Just read Oregon's
plan for opening up the state (PDF download from
https://govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-COVID-19 ) . I suppose something like this is the only alternative to mandatory masks, but I don't like it. There's too much historical precedent for bad things happening when such a detailed plan is unrolled, calls are made for hundreds of new workers to implement it, and this is stressed: "Isolation and quarantine are completely voluntary and non-punitive."
Don't think it will work, either. People in, say, South Korea go along with such things, but not here. I have begun wearing a mask, though it's not mandatory here, because that seems like a good way to transition back to normalcy. And most people weren't, when I went out for groceries this week, though they kept at a distance.
But for the first time in this crisis, I got scared after reading this of what would happen if I did develop symptoms. For the first time, I thought of not contacting medical people and getting treatment, hoping for the best at home.
Of course, I would immediately seek treatment because I'm sensible, responsible, and have 25 years of medical transcription behind me and know this is serious. Also I like the system and the people who work in it here and trust them not to abuse it.
In the short term. Over the long term, everybody ruins things -- it's human nature's darker side showing up. Most of history's nightmares began with honestly good intentions.
But now my post-1960s red-white-and-blue is ruffled and it will be a much tougher decision. I hope even more now that I don't get sick.
And I think they've just scared a whole bunch of people right out of the system.
Well, we'll see. Hopefully, there will be no steep rise of new cases in the states that are loosening up restrictions and everybody can relax some.
That's part of the genius behind our US system -- all sorts of different approaches can be tried by different states and eventually everyone benefits.