fujiwara79

having a policy and enforcing a policy are two different things. i've never seen anyone enforce a mask mandate, whether it be a state employee or a store employee. doesn't matter. as long as big businesses continue to have those policies on the books, a majority of people will wear masks. their mask policies are a business decision anyway. they saw that fewer people were coming into their stores because they didn't want to be with the anti-maskers, so they enacted these policies last spring and summer.

you do realize that virtually all the big box retailers, restaurant chains, airlines, etc. have their own mask policy that has nothing to do with state mandates? wal-mart and costco required masks for shoppers way before most states mandated it. even as states remove those mandates, most large businesses will continue requiring them for the remainder of 2021 and perhaps well into 2022.

it's definitely much easier to find a vaccine now. a couple of months ago, landing an appointment was like striking oil; not anymore.

yes, i think you should be. and if you are, then you are logically consistent and i have no qualms.

go read the ingredients for most of the preservative-laden or chemical-laden food items in the grocery store. or any type of fast food. you're ingesting "unknown substances" every day. lots of cognitive dissonance with this particular argument.

I hope you don't eat fast food or any of the preservative-laden foods from the grocery store. that stuff changes your body chemistry far more than a vaccine will.

Mobility data has shown that people have been moving around at nearly pre-pandemic levels. People being afraid to leave their house is so April 2020. Get with the times.

sorry, but no. i've had trouble getting reservations for my preferred times to restaurants before covid. happens all the time. waiting an hour to get seated at oilve garden was commonplace on a saturday night but now you can walk right in. keep raging, bro. okay, boomer. you've got quite the social lifestyle given your 26k posts.

the only 'restrictions' right now are international travel and mosh pits at concerts. but the perpetually aggrieved and outraged will continue to complain about "lockdowns" ten years from now. at this point it's part of their mental programming and now reflective of reality.

how many times recently have you been refused entry at a restaurant because of capacity limits? keep feigning that faux outrage.

It's because, when they look at their calendars, they still think it's April 2020 instead of April 2021. they likely haven't left their house in a year and thus haven't realized things are open.

i think the pandemic exacerbated it, but drug overdoses have been going up for 20 years. they've quadrupled since 1999. suicides have likewise been increasing since 2000. the pandemic is not a root cause of these things, but rather an exacerbating factor. the same people who bring up mental health now, didn't bring them up before the pandemic. it's an argument of convenience for them.

suicides and drug abuse were going up for years before the pandemic. extreme wealth inequality and social media are the leading causes.

just wait until the cruise lines require vaccinations. the anti-vaxxers are going to be in quite a conundrum. they love those cheap $500 all-you-can-eat carribean cruises.

doesn't covid itself cause blood clots in a significant number of people?

if you include fox news, new york post, oann and newsmax as part of the 'msm', i would totally agree. it's not just cnn and msnbc, dude. turn it all off.

true. you also have the choice to drive or shop online if following rules aren't your thing. choice has many dimensions.

stay mad, bro

about turning off cable news? yes, turn them off. you are outraged because they want you to be outraged.

you really have to turn off cable news and get away from the outrage machine. mistrust is perpetuated by those outlets and you are part of the ecosystem by watching it. turn it off.

yes, you can get covid after getting vaccinated. so if 100 million have been vaccinated and its 95% effective, we should expect 5 million of those people to still get covid. i think the idea is that the vaccines keep things manageable. variants are going to be problematic for a few years, because parts of the world probably won't get fully vaccinated until later in 2022, and who knows what new variants will come from places with uncontrolled spread.

that already happened in georgia and arizona. it's going to happen to nc shortly. and it'll probably happen to texas in ten years. people's political leanings these days are correlated to their age (generation) and education levels.

it's mostly because real estate is cheaper down there, not because they're "cool places with nice weather". i know many people who moved to atlanta, dallas and charlotte after living in the northeast cities or chicago. the only reason was to buy a single family house without spending two million dollars. otherwise they find the vibe down there pretty boring in comparison.

yes, I am. but I would argue that a flexible work environment and being able to WFH is what enables me to be a high performer. the office is a terrible place for getting actual work done, man. my guess is you're an older gen-Xer or a boomer. they perceive people who WFH as anti-social or lazy. i'm fully aware that, in a hybrid environment, people are going to discriminate in favor of people who they see in the office more. that's not going to change until these older generations retire from management. thats why i encourage people to periodically go into the office, because they have to manage perceptions and optics. they have to manage their manager, basically.

I think lifting weights and stuff like that hasn't shown much spread. i've heard exercise classes have been the source of numerous outbreaks though. which kind of makes sense. 10 people in the same room with poor ventilation, huffing and puffing while doing zumba, doesn't sound ideal.