We are now in week 12 of the Wolfe/Levine coronavirus religious and economic lockdown. Most of the eastern portion of Pennsylvania is now in “yellow phase”. This does allow more businesses to open. It includes the so-called nonessential merchants, as well as bar/restaurants, the latter so long as they have an outdoor deck. “Personal-care” businesses such as barbers and hairstylists are still closed.

We found out yesterday that on June 19th, Luzerne County will be permitted to move into “green” phase. As great as it sounds, the rules for this phase are still very restrictive. I guess we should be grateful our benevolent overlords will permit us a little bit more of our rights.

Looking back on the previous weeks, I’m still puzzled by the whole question of nonessential businesses. Wouldn’t it have been smarter, for instance, to allow more retailers to stay open which would have the effect of spreading the pool of shoppers over a larger number of businesses?

Not that anyone cares about this in the governor’s office, but also wouldn’t that have been fairer?

Now that we are opening up, it would’ve been easy to rationalize some of the unusual precautions required by the new rules, such as temperature taking greeters, and mask-wearing waitresses. Hell, we’re all just glad to be out.

But then there was the vision of our governor, admittedly masked, but standing shoulder to shoulder with others in a large demonstration in Harrisburg (Dauphin County “yellow phase” no gatherings larger than 25 people). We watched as the ultimate zealot of pandemic propriety flouted the rules that he imposes on us non-protesters. No matter how worthy the cause, Mr. Wolf’s actions were hypocritical in the extreme. Kind of makes the “6-foot rule” feel silly doesn’t it? Remember, this is the man who called people protesting the unconstitutional lockdown “cowards”?

Want to protest and maybe do a little vandalism and looting? Apparently, it’s OK. Want to worship? Not so much.

 Almost as perverse was watching our health secretary, Dr. Levine using pretzel-like logic to justify the governor’s behavior.  Does anyone now doubt that the prolongation of the restrictions was purely political?

I don’t.

A couple of thoughts on the virus itself:

First, the WHO keeps changing its opinion as to whether asymptomatic people are likely to pass the infection on to others. First, they claimed that this is unlikely. Then they kinda backtracked. If the former is true, it suggests that taking one’s temperature on entering a business makes some sense, and there are technologies evolving that will allow us to do this automatically.

I do wonder however whether we should revert to the original CDC recommendations for facial coverings (only for patients known to have COVID 19, and their caregivers). I have certainly noticed as time goes on the people are getting more and more cavalier about masks, and I suspect their use will continue to decline.

The numbers of cases are certainly coming down. As I write this our local paper reports that there are no new cases in Luzerne County in the last 24 hours. This is likely the first time this is been true since mid-March.

When you look at the graphical data there is a clear decline since about mid-April. From March 15 to last Friday when we went into “yellow” phase, our county’s precautions have been in a steady state. If the virus had a constant level of infectivity, the curve should’ve leveled off at a roughly steady rate of increased cases/day, instead of steadily dropping as it has. To me, the continual decline suggests that something else is at work. it might be that the hoped-for warm weather decrease in the virus’s infectivity or virulence is real. Let’s hope this is the case.

There is talk of bumps in infection numbers in Texas and Arizona that some will blame on reopening. The infection rates in those communities are still very low and likely explained by significant increases in testing volume over time.

Though I am hopeful, I have no illusions. There is still COVID 19 in the environment, and if the wrong person ingests a significant amount of virus, then they may get sick and even possibly die. It will be some time for instance before I encourage my 94-year-old father to go out in public. It does not appear however that the average young or middle-age worker, or customer is at much risk. As long as the vulnerable are protected, we need commerce to resume.

I will be glad when we are finally allowed a more normal way of life.

Unless of course, our governor and his protesting friends cause another bump.

Who’s the “coward” now?