This morning our church is going to be having services with Pastor James on the front porch preaching, and the congregation sitting parked in their cars listening and watching. I'm not so sure how that's going to work out, but hey, He is my pastor. Gotta give him the benefit of the doubt, don't I?
I suspect many churches are in a position of not knowing how something will work out, but better to try and fail than not try at all. My church did its first ever live stream today. We had technical issues, but we got there in the end.
A great Idea in fact, rather than impersonalness of con-calls and recorded sermons, people get to visit and hear in person.
My church has been going online through their own website, but a service from our cars would be really good I think
Yeah, A non-personal online thing is no match for in person experience. Even if we are at a safe distance, people around you re-assuring thing.
We stopped by to see a couple of older friends. They are being particularly cautious about this virus because of their age and they both have some health issues. So they left a side door open for us, greeted us from the front porch and we went through the garage while they went through the house so we could sit on their back porch with them about 15 feet away from us. It was really good to see them, and good that we could see them while respecting their preferences for minimal contact because of the virus. I suspect if the people who are most concerned about the virus were to stay away from church the rest of us could have a regular service while maintaining a physical distance. For myself I don't know that I'd want to just sit in the car listening to a service on the radio - I don't like sitting in the car with the engine idling for that long, if I turn the engine off it gets warm and stuffy and if I open the windows it rather defeats the point of the distancing thing.
The distancing thing has run its course, I believe. I'll take life in its entirety. People need to be touched, and hugged, and this "quarantine of the healthy for the protection of the potentially ill" is jabberwocky. That's not how quarantines work. Sick people are quarantined. Those that think they are at increased risks take extra precaution and should be respected. Everyone else get back to living. The inmates are running the asylum
I can't help thinking the whole thing is way overblown. When protests involve lots of people in close proximity with no masks, sufficiently so that governors describe them as reckless and irresponsible, I'd have thought at least one state would have a sudden surge of cases within the next 5-14 days. Maybe I just missed the news where a governor pointed to the surge in cases following a protest as support for cracking down on protests, or even as proof of why the lockdowns were required. But from what I've seen - nothing. My church has a lot of older folks so I'd expect at least some of them to stay away when we first open, as a precaution. If I get the virus the chances are almost 100% it will be little more than an annoyance, if that. The older folks with health issues are the ones who would need to take extra precautions. As it happens only yesterday we went to check on a couple of older friends. Their house is laid out such that we could go in through a side gate, round to the back of the house and sit on their back porch. We got to see them but didn't need to get any closer than 10 feet or so.
"In order to control any social group, one only needs to determine the group's collective greatest fear, then exploit that fear while promising to be the sole arbiter of protection from the promulgated harm." "Fear is nothing more than paralysis resulting from current irrational anticipation of future potential loss."
Sure, I agree that the vast majority of the actions, executive orders etc have been totally unnecessary and really struggle to see how we ended up in a place where one person can rule over millions based on nothing more than their subjective feelings about something. I can't help thinking that an order requiring face masks denies people the chance to indicate that we aren't afraid, by spinning the whole thing into being about protecting others rather than ourselves and thereby making those who don't wear masks selfish above all else. At the same time it does appear that the virus is potentially dangerous to those who are older or immune compromised, and of course those people have the right to take as many extra precautions as they consider appropriate. Fear isn't necessarily a paralysis resulting from irrational anticipation of future potential loss. Being afraid of a mountain lion that's standing right in front of you isn't based on an irrational anticipation, it's based on a very real chance of the thing eating you. On the other hand being afraid to get a haircut because you might get a virus is as irrational as refusing to drive to the salon for your haircut because you might get hit by a drunk driver.
Perhaps, but I think I'd still say I'm afraid of the mountain lion I just noticed on the path ahead. Especially if I didn't have my pistol with me.
But you can't simply apply these (speculative at best) motivations to all jurisdictions. Just because your governor see,ed to dither or apply apparently random restirictions, they were not based on his decision alone. All of the various jurisdictions were relying on various experts and trying different things. This whole scenario was really new and no one really knew what the virus was capable of, if it might mutate, whether people can develop resistance or not. Precaution seemed to be the best option given so many unknowns. BC acted quickly with the lockdown and seems to have served us well versus other provinces. It will take a lot of further research to even determine why it may not have been as big an issue out west as it was out east. There are just so many variables. I don't personally know anyone who was fearful of getting the virus, other than those who were in the high risk group (and they were justifiable so). The decision to not go to the hairdresser was a corporate social decision to accept the recommendations of the provincial health officer and stay home and ride this out. There has undoubtedly been many financial hardships experienced by many people, but overall people have dealt with it with grace and good humour.
Who is this quote of? The closest I got was Locke. And how exactly does this fit in with an actual pandemic? A real virus that has real consequences?
That's RabbiKnife, May 15, 2020 It's still risk analysis and management. And the risk to the majority of the populace is de minimis, but why tell the general populace when you can make them afraid instead.
Our fuhrer made it clear that he considers himself responsible for the health and safety of 13 million people. He clearly thinks he calls the shots, and for some reason he has managed to get to a point where he can decide who wins and loses, who gets to make a living and who does not, based on executive diktat with little to no basis in anything other than his subjective opinion. Unless there's some other reason why he allowed one county to open and required another to remain closed even though the latter had a sparser population (thereby automatically providing the distancing we're told is critical), fewer cases per capita and fewer deaths per capita than the former. It seems to me that different areas were simply making different guesses and doubling down every chance they got. Our fuhrer even went as far as to claim that people who wanted to provide for their family were "cowards" and "deserters". Because, you know, it's cowardly to try and pay the bills even when the fuhrer says you have to go without a paycheck for months. There are certainly many variables and many unknowns. Precaution is good up to a point but simpy telling millions of people they aren't allowed to earn a paycheck until further notice, patronising them with comments about shared sacrifices and how we're all in this together, and then retreating to the comfort of your governor's mansion isn't leadership. Our fuhrer expected people to go without a paycheck for months when his government apparently couldn't even go without a haircut for that time. Of course the little people don't get to have our hair cut but it's safe for the government. "Many financial hardships" include the total loss of some businesses and growing lines at food banks. It wasn't a "corporate social decision", it was a government diktat to close down and warnings that anyone who dared to try to provide for their family could lose their license to practise at all going forward. When I was helping with handing out meals to school-age children it was hard to see much "grace and good humor" among the people who had the crazy idea they might provide for their children only for the fuhrer to threaten them with the force of law if they even tried. It wasn't hard to tell the ones who were still working from the ones who had been forcibly shut down. Some people who are in high risk groups are understandably and rationally concerned. I personally know people in their 40s and younger whose attitude is that they are going to isolate themselves until a vaccine is available. They are free to isolate themeselves to whatever extent they choose but personally I think that's paranoia rather than rational risk assessment.