Today is the rally in Tulsa, OK that was originally supposed to be yesterday and make June 19th a famous day.... :rolleyes so hard they fell out my head:
It's an indoor rally, and they expected about 100k people (many more than the venue can hold), many traveling from other states, and camping outside since Monday to get in. Mask are not mandatory. They are supposedly doing temp scans and handing out mask to those that want them, but hearing the quotes from some of these idots just lets me know that OK is about to be a source of spread if not a new epicenter itself.
“I don’t fear anything. If today is the day I die, today is the day I die," said Riniker, 62, who drove to Tulsa from his home in Arkansas earlier this week to attend what he said was his first political rally since Ronald Reagan was running for office. "I'm not paranoid, I'm not afraid."
“I think [the coronavirus] has been hyped up more than it is.There’s flu, there’s cancer, there’s COVID-19,” said Mary Legan of Claremore, Oklahoma, adding that she brought a fanny pack full of hand sanitizer and masks for her and her husband, Ken. Neither were sure if they would wear masks the whole time while inside the arena, commenting on how uncomfortable they can be, especially when it is hot out.
“When you’re in your 70s you can't go hide in your basement, you don't have that many more years,” Legan said. “If Trump felt comfortable having it here, then I’m comfortable.
“I’m a nurse. I’ve worked E.R. for 15 years, and if we want to come to a rally it's our decision," said Sheri Todd from Park Hill, Oklahoma. "I’ve had friends who had it, they were sick for a couple of weeks. But it's still our choice.”
"As far as I know, I’m still an American," said Tom Todd, Sheri's husband, and a retired welder.
"This is a free country and I can do what I want. If I want to wear a mask, I wear a mask. If I don’t, I don't. If I get sick, I get sick. That's my choice," Tom continued, adding that he thought the number of coronavirus deaths was being "padded."
“I’m not going to live my life in fear. I want to get back to the normal — not a ‘new normal,’ but the old normal," said Jill, who lives in Orange County, California.
But as that TX Gov had said "There are more important things in life than living...."
(he made this statement in regards to restarting the economy during "lockdown" btw)
my thoughts and prayers go out to all those that have to come into contact with these people after the rally. All the locals minding their business, other travelers they pass on the journey home. Family members and co-workers they return to when they get back to their life.....
When even a Nurse takes complete disregard for her own health & safety, knowing good and well, that when she returns home, she is expected to go to work and be responsible for the health and safety of other.... especially after seeing how this affects people first hand, you realize there's no hope for society as a whole.
I can literally go off on a tangent about how this whole pandemic has been mishandled from the top down, and the people in charge at every level keep passing the buck down to the next man. Like everyone is afraid to make important decisions that could save lives.
How hard is it just make face mask and social distancing a national mandatory thing in close public spaces and indoor areas? This only works if we all do it, other wise efforts to stop the spread are futile when non-compliant places have people that travel to compliant places after they've already suppressed the virus and started re-opening. It's a cycle of stupid that starts at the top.
California was doing pretty good, until Elon Musk threatened to take Tesla to TX or something, and Alameda Co opened early.
Orange Co was always gonna be issue due to the amount of "Karens" that just natural habitat the area.
And now we are on the rise because of certain area's not following the plan, free travel, and things opening up a little too soon, just because the weather is nice and social distancing is an inconvenience.
The ironic thing is that, because we've all been doing what we need to do, we haven't seen many people we personally know get sick, and because of that, most of us "unaffected" start to think that there really wasn't as much threat as we thought, and start to over-relax on the very things that was keeping us at low risk to begin with.
If we fast track to Herd Immunity, we are gonna lose a lot more people than we already have int he next 4-5 months, as the hospitals will not be able to handle the amount of ICU patients that need care. And if our nurses are deliberately putting themselves at risk to prove political points to themselves.... then we are truly screwed in the short and long term.