Palmpilot
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AMEN!
Did you catch it ?
- Thread starter Tom-D
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chemgeek
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chemgeek
Absolutely! Anyone who has been in a leadership position knows that no matter how careful and considered a leadership team makes difficult decisions, using best available evidence and expert advice, there will be plenty of straw-bosses and second-guessers, who don't share that immense responsibility, telling them how wrong they are. Sometimes your choices are between bad and worse. It looks a lot different from the top, and it requires a thick skin and a lot of patience to be a leader.
Tarheelpilot
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Wasn’t intended to be a straw man. I am aware how much control states have in this event. I would have been more accurate in my observation to keep it within state borders. I believe in hindsight we will see that having policy set at a state level was not local enough. The political agenda influence is widely enough documented I don’t think there is much of a debate to be found.
I’m afraid the economic impact of this is going to be long lasting and significant.
denverpilot
Tied Down
They wanted the job. Zero sympathy.
I think that is what happened in the beginning as the first data that "hatched" was predicting 2+ million dead. So what would you have done differently in the beginning? 3 months later more data is out and it's looking more like that shutting things down was not 100% correct and they are now opening things up again. I can't fathom what went through the minds of the people who had to make these decisions affecting collectively 327 million people, regardless if they wanted the job or not. I'd bet most would pass on the job if they knew this was coming. One thing I have seen is the data is still preliminary and ever changing and is highly subjective to location. As I said, with the data they collect as we reopen life will they decide to reactivate the stay at home orders when the 2nd or 3rd wave hits? Or will it be different and they move to protect the 20% that are vulnerable to COVID without shutting things down? Time will tell.
Try perusing the Mx Bay or Avionics Upgrade forums for some spine tingling discussions on the statistical analysis of installing non-TSO parts on a TC'd aircraft, or my favorite, who can legally touch up the paint on a prop.....
Palmpilot
Touchdown! Greaser!
The important thing is not whether they deserve sympathy; it's that it's an impossible job right now. There's no clear right answer that everyone agrees on.
Palmpilot
Touchdown! Greaser!
I think a lot will depend on whether we have the means for sufficient testing and contact tracing when that time comes.
Meanwhile, I was surprised to read this:
All L.A. County residents, even those without symptoms, can now get tested for COVID-19
"During a news conference Wednesday evening, [the Los Angeles mayor] announced that all city residents were now eligible for free COVID-19 testing — a first-of-its-kind step for any major city in the U.S., he said."
PeterNSteinmetz
Ejection Handle Pulled
My decision making in such a circumstance is based on a respect for the rights of people to act freely so long as they don’t threaten to or actually harm others - a very rights based approach. I would evaluate whether we have enough information to conclude that a person walking around in a public space with an unknown SARS Cov-2 infection status is clearly an imminent threat of or actually causing serious harm to others. This would be my primary determinant of whether to take coercive measures against citizens in general.
With respect to other non-coercive measures - making recommendations to the public, shutting down publicly owned transportation (like buses and subways), offering aid, my standard would much more of a preponderance of best evidence standard, rather than clear harm or threat.
Speculating on the beginning is a bit of applying the retrospectocope, but I will try.
Very early on we were looking at something possibly coming our way with maybe multiple millions dead and a fairly unknown contagion level. Would fail to meet to clear standard I think and I would have say, wow, maybe we need to start preparing for something and watch very carefully here.
By mid-February we have some more information. Perhaps not quite so deadly as feared and spread so far is limited, but it is here. I might consider shutdowns of publicly owned transportation and would certainly make recommendations, but no coercive measures because not clear enough for that.
By early to mid-March, we have Fauci saying lockdowns needed and Ioannides at Stanford we don’t have enough information. I think I would say not clear enough for coercive measures. Definitely ramp up public information and recommendations and close crowded publicly owned transportation.
This type of approach runs a risk that if one runs into a truly dangerous extremely contagious pathogen one might react more slowly and it would cause greater harm. On the other hand, such pathogens are considerably less likely to arise and will often give off stronger signs of their danger.
So my approach is erring on the side of freedom if errors must be made. I believe that results in better overall outcomes in the long run, in part because when we are freer we are better able to prepare for and adapt to the unexpected. I think my approach would be fairly different from what has transpired.
Try perusing the Mx Bay or Avionics Upgrade forums for some spine tingling discussions on the statistical analysis of installing non-TSO parts on a TC'd aircraft, or my favorite, who can legally touch up the paint on a prop.....
Thanks I’ll may enjoy some of those.
And as a single private citizen, with no external "assistance" and looking from the outside in I would agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, the people making the actual decisions were public citizens who were surrounded by thousands of "experts" that were all stating 2 million dead--"just look at Italy." I don't know if you ever had to make a decision that affected a number of people with the possibility of someone getting harmed, but normally you don't have the luxury of afternoon tea while making your decision. I think we'll see exactly what "facts" they had to go with when the 1st orders were issued. Some governors are starting to publish those fact now. The interesting part will be why, specifically, some governors went to extremes yet others didn't all with the same data. I think where there is serious trouble on the citizen rights side, is where said governors publicly stated they didn't give a hoot about their rights when they made their decision. Those statements border on the level of intent which can be a big no-no legally.
Unfortunately, for public servants when your constituents start to die off in "record" numbers they mostly try and protect their future votes first. Compare that to China or Russia where votes don't count but neither do rights.
azure
Final Approach
Yep. More succinctly, there's no clear right answer, period. All options involve very serious trade-offs.
RJM62
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Geek on the Hill
Not necessarily. Just let policy be determined as locally as possible, with cooperation between regions as they see fit. Trying to have one single policy that covers all situations is where the problems come in.
Rich
JOhnH
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yeah. Let all the decisions be made locally. It is ridiculous to try to impose the same restrictions on Sparrow fart as they do on NYC.
So make the decisions locally. And blame the President for all the bad ones.
denverpilot
Tied Down
So let them decide and don’t pretend to be worthy of being in charge if you don’t know.
Palmpilot
Touchdown! Greaser!
Let who decide? The governors?
RJM62
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Some broad-area restrictions are sensible as long as they're universally-relevant and minimally-harmful. Masks, for example, are of debatable value other than as a reminder to keep one's distance; but they're as relevant in Sparrow Fart as they are in the Bronx, when in public situations, and they're not harmful to most people.
Shutting down a very few unquestionably unnecessary businesses whose risk simply can't be mitigated would be another example. Those businesses and their employees, however, should be fully compensated for involuntary closure.
There really are very few such businesses, by the way. I mean, seriously, surgeons cut people open and stick their hands and tools inside them every day. The idea that it's impossible to safely cut hair with simple precautions is pretty absurd. (Beard trimming, however, would be a problem.)
The numeric limits on gatherings are also idiotic because they don't consider the area of the venue. Many old churches, for example, are much bigger than they need to be to serve today's smaller congregations. If they can mark butt spaces on the pews to maintain distancing (except for family groups who live together anyway), what practical reason is there for not allowing them to do so?
It's all about control. Government is supposed to serve the people. But this response is all about control.
Consider this: First responders and health-care personnel aren't hatched. They have to be trained. Taking New York City as an example, they have the Police Academy, the Fire Academy, and the EMS Academy, all of which are shut down, and all of which provide at least Advanced First Aid training. They also have nursing and medical students whose studies have been sidelined.
Since all these folks have been background-checked and have at least minimal training, why aren't they being used to perform daily well-being checks on the elderly? They can just say hello once a day from a safe distance if that's all that's needed; or they can gear up in Tyvek, masks, and gloves, take vitals, and call for help if needed.
Or if that's still considered too risky, why not purchase a **** load of tablets, load an elder-friendly UI on them, and conduct daily well-being checks by video chat? Have two buttons on the UI: "Someone is calling - Tap Here to Answer," and "Tap Here if You Need Help."
They also have hundreds of people waiting on line at food banks. Wouldn't it be easier and safer to allow the unemployed who can drive to deliver the food in a no-touch way? When you consider that many of the recipients have to travel by public transportation to get to the food banks, it seems like a no-brainer.
But none of these things are being done. You know why? Because it's all about control. It's a control-based response run by control freaks, not a service-based response run by public servants. The only people actually doing services like the above are ad hoc volunteers who in many cases are breaking the law to do so.
Rich
denverpilot
Tied Down
The people. Duh. It’s called life. Pick your path.
Never needed a “leader” and certainly not one who’s only qualifications are that they have nice hair and won a childish popularity contest.
The same dumbass wasn’t any smarter back when he ran for “Student Council” in school and lorded over the price of donuts in the student cafeteria 30 years ago.
Pretending they’re intelligent is a joke. They go into that biz because they aren’t intelligent enough to make things useful or better for a living.
Zero skill azz hats and have been since they “started their political career young serving in Jr High school”.
You’ve got Mayors, the idiots that barely get out of the political dugout and on the field, who spend most of their time waving at parades, giving orders now.
You just put the equivalent of the political Special Needs guy in charge of a response to a medical issue. Normally you ignore that he exists.
Brilliant, America.
PeterNSteinmetz
Ejection Handle Pulled
And now we see that up to 70% of excess deaths in NY may be due to things other than Covid-19.
"Of these deaths, only 43% in Scotland and England and Wales, 49% in the Netherlands and 30% in New York state were attributed to Covid-19 leaving a number of excess deaths not attributed to Covid-19."
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.21.20073114v2
"Of these deaths, only 43% in Scotland and England and Wales, 49% in the Netherlands and 30% in New York state were attributed to Covid-19 leaving a number of excess deaths not attributed to Covid-19."
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.21.20073114v2
azure
Final Approach
Some aspects of policy probably should be determined locally, such as what kinds of local businesses should be allowed to stay open. Do we need to force hair salons and barber shops that have only local clients to close in rural communities that haven't seen any cases? Probably not, as long as precautions are taken. But Gov. Whitmer was criticized for banning travel to second homes and cottages outstate, and I can't fault her there. The question is partly how much travel there would be, and what are the chances that a person with the disease would carry the virus all the way to Ishpeming? But it's also partly the fact that we don't know, at any given time, the actual prevalence of the infection because of the fact of presymptomatic and asymptomatic carriers. It would be VERY easy, given how contagious the virus is, for the infection to go from Detroit to practically anywhere in the state or a neighboring state, and for an outbreak in Gaylord or Bellaire to be seeded by a Detroiter unknowingly carrying the virus there, and we wouldn't actually see the effect for up to two weeks.
So to me, it depends on what type of policy we're talking about. Some kinds should probably be decided nationally, not just at the state level. Others, on a local basis makes sense.
denverpilot
Tied Down
We did! I have no idea how that got past the bureaucracy but some donut place delivered daily in high school. The chocolate old fashioned were most excellent.
Somehow related to a fundraiser which is why the little student council got their noses in it, no good politician can avoid a tax with a “good cause” associated with it.
I can’t count the number of morning classes I skipped to go have a donut.
Of course we also had a smoking area for students back then too. LOL.
Letting those of us who wanted empty calories to partake — especially with proceeds going to buying someone the early versions of participation trophies awarded by student politicians (which really meant we all got to slack off in the gym and skip more classes to be forced to listen to them blather on, but I usually volunteered to run either sound or lights just to not be bored and play decent tunes in between the useless speeches, which got more cheers and interest than the speakers who got the usual lifeless golf claps) — was benign compared to the debate about whether some of the smokers were getting high out there.
They were, of course. Which continues to this day in modern Colorado...! LOL. The politicians must have learned something in high school. They deemed the pot shops “essential”. Haha.
Through an oddity mostly of schedules and not because my folks really had the money for it, I was private schooled at a heavy academics school until Jr High, then went to public in one of our state’s “good” districts. I hit public school testing straight to all “advanced” classes and was insanely bored the entire rest of the way through. Nothing like teaching to lowest common denominator to lower standards for all.
But I got a better understanding of total slackers, useless student politicians (a number of which went on into career politics and still can’t think their way out of a wet paper sack), cliques, and how the regular world treats the “beautiful people” and celebrity in the public system and even *encourages* that BS.
We had none of that garbage in the private place. Adults ran things and if you couldn’t keep up you were pitied and helped. No “Kings and Queens” or similar horse crap.
But it was good to see both ways.
My good friend and we call him a “foster brother” moved away to Montana end of Soohomore year of HS and their system was so bad his mom and he begged my mom to legally take custody of him so he could return to the public system here, as he was also already bored as hell in advanced classes before he left. He said that their advanced system was two years behind. My mom did, so I had a teenage “brother” living in the house to help terrorize our younger sisters.
Dude has multiple Masters now in Architecture and something I forget and is doing a new one in some aspect of medical lab research just again out of boredom. He did military service also, and worked for years as a Hollywood CGI creator for various movies in the early days of that. Convinced some bejillionaire that had property up near the Hollywood sign that he needed a live on property caretaker for the empty land, and set up a small RV and compound up there for next to nothing. He’s brilliant and weird and is currently hanging out doing that lab stuff in Idaho.
He’ll have / already had had an amazing life far richer and deeper than any of the political jerk offs at our old school that people still fawn over today as being somehow “important” in their little structured political jobs. You’d want to read his book if he ever wrote one, which with his personality, is exactly why he won’t. He’d just ask you or anybody why you didn’t get a life when you had the opportunity.
Ironically he WAS nominated once for one of the “class royalty” things. He thought it was hilarious and used it as a platform to make fun of the stupidity of such a thing. I believe his motto was, “You don’t know me, so you should vote for me!” Lol.
FYI: I think you have that backwards. She banned Michigan residents from travelling between residences in-state. Her order did not prevent people from outside Michigan to travel to their residence in Michigan. That is what she was critized for.
azure
Final Approach
I was with you up until this point. From one perspective, I think it is more likely about fear of the invisible threat, and of doing too little and of being held responsible for it. From another, though, public health emergency management IS about control, and it has to be. Not control for control's sake, but to minimize a threat to public safety. We give our elected officials that power in order to deal with epidemics precisely because we don't want massive loss of life and overtaxing our health care systems. They probably have overreached to a degree in some cases, but I think it's mostly because they fear the wrath of the voters (maybe even criminal charges in extreme cases) if too many people get sick, and public health experts say their reaction was inadequate.
azure
Final Approach
I might have used the wrong word, but that is what I meant. "Outstate" meaning not "out of state", but outside of the more populated areas. That's the way the word was used in the circles I moved in back in Michigan, maybe it's not common usage though. (Rather like "upstate" in places like New York.)
Now if she was NOT criticized for banning travel to residences in state, then I misread... but I'm pretty sure she was.
RJM62
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Geek on the Hill
Where I live, our population roughly doubles during the summer most years. This year, a lot of them are coming early. The county is asking for a 14-day voluntary quarantine or verifiable proof of recovery. They're also advising people who call first (which would be all of them, as far as I know) to bring everything they'll need for two weeks so they don't have to shop. To my knowledge, no one has refused.
If they were to refuse, the county has tools in their arsenal that could compel compliance. The powers of county health departments under the Public Health Law are pretty broad. But it hasn't come to that. Most people are reasonable when treated as such. The draconian measures can safely be reserved for those who are not.
Rich
How does your latest "excess" link relate to this these "excess" numbers?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Yes she was, but only in the context that she did not ban people from outside Michigan from visiting their in-state homes from places like NYC. Hence the criticism.
Huh.
As an aside, I only skimmed the article, but saw no reference to the 70% in your quote for New York, just that 27% of the excess deaths in the state weren't attributed to Covid-19 - and with 37% of those excess deaths in NY City not attributed to COVID-19. Might be an inadvertent flip of the ratios? (Might also be I read it wrong.)
Funny how people view things differently. I interpret your comments as hilighting the idea that other things - to include unintended consequences of lockdowns - may be killing as many people as the virus.
My view of the article is: "uh oh. Covid-19 may be killing 50% more people than we think it is."
The authors are somewhere in between:
The two most likely explanations for the discrepancy between the overall excess of deaths and the extra deaths not explained by Covid-19 are either there are additional deaths caused (or contributed to) by Covid-19, but not recognised as such, or that there is an increase in deaths from non-Covid-19 causes, potentially resulting from diminished routine diagnosis and treatment of other conditions. We believe that both are likely.
Time will tell, I guess.
--Tony
SGOTI
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azure
Final Approach
My understanding is that it was that, but not "only" that. She was criticized for the illogicality of not banning out-of-state travel to residences in state, yes, but also because she was putting a damper on a cherished way of life for a lot of Michiganders. This article from Business Insider gibes with what I recall reading at the time.
PeterNSteinmetz
Ejection Handle Pulled
Thanks for noting that. Appears there is a disconnect between the abstract on the preprint site (which I used for posting here) and the abstract in the pdf and numbers that one downloads. Most likely the latter are more correct than the abstract on the preprint site.
To figure this out, it will likely be necessary to download their data (which is available and analyze it separately). I can't do that right now since I am working on the statistical analysis of the effects of coercive interventions, but will check again later for an update on the preprint. (Of course, perhaps some of the other posters like to get the data and figure out which is correct.)
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So... perhaps you can better explain Whitners "illogicality" of blocking a "Michigander's" right to fish, camp or visit their camp in their own state in order to prevent the spread of SARS2 within their own state, while allowing any potentially SARS2 infected non-Michigander from NYC, Jersey, or where ever to freely enter Michigan and fish, camp, or visit their in state camp? May be I'm missing something here?
denverpilot
Tied Down
Threat to public safety was over with when hospitals didn’t overload. I’m fine with initial overreach but not fine with not following the actual numbers vs the models a month or more in.
Death threat never changes. Virus kills who it kills throughout. Distancing and closures were to stop exponential growth. It did. Now run the throttle.
But the azz hats went right back into destructive partisan idiocy. They should all be fired for it. It’s all they know and they’re not leaders. They’re celebrity donation gatherers most of the time with zero operational skill set.
Held accountable? Good luck with that. You and I are paying for the lawsuits, not them. For years.
The flipping dog catcher knows more about emergency crisis management than the average Mayor McCheese and his ribbon cutting ceremonies.
YOU know more about your risk factors now as a whole than they do. It ain’t much, but they’re clueless about what you need.
I need to stay home. I’m fine with that. If someone else needs to get out, and we have quarantine and closure of hot spots, and keep hospitals ok, I’m also fine with that.
Mayor McCheese can eff right off.
Our governor put out a “reminder” to stay within 10 miles of home in a mostly rural state for “recreational activities”. His dumb butt as a city boy didn’t even realize it’s been 13 just to get to a grocery store for us since it started and our “essential” is driving her usual 45 or so round trip daily since the start. He’s flipping clueless.
But at least he made it a “reminder” unlike some of those with their newfound control powers honed to a fine leadership edge waving from the parade float.
Wrong people to make those decisions. And in normal times we all know it, because nobody even knows what Mayor McCheese is up to, holding “public” meetings during business hours when we are all at work ignoring his dumb butt.
My rural perennially broke county HIRED a *PR* person during this thing. She’s joining stuff like Nextdoor announcing how awesome it’ll be to have extra nice sanitized and approved information going out and how wonderful she is. Zzzzzz. I suspect it’s a six figure salary with a full pension. I’ll have to look when they publish next year’s budget that’s always in the red.
Yay. One less real service and one mega-politically-correct bureaucrat to pay for for life, literally. If she makes it long enough to qualify for that pension. She’ll probably get laid off within two years is my prediction. Not enough value out here. Soon all she will have to report on are the usual county scandals about massive unpaid loans the Commissioners all approve for fancy cop cars and such. Which won’t be the sort of press releases her political bosses want. She won’t be “affordable”.
But she’s a darling in her own mind right now. And all the Commissioners and such can hide behind her. Added a stone to their stonewall.
azure
Final Approach
I don't know. If you don't think it's illogical, then maybe you can explain it? (since you put scare quotes around "illogicality") Or if you do think it's illogical, what gives you the impression that I think otherwise? I did say it was illogical, and for exactly the reason you seem to be alluding to. I seem to remember an occasion about a month ago when I said we were in violent agreement, and this seems to be another example, unless I'm totally misreading you.So... perhaps you can better explain Whitners "illogicality" of blocking a "Michigander's" right to fish, camp or visit their camp in their own state in order to prevent the spread of SARS2 within their own state, while allowing any potentially SARS2 infected non-Michigander from NYC, Jersey, or where ever to freely enter Michigan and fish, camp, or visit their in state camp? May be I'm missing something here?
Either you just like to argue, or we seem to be incapable of communicating with each other and maybe shouldn't even try.
azure
Final Approach
Nate, I agree that there's a huge amount of partisan idiocy going on right now. I'm not following what's going on specifically in Colorado, I used to live in Michigan and still have friends there so I'm sort of following the situation there. Most of the partisan crap that I see is in Washington, politicians trying to score points over slamming the other side's handling of the pandemic. They should (most of them) be voted out on their azzes. But they're not the ones giving the orders. I still say that, for the most part, I don't fault the governors (except for the egregious cases of inconsistency and overreach like Whitmer's in some respects), and in particular I don't blame the cautious ones for wanting to open things up slowly. The argument that we locked down to prevent the case counts from growing exponentially to the point the hospitals got snowed under, it didn't happen, so yay, we're in the clear, let's lift all the restrictions... that argument fails if the reason it didn't happen is BECAUSE of the lockdown. The virus is still out there and we're still not at the point where we can test everyone we need to and trace all their contacts. If we had those resources in place and a governor was still afraid to lift their lockdown, then I would agree, something else is going on. As it is, no.
I'm getting a little impatient with our Phil Scott because I think he is taking baby steps to extremes in opening up Vermont, given that our epidemic is mostly confined to the Burlington area and people are behaving sensibly in public - again, for the most part. But I sure wouldn't support protests like the kind that have happened in Lansing - and fortunately, the resistance here has been civilized so far. He's walking a fine line and again... I'm glad I'm not in his shoes. Yes he could probably safely move a little faster. But until we have the ability to test and contact trace on a massive scale, I agree that he shouldn't just open things up.
I'm getting a little impatient with our Phil Scott because I think he is taking baby steps to extremes in opening up Vermont, given that our epidemic is mostly confined to the Burlington area and people are behaving sensibly in public - again, for the most part. But I sure wouldn't support protests like the kind that have happened in Lansing - and fortunately, the resistance here has been civilized so far. He's walking a fine line and again... I'm glad I'm not in his shoes. Yes he could probably safely move a little faster. But until we have the ability to test and contact trace on a massive scale, I agree that he shouldn't just open things up.
Mason
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I find this term to be pejorative and insulting in this context.
You agreed with her in Post 419 (below.) Then you shifted to she was illogical in Post 428, which I inquired at the end of Post 430 if I was missing something.
Really? This is the 2nd thread where you needed to clarify your choice of words, as in Post 423, which you blame on Michigan vernacular. What I find curious is that having grown up in Northern Ohio and spent quite a bit of my youth around Lansing, Saginaw, and points south of Cadillac, I've never encountered those terms except "Michigander" in print only. Hence I quoted your 2 words in the spirit of proper grammar as you used quotes in Post 423. Nothing more.
What I find interesting is you are the only person on PoA that needs to clarify their words to me and is sensitive to my opinion and grammar. So perhaps you should just put me on your ignore list and save you the trouble of reading my posts.
azure
Final Approach
I said that it was illogical for her to NOT ban people from out of state potentially bringing the virus into rural areas in her state. I also said that while she was criticized for being inconsistent on that, she wasn't ONLY criticized for that, but also for the travel restriction because it inconvenienced residents, and I linked to a Business Insider article to support my statement. I didn't "shift" my position at all. I agree with her that there is reason to at least strongly discourage, if not outright ban, people living in hot spots from traveling to less hard hit areas of the state. At the least though, if she is going to do that, she should encourage or require (or local communities should require, as Rich indicated happens in upstate NY) incoming out-of-staters to self-quarantine if traveling to hitherto untouched parts of the state.
I can't help you there. "Michigander" is a commonly used term among Michiganders. And I didn't just live in the state for a while or spend time there, I grew up in the Detroit area and lived all of my life there until 6 years ago. I have no idea if "outstate" to mean away from the city is in common usage even as a regionalism, but it was in my family and in my circle of friends. I'm sure we all have some idiomatic phrases in our vocabulary that mean something else to most of the rest of the population. English is a funny language that way. No reason to make a federal case over it.
What I find interesting is you are the only person on PoA that needs to clarify their words to me and is sensitive to my opinion and grammar. So perhaps you should just put me on your ignore list and save you the trouble of reading my posts.
Funny, I was going to suggest the same thing. You're the only person on PoA who has more than once interpreted me to be saying the exact opposite of what I was saying. I really think you just like to argue, and this response pretty much confirms that for me.
Ha. That's not what you said before.... so it's not just me. From a previous thread:
azure said:
So why did you reply then? To argue your point some more??
I gave you the out in my last post. But yes, I like to debate and engage in civil discourse. And have for many years both formally and informally.
azure
Final Approach
Yeah okay, it happened once before. Good catch. But that was a very unusual case, and the subject was one on which a lot of people had strong opinions. (And I did say more than once.
)And sure, maybe this is similarly controversial. But you seem intent on challenging me and trying to find inconsistencies in my positions when it seems not at all difficult to reconcile different aspects of a nuanced position. Why would you think I shifted my position just because I said I agreed with her policy on people from urban areas traveling to "outstate" areas (quotes because it may be an unusual idiom), but called her NOT taking a similar position on people from other states illogical? Especially since you (apparently) agreed that it WAS illogical? Does calling her out on one aspect of policy necessarily mean that I have to think the rest of the policy is ridiculous?
Okay by me, so do I. What I don't take kindly to is people trying to ascribe a position to me that is not mine, based on something else that I said that, in THEIR opinion, implies something different. Why not ask for clarification instead of throwing out loaded questions that presume an interpretation that might be totally off the mark? Your tactics remind me of what attorneys try to do to hostile witnesses on the stand, and they certainly don't facilitate civil discourse.
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azure
Final Approach
And here's an aspect of Vermont's response to the pandemic that makes no sense to me: The Green Mountain Club has closed all of the trails that they maintain "until further notice". It's not an edict from the governor, they just won't be doing any trail maintenance and want everyone to stay off the trails to avoid spreading the virus. I can see not wanting to work on the outhouses and not staffing shelters - and it would probably be stupid to overnight in a crowded shelter anyway - but they are very unlikely to spread the virus by working, with reasonable protection, to maintain trails, reroute eroded stretches, repair puncheon on stream crossings, etc. And hikers, at least day hikers, are VERY unlikely to spread the virus in the outdoors anyway - it is normally quite windy on most stretches of the Long Trail and other ridgeline trails and you are extremely unlikely to breathe in coughed or sneezed droplets or ingest any significant viral load from a passing hiker's breath.
It makes perfect sense to close the trails during Mud Season - they do that every year - but this policy sounds a little like being so afraid of the virus that you stop living. And to me that is going too far.
It makes perfect sense to close the trails during Mud Season - they do that every year - but this policy sounds a little like being so afraid of the virus that you stop living. And to me that is going too far.