Still? No Masks?

We all know by now  that masks are the one thing most helpful in preventing caronavirus exposure when out in public. 

Everybody living in Maricopa County, AZ, should also know that there is a county-wide ordinance requiring masks in public, even if our Governor won't make it state wide.

Fry's Grocery, as well as many other stores, has a large sign as you enter letting you know that masks are required except for babies, and the PA system regularly repeats this.

So who's the first person I see when I enter the store last night? You got it. Another jerk with no mask. I asked him where his mask was. Rather loudly, of course, just to be sure I could be clearly heard through my own mask.

He took two seconds to raise his eyes from his smartphone and answered, "In the car."

Like that helps. I'm sure his car is perfectly healthy. And I - of course - expressed the fact that that location was perfectly useless. He didn't care. Of course not. If he had, the mask would already been over his face.

I complained to the first employee I saw after that. He insisted they had no authority to send people back out until they returned wearing a mask. Baloney! It's a private business. And a legal ordinance.  You'd send people back out if they walked in with lit fireworks, right? Or vomiting all over the floor, right? Or sans shirt an shoes, right, 'cause, you know, open produce and health laws and all that. No, all you care about is the few dollars in profit his visit might bring, just in case he didn't want to return after getting his mask out of the car.

I told the employee that I think I'll be doing a lot more shopping at WalMart in the future. Around here, at least, they only have one entrance open (thank goodness my knees are fixed!) and one to three employees checking for  masks.

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Trump is campaigning back to 2016 style, large rallies in big cities. (Well, he's still lying, and asking other countries for help too, but this one's about masks.) His last one was held inside, and while a few photo ops showed masks, unofficial private shots showed the opposite, along, of course, with shouting, chanting trumpanzees. Let's get them droplets airborne, folks!

When a reporter asked one fan why he wasn't wearing a mask, he self-importantly announced that he wasn't afraid to die.

I have a response to you too, Mr. Not Afraid To Die:  I don't give a flying crap whether you die either. Go right ahead. It's what you're asking for. I just care how many other people you spread it to while you're busy self-righteously not caring. I care about whether they will die. And what your kids share in school. And what their classmates take home. And how many of all those people will die, or be saddled with extreme medical bills. And how many healthcare workers....

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Remember back when I mentioned there's something hinky about our case numbers, that those in our zipcode have been bouncing rather than progressing? Well, it's still happening. It's a total of nine cases dropped now. Just in this zip code. Just in the numbers dropping down. Who can tell if numbers are simply not added in the first place? I can't believe this is happening only in this one zipcode, that somehow somebody singled out Sun City for whatever is going on. I just happen to be tracking and recording the daily changes in ours. 

I bet whoever is doing whatever also isn't counting on somebody being this anal about keeping track. Ya think?

I also notice that our statistics have been dropping at quite a nice rate in this state for new cases. I also note that Johns Hopkins has different - higher - numbers than the state puts out, in terms of our percentages of cases versus testing, the number need to justify reopening businesses and schools. Our CBS station gives both sets. Worldometer gives even higher ones, and experts say that with the lack of testing the numbers of cases are still way higher in actual fact.

It's hard to know who/what to believe, though I have less trust in those with a political agenda behind their numbers. What I do trust is the idea that wearing a mask and social distancing are still necessary!