Impressive! Many people, all ages, were wearing masks in BP

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 2:26 am

unexpected wrote:

I'm sorry for defending my community if it bothers you. No one (as far as I know, because you haven't used your name or neighborhood) is screaming that your community is out there making a chillul Hashem and killing other people- in that order. I know we are not perfect, but the majority of us are not free loaders who think we should send our covid-infected family members out to spread germs and then panic because we may chas veshalom have to have them home for a day.

That's what it sounds like when you read what the militant anti-protection-warriors write here on this site... and there is not just one of them... there seems to be one camp of medical professionals and some users, and another camp of anti-public-health militants, which also includes the anti-vaxx faction, but is much bigger than only the anti-vaxxers....

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 3:01 am

[quote="amother [ Orange ]"]But you were killing people by not wearing masks (at least potentially killing them as your rates of infection went up dramatically). And it was a huge chillul Hashem when your neighborhoods were having markedly higher rates of infection. And your community only started to act appropriately by wearing masks once you were threatened with having them stay home from school.

My shul/community overall wears masks indoors and outdoors (when around others). At tashlich there was 1 person not wearing a mask. I left because of that. The community also basically banned people from coming to the shul from out of town (and their local hosts too) unless they have a recent, local, negative covid test. Because of communities like yours. While our city-wide rate is still high (but decreasing) our local (frum community) rates are quite low. It is so nice to see our tehilim lists getting back to the pre-Covid length.

(Yes, I wear a mask when I leave the house. I don't have guests over. We don't do play dates. My kids are in school with symptom checks, masks, plexi glass dividers, "pods", no eating in the lunchroom and yard time is separated/staggered. Yes I believe COVID is serious. And no I won't vote for Biden. Ever. In case people were feeling it is a political viewpoint of some, it isn't for me. Just wear the dumb mask....)[/quote]
I have no idea what you are talking about. The uptick is very recent - like 1 or 2 weeks max. My husband is on Chevra kadisha and he has not been notified of even 1 covid death in recent weeks. When we had our high rates of infection there was no testing available, no information available, widespread panic and BP was like a ghost town. The virus trended upwards until right after Pesach and then began a swift decline until we were at almost no cases shavuos time. At that time, masks were not mandated outside and the stay at home order was lifted. There is absolutely no basis to say that as a community we were "killing people."
If you are talking about the threatened school closings that were announced right before Shabbos - it is a joke. Schools are closing this week anyway. Shul closings is what got compliance, together with Rabbonim of specific kehillos urging safety compliance because of fears that covid may become a problem again. Which makes perfect sense and is eminently reasonable.

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 3:19 am

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

I think that people were much more anti mask when they saw no evidence of covid returning and felt, not unreasonably, that the mask mandate was politically motivated. Especially because the medical community seems to be pretty evenly divided about the science. Now that people are testing positive it may be different. It is still a leap to malign an entire community to this extent.

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 4:11 am

unexpected wrote:

But the members of those communities are maligning themselves, both by their acts (no public health precautions, illegal camps, illegal schools, illegal gatherings, no SD, no masks) and by their words...

Just read what people were saying her on this forum, how they felt persecuted by public health measures that were designed to keep them safe, how they thought they knew better than everyone else, specially the scientists from CDC, how they accused whoever did not think like them of stupidity, dillusion, corruption...

Even your comment shows that you have not really understood the true nature of the disease, if, even with hindsight, now that there is a new outbreak, you still think it was a good idea not to follow public health precautions mandated by the State. Why do you think the disease is back very visibly now? Because it was endemic all through the period where so many people claimed, very unreasonably, that it was gone.

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 4:20 am

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

But the members of those communities are maligning themselves, both by their acts (no public health precautions, illegal camps, illegal schools, illegal gatherings, no SD, no masks) and by their words...

Just read what people were saying her on this forum, how they felt persecuted by public health measures that were designed to keep them safe, how they thought they knew better than everyone else, specially the scientists from CDC, how they accused whoever did not think like them of stupidity, dilusion, corruption...

Even your comment shows that you have not really yunderstood the true nature of the disease, if, even with hindsight, now that there is a new outbreak, you still think it was a good idea not to follow public health precuations mandated by the state. Why do you think the disease is back very visibly now? Because it was endemic all through the period where so many people claimed, very unreasonably, that it was gone.

I really think nobody understands the true nature of the disease and it is/was valid to believe that a lot of the policies created were politically motivated. And I did not say that I thought it was a good idea. I just said it was reasonable. The virus is definitely spreading again, but spreading very lightly and still you see many kehilos are taking precautions again - even though a significant part of the medical community still maintains that you can't get it again. This is not hindsight. It is current events. I can't see how it is okay to accuse an entire city of being killers and making a chilul Hashem based on the above.

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 4:43 am

unexpected wrote:

I definitely don't think it is or was "valid" to believe that public health precautions like banning gatherings (like weddings), closing schools or overnight camps, mandating masks indoors or on public transport are "politically motivated"... That's a myth spread by malevolent people who want to virus to wreak maximum havoc... and they succeeded quite well in the US of A....

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 4:54 am

And I posit that even though all these things were done and only now we are seeing a slight resurgence, proves that there was some validity to the claim. And all the people sitting so smugly and saying "I told you so" really haven't told you anything at all. Please explain to me why it is unreasonable to say "let us resume life and in the event that covid returns we will once again take strict precautions"? (especially when half the country agrees with this...)

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:06 am

unexpected wrote:

And I posit that even though all these things were done and only now we are seeing a slight resurgence, proves that it takes there was some validity to the claim. And all the people sitting so smugly and saying "I told you so" really haven't told you anything at all. Please explain to me why it is unreasonable to say "let us resume life and in the event that covid returns we will once again take strict precautions"? (especially when half the country agrees with this...)

Because this is the nature of exponential growth: it goes undetected for some time, and then it explodes in your face...

...because it takes as long to go from 1 to 1000 as it takes to go from 1000 to 1'000'000.

That's something we knew from the beginning, and it has not changed since. Anyone who does not get alarmed when he has 10 cases & exponential growth is a fool.

Everyone could know this around Purim, at latest... And those who have dyscalculia could just have believed those who don't have this handicap.

But the problem was not dyscalculia, the problem was deliberate, malevolent ignoring of reality and malevolent propaganda and disinformation to help the virus spread and maximize fatalities...

Actually, those who wanted to maximize fatalities did a good job in the USA...

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:14 am

But we haven't yet seen exponential growth in any of the places that had mass exposure so you have no way of knowing if we will again. (and you can't say Israel, because Israel declared the battle over before they had anywhere near the amount of exposure that NY had)
I am not saying that your view is unreasonable. I think it is perfectly reasonable to be afraid of a resurgence, and to insist that everyone take strong precautions. However, I also think it is reasonable to follow the other viewpoint, that unless there is a strong resurgence, major precautions are unnecessary. I don't understand how you are so sure that there is malevolence behind the Jewish people in BP not taking precautions during a time when it really seemed like the virus was gone (and in fact there was no uptick during the whole time period of illegal daycares, camps, gatherings etc. and only now is a very slight uptick and people are once again wearing masks) Where is your obligation to judge Jewish people favorably?

youngishbear

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:20 am

unexpected wrote:

First,the virus never actually went away, and better adherence to safety protocols would have allowed us to continue having life as close to usual as possible.

Keep in mind that travel over the summer was a big factor in bringing the virus back into circulation, and the superspreader big simchos resumed on a large scale towards the end of the summer - at least in my community. The cases started creeping up slowly, but it took a while for it to get serious. And it could take another while for it to get out of control chv. Which is why experts warn that we need protective measures before the numbers are bad enough for every Tom d!ck and Harry to get nervous.

Also, the militant anti-protection people never agreed to the bolded, nor are they admitting that the time to restart protective measures is NOW, before numbers spiral out of control. (In NYC)

"The virus is weaker now, masks are actually dangerous, antisemitism, protests, politics" bla bla bla

Just read the threads to see that the excuses are still going strong.

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:21 am

unexpected wrote:

It's not about jewish people. There is no unity of doctrine about this among "jewish people".

It's about people who, for their own comfort, out of egoism, or out of pure malevolence, spread myths about the virus ("it has long gone") that will help the virus spread.

In my view, those people, whether jewish or not, are guilty of shefichat damim.

As far as I know, there is no reason to judge shefichat damim favorably. But I might be mistaken... please enlighten me by showing relevant mekorot...

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:28 am

I think all the major kehillos in Brooklyn (except for 1 that I know of) and schools are strongly encouraging even mandating precautions. Whether this is from actual concern about Covid or from fear of closures I cannot say. There will always be militants, but by and large they are not the majority. And, there are still plenty of medical experts claiming that people who have antibodies can't get it again and can't spread it.

unexpected

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:32 am

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

Or people who have been advised by their own rabbonim and medical community that these precautions are unnecessary. It is not as black and white as you are making it sound. Maybe, through repeated condemnation of a specific community, a person could be the one responsible for the shefichat damim?

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:40 am

unexpected wrote:

Of course, those who give out lethal advice are more guilty than those who follow them out of ignorance.

Although, I have to say that some people are so smug and arrogant in their ignorance, that they cannot plead the excuse of ignorance...

amother

Purple

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 5:50 am

unexpected wrote:

ok, purple I give up. A person hears what they want to hear

To be very clear: I think that whoever successfully incites people to recklessness, incites the population to disregard public health precautions, is guilty, no matter what their role or authority is, be it public officials, politicians, journalists, youtubers, doctors, parents, school principals, camp organisers, wedding hosts, teachers, or rabbonim...

imasoftov

Tue, Sep 29 2020, 11:51 am

amother [ Mustard ] wrote:

did anyone think about Israel's second wave when they were so on top of wearing masks the first time around... you'd think they would have been under control by now...

They weren't that on top of it. From the start of the requirement to wear masks here in Israel I saw people not wearing masks at all, people wearing them around their chins (some would pull the mask up if someone came near, some wouldn't) and people wearing them on their wrist like a bracelet. I was going to count people with masks vs without but only got up to a single digit of each until I started to see the gray areas and gave up.

I've also seen people wearing masks around their chins in places that sell food. Between lockdowns, when restaurants were open, there were a few places I used to buy food at that I walked out of when I saw that (or saw it through the window and didn't go in).

I haven't been taking as many buses or taxis as before, but when I have, I don't remember seeing a bus or taxi driver not wearing a mask properly. I have seen bus passengers (even one ticket inspector) without masks, or wearing them improperly.

What I haven't seen here is videos of people making a scene about wearing masks at stores (or having their temperature taken, which not all stores do, one supermarket was doing it around Pesach but stopped sometime during the summer, I haven't been back since the lockdown so maybe they've resumed) but maybe I just haven't run into any. I have seen anti-mask posts and videos in Hebrew but none of them were recorded in stores.

Of course mask-wearing isn't the only thing people were supposed to be doing between lockdown. They were supposed to avoid overfilling buses, and while I didn't see packed buses like before I don't think that was due to enforcement so much as less people going out. It wasn't always possible to find a space two meters away from someone else however. Not everyone in stores stands two meters apart, either.

All of these observations are from mixed areas, I live in one and I haven't had a reason to visit a haredi area this year. Before, I would sometimes wander into one just for a walk but now after I finish whatever errand I'm on I head back home by the shortest route.

Last edited by imasoftov on Tue, Sep 29 2020, 1:57 pm; edited 2 times in total