yeah and remember when those gatherings/protests got a thumbs up from the CDC but having friends over for dinner was off the table? God, what a ridiculous time that was.
So why were public outdoor areas like skate parks filled with sand to “promote social distancing”?[1] Or parking lots at beaches and state parks closed “to curb the spread of coronavirus”?[2]
LA County Parks is implementing following changes effective November 30, 2020:
All playgrounds will be closed.
Fitness zones and exercise equipment will be closed.
Parks and trails remain open for outdoor, passive use for individuals or members of the same household. Masks and physical distancing are required. No group gatherings are permitted
The hypocrisy was most notable in experts who said those protesting against the lockdowns (outside), who were considered right wing, were risking spreading the disease, but then said the opposite when the protests supported a left-wing narrative.
Also the CDC who said you had to stay six feet apart even outside who then were OK with people gathering close together during protests and shouting (specifically called out by the CDC as a risky behavior).
We do a lot of risk/reward balancing in life. Maybe we can discuss specific cases, if you like, but "I want to whine about public health restrictions" and "someone got murdered by the state" perhaps have different risk/reward profiles.
We know ventilation matters. Public health officials flubbed this one pretty reliably; schools and doctors' offices should've had HEPA filters in every room instead of clorox wiping everything obsessively. Outdoor protests, in hindsight (and of either kind), were a nothingburger for COVID spread.
Yup yup yup! The lack of investment in air purifiers/ literally moving classes outside in warm areas continues to show me that most of America is painfully stupid about air quality.
To this day, Americans hatred of air purification is so strong that they will actively spread FUD about how “stronger filters in your furnace filter are bad cus it’s not supposed to filter air and it’ll make your machine work harder”. As it turns out, an enormous amount of poor air quality comes from all kinds of heaters.
Americans deserved to reap what they sowed here. I lost a whole lot of my sympathy/empathy for my countryman due to this. I regret that I didn’t switch to one-way masks as a way to further revel in the low trust of my society.
Notice how people that complained about this never ever quoted any stats? That's because its absurdly rare in practice. But the DFP policies did have a measurable impact. In Oakland alone, an extra (as in above the average for Oakland) 2500 or so murders have occured since DFP policies went into practice. So as someone who lived in Oakland, I want to you hear this. You are responsible for killing thousands because you didn't bother to look at the stats for violent crime. I literally saw people die on the street for the first time in my life because of you. 1000s, just in Oakland. That's you...you are responsible for that. I want you to know that.
"But as Trump was making these comments, Oakland was in the midst of a historic drop in homicides. The Bay Area city ended 2025 with 67 people killed, according to data from the Oakland police department, half of its 2021 high of 134."