Wednesday Thoughts
Urging personal responsibility is not a COVID policy.
The fact of the matter is a lot of people—especially those going out to eat indoors in restaurants, going to bars, or throwing house parties—are not exactly a highly or even semi-informed segment of the populous.
There is also an idea among a lot of liberals that those not wearing masks/engaging in reckless behavior are ideological actors. Some certainly are, but I have to think the majority are simply apathetic and are unable to grasp the second order effects of their actions.
The Governor putting out a video or holding formal press conference where he urges mask wearing and social distancing is just not going to reach these folks. As I see it, two things would alter their behavior:
- Personally knowing people who die from COVID.
- Going out to eat but seeing the business closed for indoor dinning.
Obviously, option number one is an awful way to compel people to alter their behavior and we should instead prevent people from being able to engage in risky activities in the first place. There is just not a better informational signal to convey the dangers some activities pose.
With two vaccines now on the horizon (pending additional testing), we have to hunker down. There needs to be consistency and a statewide mask mandate is in order. Shutting down indoor dinning (which seems to be fairly high risk) is in order.
Ducey should also implement a statewide mask mandate, stringent restrictions on gatherings, and cities should actually take steps to enforce and penalize violators. He should also do this without waiting two weeks for Kyrsten Sinema to bully him on Twitter into doing it.
