Today my region in New York entered Phase 2 of reopening, which means that non-mall retail is open (with masks) as well as hairdressers. Hairdressers need to wear a mask and a face shield, and customers must wear a mask. It’s like getting a haircut in an operating room—no thanks.
My daughter works in a customer service role in a place that could be open in Phase 2, but isn’t. She’s working remotely. A friend of hers is a hairdresser, on unemployment. Neither one of them are interested in going back to their place of business right now for a simple reason: the majority of the people who will show up will probably be COVID-iots. They will be the folks who don’t give a shit — they’re the kind who would come to your place of business even if they feel ill, and they will probably have to be coaxed to wear a mask.
There are a couple of retail outlets that I could visit, but I’m sure as shit not going there this weekend. I might go, cautiously, in a couple of weeks, as soon as I can judge whether COVID-iots are being slapped down and thrown out. If retail outlets are letting people without masks enter the premises, I’ll stick to my once-a-week grocery run, at most.
I’m sure there’s going to be an uptick in people shopping this weekend, and non-COVID-iots will be the majority. Still, it only takes one to start an outbreak, and I’m not going to risk that in order to get a new set of sheets at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I’m sure that I’m not the only one, and this is why empowering stupidity will make our inevitably anemic recovery even weaker than it was destined to be.
Cheryl Rofer
Dennis
You nailed the reason the economy won’t recover much this year, even in the best case scenario where a 2nd huge wave doesn’t come along (looks like one is already starting, though.)
So many potential interactions are going to be weighed and found wanting in enough value to justify even minimal risk. Every non-idiot over 60 is going to be cautious about even going out this year.
ThresherK
CT is going to let hair places open up on Monday, I think.
Not sure how soon I want to go. If I were able to be there first thing at opening, before all the sickos got in, that’d be one thing, but I have work. (Of course, everyone is saying last sentence for themselves too.)
cain
There will be a second wave and it will drown Trump – because he’s completely incapable of doing anything but find new fires to start. It will continue – a never ending dumpster fire until we get his ass out of the administration, burn everyone who was ever associated with him, and end clean house with a viciousness reserved for dog beaters.
Redshift
Yep. Our area is just going into Phase 1 today, so I made sure to go yesterday to help my mom with her errands instead of today. In addition to the governor’s order that masks are required in indoor spaces, the AG issued a ruling making it explicit that businesses can refuse entry to people without masks.
Which is all good, but I’m going to be avoiding COVIDiots for a good while, too.
JMG
There’s already a one-month wait for haircuts, just plain haircuts, at the Mass. salon I use. And the nice young woman who replaced my longtime stylist in December, who cut my hair better than anyone in my life, has left for parts unknown. I’ll wait. I like that people mistake for Bernie now.
dr. bloor
@Cheryl Rofer: Least surprising news ever. And that’s the one they identified. There were undoubtedly more.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@JMG: Under duress, my wife pulled out the dog clippers and gave me a haircut last weekend, so I’m good for quite a while. She wasn’t interested in me returning the favor, for some unknown reason.
zhena gogolia
The person who cuts my hair hasn’t been in touch lately. I think she’s probably not going to be one of the first who opens up. I hate my hair but I’m happy to continue living.
Redshift
@cain: Even if there isn’t a second wave, we’ve ended our minimal lockdown with a plateau in cases (except in the NYC area) rather than a decline to a low level, so there will continue to be a horrific number of hospitalizations and deaths ongoing until Trump is out and we have an actual government.
But if course there will be a second wave because they also demanded opening up without adequate testing or contact tracing because The Economy.
Man, I miss the days when I just disagreed with Republicans about how pro-business government should be. Now we have to deal with the insanity that They claim to be all about the economy, and it’s obvious they really really don’t understand it at all.
schrodingers_cat
In other news:
There seem to be protests erupting everywhere in DC and in Houston, Louisville, Atlanta. Orange is banning Chinese grad students (it is not clear who will be affected and who will not) from getting studying in the United States from Monday by an EO.
Ruckus
@Dennis:
The risk is too great to go out unnecessarily, even masked. And when I say unnecessarily I mean dying necessary. Haircut? BS I don’t need no stinking haircut. I’ve been to the doc twice since January, that’s my going out.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
We can’t wait forever to reopen. Don’t forget the horrors brought about by the spindle ban of 1603 to 1619.
Lapassionara
@zhena gogolia: my hair is the pits! Seriously, what a nightmare. But I have a detached interest now in seeing what happens when it does not get in professional hands. If I can put up with it for a while, I will find out what happens to it. An interesting experiment.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Is there anything he’s done that didn’t have to be done by EO other than a tax cut that fucked the nation, that the senate republicans were happy to sign?
Redshift
I was fortunate enough to already have a ponytail before all this, so I haven’t had to worry about when hair salons reopen (other than that I like the guy I go to about once a year and hope he’s doing okay.)
Krope, the Formerly Dope
This image involuntarily conjured in my head, did you do that deliberately? The people must know.
HumboldtBlue
@JMG: @dr. bloor: @download my app in the app store mistermix: @zhena gogolia:
I got my hair cut the day before Newsom announced hard lockdown in March so it’ll still be a few months before I get my white boy ‘fro back.
Jackie
Our eastern WA county is still actively staying in Stage 1. And, our local news reports we’re going backwards – blaming Mothers Day wknd. Sigh…
Keith P.
@cain: The nation already was on edge from 3 months of shutdown, and he’s been BS’ing his way through it trying to buy some time. Now there are nationwide protests because of a separate issue that he has already shown on his best day to be tone-deaf. How long before people start juxtaposing how Trump refers to these protestors vs the ones whoe showed up in the Michigan statehouse armed with rifles?
bluehill
My hair stylist getting a lot of pressure to start up again. They were already asking her even before lockdowns were being lifted. Now it’s just going to intensify. She doesn’t want to be one of the guinea pigs for our enhanced testing capabilities. Don’t blame her.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: I don’t think so.
zzyzx
What I need is a beard trim but since that can’t be done with a mask on, I finally gave up and decided to start doing it myself. I bet it’ll be relatively trivial. I’m just lazy.
raven
@Keith P.: Until the 12th of never. . .
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
Benw
@schrodingers_cat: my wife was at the protest in Brooklyn tonight that was completely peaceful until the cops rushed in and started pepper spraying and beating at random. She’s alright, but it was no joke a police riot
Dorothy A. Winsor
My stylist cuts my hair wet. How do I recline while she sprays water while I wear a mask?
MisterForkbeard
I’m in California, and our county is being spectacularly stupid. It’s about to bite us in the ass.
We’ve had a generally pretty good COVID experience due to an early lockdown and very careful city & country management. The County Health Officer has been cautious and it’s helped quite a bit. We were on plan to gradually re-open, but we had some outbreaks at wineries – this delayed the opening a week or so.
The county sheriff decided he didn’t like this and that we were totally doing great, so clearly all this caution wasn’t necessary. He declared he’s not going to enforce the county health officer’s orders any more.
This is a little less affected in the cities, but the unincorporated areas are going to re-open and have some issues very soon. In the meantime, tons of people in the county are saying they were going to vote against the Sheriff in the next election. It was then reported that the Sheriff had backed down, but now the Sheriff is denying the reversal.
Yay.
Brachiator
Earlier I had to go to the dentist to take care of an emergency involving a broken tooth. Coming home earlier this week from a follow-up visit, I felt sad for my wounded city. There were cars and a fair amount of traffic, a few workers here and there, but still many businesses shut down and very little foot traffic.
The vast majority of pedestrians I saw were wearing masks. But I was mentally comparing the ghost town I traveled through to the busy, bustling city I had moved through most of my life.
Most people here are taking the pandemic seriously, even as things are opening up. I can understand that people with sense are not hot to return to “normal.”
In one of the Los Angeles County or city briefings, a health official noted that people with underlying health conditions should try to stay home. I keep hearing this, and keep thinking that it begs the question. Do we really expect people at risk to just exile themselves from society? They have jobs that they might need to return to, families they need to support.
Is there more that we need to do to change society to accommodate people at risk as we search for a virus? And I note I have seen some comments from idiots who don’t care that herd immunity might not develop, but who think that we should just let the virus run through the country and pick off whoever might succumb, presumably leaving a nicely “purified” nation.
Also, one health official essentially threw mass transit under the bus, and suggested that people avoid it and drive, baby, drive.
Meanwhile, the Indian casinos are open again, and I heard a radio commercial for one group of them, inviting people to get out of the house and come and play safe.
Lapassionara
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: I don’t think I know what you are asking, and anyway, the thread is dead, so let’s talk later.
Delk
I went out yesterday (second time since March) for a medical procedure and it was very strict to get into the building/elevator. I can’t imagine people that work in Sears Tower to be able to go through all the checking. Nobody would get to their office.
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A little waterboarding never hurt anyone.
FelonyGovt
LA County is re-opening dining in restaurants and hair salons and barbershops. I worry that it’s too soon. I keep getting texts from my hairdresser telling me about her great new safety protocols, but I’m still not that anxious to go back.
Feathers
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Bring something to block the water from hitting your mask. A fan, one of the old magazines at the shop, a plastic bag…
namekarB
I live in a retirement community in Northern California with Phase 2 reopening. Covidiots abound. Two supermarkets in town. Both stores encourage (but doesn’t require) wearing masks. One store has one-way aisles which Covidiots flaunt because of the Free Market Fairy or something. I will be driving an extra 8 miles to a Whole Foods store that requires masks and meters how many shoppers are in the store. I am shocked but sadly unsurprised at the number of shoppers who must be immune to the effects of wisdom. And no, I will not be doing any casual retail shopping or dining out for a long while.
JAFD
Greetings from New Jersey, jackals and jackalettes !
The primary election, registration deadline June 16, vote by mail info
https://www.njdems.org/2020-vote-by-mail-instructions/
The delegate selection process explained
https://www.njdems.org/2020-new-jersey-delegate-selection-plan/
And our pandemic relief fund Tshirt, design contest,
https://www.njdems.org/njdsc-knucklehead-shirt-options/
Which you can vote in, wherever you be.
Hope youse staying healthy, happy and hydrated. Have a great weekend !
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You wash your hair at home and then spritz with a water bottle when you get out of the car, wait in your car until she’s ready for you, and then go in?
Or I would suggest you wait a month and see what happens. Hair salons may turn out to be safer than we think OR they may turn out to be a spreading event, in which case we can all learn to deal with our hair for a couple more months.
burnspbesq
Have to venture into our local Target sometime this weekend to pick up an online order. Thinking two masks.
satby
@JAFD: wait, did the Governor really tell people “don’t be a knucklehead”?
sdhays
My wife has been kind enough to cut my hair during this time, and while professionals obviously do a cleaner job, it’s definitely good enough (and I really appreciate it since I can’t stand my hair getting to long or thick, particularly as we get into summer). I don’t think I’ll be doing anything different until a vaccine is widely deployed. But this is what the hair salon my mother goes to is doing (in downstate Illinois):
They’re clearly taking it seriously, and it sounds reasonably safe to me. But it certainly illustrates the immense drag on business since we haven’t had and won’t have (until next year, possibly) a competent national response to actually stop the spread in the first place and implement real test and trace. Any half-way responsible business is going to have to implement a lot of expensive individual processes to make customers feel safe during this crisis, which is going to limit how much can be made after a business opens back up. A lot of businesses are probably looking at just hoping to hold on until a vaccine allows a return to the previous normal.
evodevo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Mine managed quite easily…of course my mask is just a simple cloth one, not one of those respirator types…
sdhays
@FelonyGovt: I thought LA still wasn’t doing so well.
satby
I’m honestly astonished how many people get salon haircuts regularly. I’m a long hair, though I cut it to shoulder length after being home about three weeks; my sons have always cut their own hair. Well, until my oldest started doing the head-shaving fundraiser for a kid’s cancer charity, now he grows it out all year and then donates the ponytail before they do the head shave. We’re an odd family.
Cowboy Diva
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
I would just like to say that it is my conviction that longer hair and other flamboyant affectations of appearance are nothing more than the male’s emergence from his drab camouflage into the gaudy plumage, which is the birthright of his sex
There is a peculiar notion that elegant plumage and fine feathers are not proper for the male when actually, that is the way things are in most species
MisterForkbeard
@sdhays:
I think this is a vastly underreported aspect. It’s not that the Feds aren’t spending money: they just forcing OTHER people to spend money. Creating huge externalities for the bad federal response and passing that cost along to people who can’t afford it and can’t do it at scale.
sdhays
@satby: My wife gets a salon haircut maybe once a year, with a few self-trims once in a while. It’s a 40 minute drive from our home, and in a different state (she’s very particular, even though she doesn’t really do anything “special”). She used to go more frequently when we lived in Hong Kong, but she also had a lower tolerance for how long and thick her hair could get when we were there (for obvious reasons) and prices were a lot cheaper.
BroD
I always wanted a pony tail anyway.
pat
I ordered a very nice set of sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond ONLINE. Delivered in less than a week.
Try it.
Racer X
So in the end, its all about trust. Do we trust each other to do the right thing? In my area you can certainly see we’re watching out for each other. Good old American values, like my parents taught me…
I feel sorry for those living in MAGA America – they spew toxic levels of hypocrisy and dishonesty. You cannot trust them to do anything but to act like disgusting, foul, hateful assholes. Fuck them all. Stay safe.
Pauline
@satby: I’ve always worn my hair short and I have to have it cut every five weeks or it gets shaggy really fast. I had my hair cut for the first time since the beginning of March last night. I really didn’t want to but it was driving me crazy and I just can’t stand feeling it on my neck or in my eyebrows. The sensation literally makes my skin crawl. The salon that i go to is a small one and I arranged my appointment to be the last of the day so that it was just me and my stylist. Was it weird to get my hair cut while she and I were wearing masks? Yes, but then these days every thing is weird. I never thought I’d see the day when I felt like I was taking my life into my hands by getting a haircut because i haven’t been out of my house except for food shopping since mid-March when Denver shut down.
Brendan in NC
We just started phase 2 in NC, and Charlotte is back to being stupid. Went to pick up carry out food, and passed about 50 people on the way. Saw only 1 other person with a mask, and they had it pulled down☹️. Looks like I’m staying in until January, at this rate.
Anne Laurie
I think it’s time to resurrect stylish hats for women, since they can hide a multitude of hair ‘issues’. Too warm for turbans right now, but there’s lots of choices in wide-brimmed sun hats & caps, and they’re good sun protection, too!
Gvg
Some people are more distressed by being isolated than others. My job has for years caused me to find out that depression and serious anxiety issues are more common than I used to know. I have already read petitions that make it clear that some people are really being driven to dispair over the lockdown. Even my semi hermit father is finding it really hard, more than mom I think who switched to church and garden clubs by zoom. The fact that so much of the government is so obviously incompetent and planless, not just the Feds, means it’s going to go on and on. Which is to say not all of the acting out is totally political tribalism. A lot of the biggest attention seekers are, but well if you know anyone having trouble, maybe you can think of some help for them. I don’t know. To be honest I real life I am shy and reclusive and don’t know that many people who like socializing. Frankly it suits me a little too well, except for not being able to shop for more comfortable office chair and couch because my arthritis is telling me i’m getting older. I’m not typical however. People are pretty varied.
Grover Gardner
We’ve been very lucky here in So Oregon–very few cases so far and few deaths. My wife and I are also fortunate to have jobs we can do from home, and our daughter fared pretty well with remote schooling. But our “gradual” re-opening has pretty much turned into a free-for-all. My wife and I aren’t averse to a quick trip to the Safeway or Bi-Mart armed with masks and hand sanitizer at off-peak hours, but a trip to Lowe’s last Saturday was a horror-show–it was packed–so we’re not doing that again. And we’re going to have to schedule our supermarket trips more carefully going forward. Oddly, a senior friend of my daughter’s threw a graduation party (a “small” one…!), and his mother is a doctor! My wife and I were like, “Um, NO!”
We’re okay with service people coming for outdoor repairs, take-out food, etc. But I’m not ready for a haircut, though I’d badly like to get one. Movies, malls, restaurants, airplanes? Forget it. The good news is that my wife, who never liked it here and always wanted to move to NYC, now thinks this is a very good place to be. She wants to throw some money into the house, which makes me happy. ;-)
JAFD
@satby: In short, yes. In long, google ‘knucklehead’ & ‘murphy’ for reports from many sources.
In other news, an addition to the game, Ticket to Ride
https://print-and-play.asmodee.fun/ticket-to-ride/
Stay well, everyone !
Uncle Cosmo
@zzyzx: You do in fact need a beard trim – all the way down to the skin. Wearing a mask over a beard is epidemiologically worthless – it will leak like a sieve (in both directions).
A socially-responsible mask wearer will shave before masking, leaving no more than a closely-cropped (~2 cm) moustache/goatee/van Dyke – & even then the mask should be tight against bare skin on all sides for reasonable efficacy. Any facial foliage beyond that & mask wearing is nothing more than virtue signaling.
Bill Arnold
This is false, because a mask will both intercept some of the outgoing droplets and also will redirect the rest of the outgoing flow from straight forward to sideways/up/down. A conversation lasting a few minutes with both people masked, even a mask over a beard reduces the risk to the other person.
Masks or bandanas over beards are not ideal, but the effect is certainly nowhere near zero.