside frequently after about the first month. Santa Clara County had a similar policy concerning separation distance outside, and I never had an unpleasant experience. I'm sorry you did, and I won't defend rude or overly fearful behavior. However, I draw a distinction between unintended consequences and weaponization. I've seen no evidence the officials who instituted the policy weaponized anything or directed it toward any specific group or groups, and you have presented none.

My belief is that they were collectively responding to an uncertain, rapidly changing situation, were incentivized to be very conservative given the early experience in Italy, didn't adjust their approach sufficiently when new information revised the case fatality rate downward, and did a poor job overall of balancing the broad spectrum of risks and costs. I don't think any of these mistakes were intentional. And none of us, including those who criticize these policies in hindsight, really know what would have happened had the policies been more lax, especially early on.

[verve_rat]

Yes, the policy had people on edge.

The policy, not the global, some times lethal, pandemic.

The policy made people not want you near them.

[AnthonBerg]

That’s bad policy, and obviously harmful.

There we are in perfect agreement.

That policy is also obviously at odds with scientific knowledge.

Policies like that harm high-risks groups immensely too.

Over here, the bad policies were strict social restrictions. Baseless and arbitrary restrictions of the number of people allowed to be at funerals and strict and severe limits to hospital visits. None of these were necessary from the perspective of the reality of aerosolized transmission and how easy it is to strip the pathogen out of the air we breathe.

It’s so absurd that it took a long time to find an analogy. It’s like repairing the flat tire on your bike with a patch of sod. It doesn’t really work, it’s messy, and people will think you’re crazy.