Our Best Stuff From a Week Things Opened Up Just a Little

Plus the ousting of Liz Cheney, the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas, and more.

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Happy Sunday! I don’t know if you heard, but Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced this week that anyone who’s been vaccinated will be entered into a lottery to win $1 million. There will be five drawings. With any luck, maybe this newsletter will start coming to you from a tropical locale where I type with my toes in the sand and have a fruity beverage served in a coconut by my side. (Don’t worry, boss. We already decided my husband is the one who can quit his job when we win.)

That was the announcement that got DeWine the most attention—-and a fair amount of ridicule from critics unimpressed by the idea of bribing people to get vaccinated. The way I see it, Ohio has to spend its pandemic relief money on something, and giving people a chance to win $1 million can’t be less effective than, say, spending that money on scoldy public service announcements. 

But it wasn’t the only news. As of June 2, we’ll be out of COVID jail, as nearly all public health orders pertaining to the pandemic are ending. Now, to be fair, our  COVID jail has been far more like one of those cushy minimum-security places they send white collar criminals than, say, a supermax facility. Even during the worst of the winter wave, nothing closed down completely. Bars and restaurants closed at 10 p.m. for a while. There were capacity restrictions on a lot of indoor events, like athletic competitions. While we had a statewide mask mandate, it was mostly indoors. The only time we experienced an outdoor mask mandate was when we took our oldest on a college tour in Athens over spring break.

It’s felt all along like DeWine has been trying to strike a balance by putting in place public health measures to keep people safe while not locking down to such a degree that the economy suffers anymore than it has to. (And also trying to avoid fights with the state legislature.) It’s hard to argue against his strategy. We rank 39th in cases per 100,000 people and 28th in deaths per 100,000. Meanwhile, our unemployment rate is a respectable 4.7 percent. (California’s, by comparison, is 8.1 and New York’s is 8.5.)

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    Love the multiple author interaction!!!

    Funny too lol

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    Dave Conant - MO

    Living alone and retired the major change for me will be the chance to visit friends and family. I truly don't understand the mask controversy, they aren't that bothersome and the diminished concern over not just Covid-19 but flu and colds is worth the minor inconvenience. I note for the record that I rarely wore the mask outside unless there were other people involved.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Thank you for the round up~~

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Thanks for reading!

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    Paul Britton

    This Sunday summary is a pleasure, as always.

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Thank you!

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    2sequoia

    “John Hart argues that the whole fight could backfire spectacularly for the GOP” - from his lips to God’s ear.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    What I appreciate most about Governor Mike DeWine has been his humility. When I say he's been in over his head, I don't mean it as a criticism. This overwhelmed everyone. DeWine has been one to admit that, and makes decisions he thinks are best. He's shifted course multiple times because of new information. It takes humility to make wise decisions in uncharted waters.

    As far as the lottery goes, my youngest faced an ethical dilemma: encourage his friends to get vaccinated, or tell them not to in order to increase his odds of winning? I'm proud to say that a) he realizes the lottery odds are miniscule, and b) it's better to get more vaccinated, not less. He spoke to his principal about having my wife come in and administer the vaccine to students. We'll see how it goes.

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      You’re right on his humility. He’s faced a lot of pressure (and lawsuits!) from his own party. I don’t think any state has been perfect on this. And obviously some who got the most credit for being “good” (Cuomo and Newsom most obviously) early on have shown themselves to have been worst than most. I’ve been grateful that we’ve had a lot of normalcy here. That doesn’t mean I’m not eager to get back to REAL normalcy, but I realize we could have had it worse. Our kids have been in school, most sports have been relatively normal, and we’ve done our part to keep as many of our cherished local breweries as open as we could afford to. ;) I do look forward to finding a concert to go to, and our kids are eager to get to a Reds game (even given the solid 50-60 percent chance they will lose). All these stories about people going to a restaurant for the first time in a year feel pretty foreign to me. Obviously I don’t judge anyone for being precautious. Just grateful we’ve had what we’ve had.

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  7. Alex DeLarge

    "but Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced this week that anyone who’s been vaccinated will be entered into a lottery to win $1 million."

    I heard you get entered into a lottery to win autism. But what are the odds in these scams anyway?

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      I'm gambling at my age I won't notice I won autism. My oldest tells me I'm 2-3 years from being able to hide my own easter eggs.

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      1. GregS

        Don't feed the trolls...
        A nurse at work said basically the same thing about autism the other day and it was all I could do to stop myself from asking her how she'd managed to get a license.

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    Jasonn

    "But I do look forward to not having to yell at the kids when they leave their disposable masks all over the house." >> Amen to that : )

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Yup! Back to just yelling about dishes in their rooms, bathroom towels on the floor and the need to use six glasses or cups in a single day. ;)

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        Kmregan7

        We use water bottles. You'd think that would be easier, being bigger, but apparently, they just drink SOME of the water and then need another one or something.

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      2. Catherine Lowe

        What’s with the wet towels on the floor? I mean my kid has two hooks and a bar in his bathroom and his wet towel is ALWAYS on the floor. $5 per infraction!

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          Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

          There’s no possible way they picked up this habit from their mother. Nope, no way. ;)

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        Jasonn

        😄 indeed . . . (i look forward to it : )

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  9. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    The CDC says if I'm fully vaccinated I don't have to wear a mask. The President of the United States says if I'm fully vaccinated I don't have to wear a mask. The governor of my state says if I'm fully vaccinated I don't have to wear a mask. That's good enough for me.

    So why is everyone still wearing thier masks everywhere? You don't have to wear a mask if you're fully vaccinated. Simple. Take the freaking signs down aready.

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    1. B Phillips

      Read the part where it says you don't have to - doesn't say you aren't allowed to. Some people may be immunocompromised, maybe they live with someone high risk, maybe they just don't like being sick with anything else either. I never understand why someone gives a crap about someone else wearing a mask.

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        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        I'm seeing "require" a lot on those signs. In the case you cite wearing a mask makes sense... but ~90% of the folks I'm seeing aren't immuno-compromised. In fact, they're vaccinated. And where we're all these immuno-compromised people and high-risk live-in mates *before* the pandemic? And why weren't they wearing masks then?

        I don't care if someone wants to wear a mask. I care if someone wants to make me wear a mask because of "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to..." and always has been heir to and always will be heir to but for some reason now requires a dispensation from Walmart or Target not to wear one.

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        1. B Phillips

          I've enjoyed not having any respiratory illnesses for the past year, I may continue wearing a mask at work when I'm in close contact with people for that reason. My main beef with you though is your apparent refusal to wear a mask in an establishment that still requires it - as is their right. The CDC did not prevent a private business from still requiring masks, for whatever private reasons they may have. I can picture you going full "Ricky Schroder" on some poor minimum wage employee for attempting to enforce company policy. I imagine people like you are part of the reason low wage customer service employees are in no great hurry to get back to work.

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            Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

            Knock yourself out. Just don't require everyone around you to wear one.

            My beef with you is that you don't have specific authority on this issue to tell me what and what not to wear. You're neither a medical or government official with any authority on epidemiology. You don't get to pull rank. If you want to claim the right to make all your customers wear silly hats in your store I'm sure some will comply. I simply won't shop in your store.

            If we were discussing this before a vaccine I wouldn't hesitate to comply. But we do have a vaccine. I've been vaccinated. I have a little round scar on my upper arm where I was vaccinated for polio a long time ago. I haven't worried about it since and I don't expect store personnel to ask me to suit up just in case. Same with this.

            You can imagine all you want but I'm nothing like the picture you've painted. We simply disagree on management store policy on this issue and I never blame retail clerks for the policies of management they have no control over.

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      Kmregan7

      1) they're NOT vaccinated (or not vaccinated fully). Not everyone is completely vaccinated yet. 2) they have kids who CAN'T get vaccinated yet and want to show them support by wearing masks with them (and to show that you wear masks to protect others) 3) they CAN'T get vaccinated and don't trust that people who aren't vaccinated, won't be vaccinated, will keep wearing masks because we've seen that there are an awful lot of selfish a-holes out there who care more about their 'comfort' then about keeping their fellow citizens safe.

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        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        I had no problem masking for over a year but it's over. All your exceptions are just a recipe for masking forever.

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      I'm vaccinated too.

      I don't wear a mask outside, and haven't in over a year, except where required. Indoors, I continue to wear one about the building at work (required). I carry a mask with me: there are some people where wearing a mask reassures them, so I do so as a courtesy.

      Come June 2nd, our State is going topless (really top topless, not 2/3rds up topless). I'll keep a mask in the car, for those occurrences which require it.

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        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        The moment the CDC said that if we were fully vaccinated we could lose the mask except in hospital, etc settings I stopped wearing it everywhere. I don't require anymore than that. If they say go back to wearing it I'll start wearing it again.

        I never wore it outside. I thought that was as silly as outdoors non-smoking signs.

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    4. GregS

      I've been vaccinated since December. I've been wearing a mask anyway because I work in healthcare. Many stores are still requiring masks regardless of vaccination status because they're dealing with the problem of being unable to distinguish those who have been vaccinated from those who have not. It's changing now for two reasons:
      1) the vaccines have now been generally available for long enough that anyone who isn't vaccinated has most likely *chosen* not to be vaccinated
      2) we have enough data to say that vaccinated people are very unlikely to be asymptomatic carriers of disease.

      Yes it's time to stop wearing masks, but that doesn't mean it was time a month ago.
      And there will still be places (like hospitals or doctors' offices) that will continue to require mask wear.

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        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        CDC says that, yes, we don't have to wear them if we're vaccinated. Don't care what the store says. They're not the CDC. If the store says there's a "blue-light" special on aisle nine I'll listen to them.

        People gotta just take "yes" for an answer at some point.

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        1. GregS

          I think you're misunderstanding my point. It's that stores couldn't get ahead of the CDC on this.

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            Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

            I know. And actually stores, banks, etc. haven't given me any problems about not wearing a mask since the CDC guidance. But it seems like 96% of the people in these places are still wearing thier masks. It's just me and some dead-enders who probably never wore them to begin with.

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    Michael.Teders

    OK, first, what is happening in India is terrible. However, it is not because of their rate of Covid infections or their lack of precautions (which are actually quite good). It is because they did not take the time they had to prepare for the surge in hospitals and medical facilities.

    We all knew there was going to be a surge - there is in every country. India's just waited until April to hit. Why do I say it's not an unusual surge? Let's compare it.

    When the U.S. surge occurred, at it's peak, there were about 250,000 new infections/day. That's a rate of 0.075% of the population.

    It appears that India may be starting the descent from it's surge, and if so, there were an average of 391,000 infections per day at peak. With a population of 1.4 billion, that puts the infection rate at 0.028% of the population. In order to hit the U.S. infection rate, India would need to have well over 1M infections per day.

    The news media loves to show "scary" numbers, and some people eat it up. A little more in-depth reporting is needed to find the real reason for India's problem - lack of planning not carelessness with masking, etc.

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    1. B Phillips

      I'd argue that if they did as well as the US it had something to do with careless masking. Look at countries that didn't politicize masks so much, they did much better. The US is not the gold standard on this one.

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      Matmos

      Certainly, the effects of a surge in India are much more consequential because of the comparative lack of health infrastructure. Comparing the numbers is a bit difficult though because they assume the data is being reported at comparable amounts. Covid tests are very difficult to acquire in much of India and there is a lot of evidence that the death reports are (purposefully) massive undercounts.

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