Saturday, April 18, 2020

Dispatches from the Time of the Virus IV: Wear Masks

    
The author on lunch walk, April 15, 2020
I’m furious.

     New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order earlier this week ordering people here to wear face masks when they are in public situations in which they are likely to come within 6 feet of other people, the standard distance to be kept through social distancing. I work in the Rath Building for the Erie County Department of Social Services; almost two weeks ago, County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz issued an executive order mandating workers entering and working in the Rath Building wear facemasks. Both of these are part of safety precautions to take due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak.

     But on my two public outings so far today, Saturday, April 18, one a two-block walk to pick up breakfast and the other a just more than 2-mile walk with our dog Harold, I witnessed an incredible lack of adherence and/or awareness of these orders and health/safety measures and no more than 50 percent of the people I encountered close by wearing masks. And by wearing masks, I mean either wearing masks or scarves, etc., fashioned as masks over their faces or even just around their neck, ready to be deployed. If people had them in their pockets, I wouldn’t know, and no one who may have made any attempt to put them on when I encountered them.

     Yes, due to my anal nature, I kept track of this on both walks, and so you know, I used the measure of about 10 feet from me, not 6 feet, because some people, like myself, try to put more distance between themselves and others at that moment. At 10 AM, I encountered 26 people as I walked just more than 2 blocks from home to Perks to pick up a telephone order. Of the 26 people, 13 were wearing masks, or 50 percent; 50 fucking percent. Of this, there were two most annoying groups, the first two Caucasians, a male and female, walking through four of us standing outside, all of us wearing masks and standing more than 6 feet from each other, waiting for orders (which were brought out to us by a masked employee), to go inside, unmasked. Just what I want, some entitled white people going unmasked into the small area Perks is using, not only where people are working and can’t leave but are preparing food. Second, what appeared to be a mother and her two young children, age about 18 months to 4 years, outside on their sidewalk, none wearing masks, as mom created inspirational COVID-19 oriented chalk art (some of which I have quoted elsewhere on social media) but not moving when other people approached them. I was walking on the same sidewalk, and on my way to get food I walked in the street, which I should not have had to do, to avoid the unmasked trio. They were gone when I walked home.

     On Harold and my walk, which took us down Norwood Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Bidwell Parkway, Elmwood Avenue, Bryant Street and home, we encountered 65 people, only 31 of whom were wearing masks, or 47 percent. It was sad to see this even lower adherence rate on our kind of long walk, and there was one interesting short incident witnessed. We had just turned right onto Ashland Avenue off of Lexington Avenue when a man bicycled up to the dairy store there on Ashland, maskless, got off his bike and went in the door. He stopped partly inside as a voice inside asked him if he had a mask with him; he said no, he didn’t. The person then told him that he couldn’t come in without a mask. “What do you mean, I can’t come inside? I can’t make a purchase without a mask?” Yes, the person replied, you can’t come in or make a purchase here without one. As Harold and I passed by, the man then said, “Well, I don’t like New York State or what it is doing.” “Well, we don’t like idiots like you making life dangerous for us,” I said to no one in particular but apparently unheard by this man, who got on his bike and rode away.

     Look, people, this is one of the easiest steps to take to make things safer, even if a little bit, for all of us. If you are an adherent to the Libertarian/Ayn Rand clown car, that’s your choice, not mine, but you have no right to make my life more dangerous. I’ve been wearing a mask at work for about 3-4 weeks; we first received them in my part of the Erie County Department of Social Services about a month ago, and were first told we could ask clients to wear them if they appeared to have COVID-19 symptoms or were unhealthy. I immediately asked if we could wear them if we encountered unhealthy clients, and was told yes. My life was saved by medical professionals in late 2017, mainly at the Cleveland Clinic as well as by some here, and it included being on ventilators; I would be dead without them. I have no wish to be on one ever again and don’t wish that fate on anyone, so I support actions such as wearing masks at all times in public. Be safe, everyone.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Dispatches from the Time of the Virus III: Every Picture (Photograph) Tells a Story, Don't It?

     
As someone who has enjoyed and appreciated being able to take photographs that people interpret, discuss and use in some small way to make sense of life, I have been frustrated in trying to find photos that express the changes in everyday life due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis.

     While my use of my iPhone 8 may place some limits on me, I also realize it is hard to take a photo that truly captures the changes in, say, downtown Buffalo, where, for those who are unaware, I work in the Rath Building for the Erie County Department of Social Services. As of this writing, I am deemed essential personnel and work at the office on an alternating schedule, Monday, Wednesday and Friday one week, Tuesday and Thursday the next week. Walking from where I park my car to work and walking on my lunch break, it is so obvious that traffic is down to the absolute minimum downtown, both for pedestrian and vehicular traffic, with the corresponding quiet. Problem is, a photo of how quiet and empty the streets are cannot be easily shown through my cell phone photos, or maybe otherwise, because you need me writing that this photo was taken at 8 AM or noon or 3 PM on a workday during certain weather to give it any context that would be different from a photo taken on a holiday or weekend. The same with a closed or empty restaurant or business, and maybe a photo of a virtually empty NFTA Metro Bus or light rail rapid transit with interspersed masked riders and staff, but no one wants to stop a bus or rail for me or anyone else to take a photograph.

     So, when I took this photograph Friday, March 28, at first I thought it was an amusing, if unplanned, play on words from Mardi Gras masks to the masks that at that time mainly medical personnel and first responders were wearing and shortages were only thought to be off in the future.  For the record, this photograph was taken of a storefront on Elmwood Avenue between West Ferry Street and Cleveland Avenue in Buffalo’s Elmwood Village. Obviously, the store closed in a bit of a hurry and days before Mardi Gars (Tuesday, March 25). I have spoken both about the above-mentioned issue with my lovely wife, Valerie Dunne, as well as about this specific photo; one of the many great things about being married to her is that she is a professional photographer. She encourages me to go with my intent and to be honest to the image and to try as hard as possible, even with the cell phone camera, to present a quality image that can tell the story. While I liked this image from the start, it took me a while to realize that this addressed several issues I’ve worried about and tells several parts of the story the more I look at it.

     While I am about to finish an installment of this series I started about a week ago (no, really) when this finally hit me, it hit me almost as hard as the first time I heard a Ramones song.