Here Come the New Lockdowns

Surging coronavirus cases, surging restrictions. Rising COVID-19 case counts around the country are spurring new rounds of virus-related restrictions on business hours, at-home social gatherings, and in-person schooling.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new orders go the furthest into hygiene theater, creating new limits on how many people can gather in private houses (10) and shutting down bars and other establishments that serve alcohol after 10 p.m. with little scientific evidence that such arbitrary limits will really help slow the spread. Even putting aside more philosophical concerns about dictating how many people can gather in private dwellings, the idea makes little practical sense, since there’s a big difference between 10 people crammed into a tiny studio apartment and spread out in a four-story brownstone. Its necessarily selective enforcement threatens to come down hardest on politically or culturally disfavored communities. (See, for instance, New York City’s obsessive focus on pandemic transgressions in large Orthodox Jewish communities.) Similarly, there’s little reason to expect alcohol-serving establishments to be less safe than restaurants that don’t serve alcohol. And giving New Yorkers fewer hours in which to congregate in semi-public spaces like bars and restaurants means more people packed into small indoor spaces at once, potentially exacerbating the virus’s spread.

Apropos of nothing (read: NYC closing bars, restaurants & gyms at 10 as if COVID is more infectious at night) going to re-drop this piece I wrote for @CNN about Cuomo’s ineptitude. It’s easy to look good when the bar is Trump but Cuomo’s response isnt good https://t.co/JLVwJ3L0ME

— Danielle Campoamor (@DCampoamor) November 11, 2020

New Jersey’s new restrictions—announced by Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday—have gotten less attention, but they follow the same illogic as Cuomo’s. Murphy also instituted a 10 p.m. indoor closing time for bars and restaurants and banned people from sitting at a bar.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island is “strongly advising” people to stay at home between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. “It’s an advisory. I am strongly advising you and asking you to stay home in your own house,” Gov. Gina Raimondo said last Thursday.

In the Midwest, some states—such as Indiana and Illinois—are reinstituting restrictions in counties where recorded cases are high, and some areas are once again shutting down in-person schooling (or pausing reopening school plans). For instance: Earlier this week, the Cincinnati Public Schools board voted to entirely stop in-person learning again across the city school district; students return to online-only classes on November 23.

Other Midwestern states are extending emergency orders or putting new limitations on businesses and home-based gatherings statewide. In Minnesota, KSTP reports,

bars and restaurants are required to end dine-in services between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Indoor capacity will also be capped at 150 people. Bar seating will also be closed, with the exception of establishments that only have bar seating.

In regards to gatherings, there is a 10-person limit for indoor and outdoor gatherings, and all social gatherings must be limited to members of three households or less.

For events like weddings and funerals, an instituted phased approach with be put in place. However, eventually, a 25-person cap will be put in place. Reception events may also not take place between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Iowa extended its state of emergency for another 30 days.

In Utah, “Gov. Gary Herbert issued a series of new restrictions, including a statewide mask mandate—a step he has resisted for months,” reports The Salt Lake Tribune, and “unlike other restrictions, the governor intends to extend the mask mandate ‘for the foreseeable future.’ Businesses that fail to comply will face fines.” In addition,

In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine urged people not to get together for “banquets, wedding receptions, and social gatherings following funerals” and said “we will be issuing a new order soon to place significant new restrictions on these social activities. Specifically, open congregate areas can no longer be open. The order will require everyone to be seated and masked unless they are actively consuming food or drinks and it will prohibit things such as dancing and games.”

It is essential that we also remember the existing orders that are already in place to slow the spread of the virus. In April, we issued an order to limit gatherings of more than 10 people. That limit is still in effect and applies to public events and private gatherings.

— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) November 11, 2020

Maryland’s governor has reimposed restrictions as well:

Not all state leaders are rushing back into restrictions. Maine, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota are among the jurisdictions resisting new pandemic-related emergency orders. Some leaders in other states are not happy about that.

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QUICK HITS

A direct quote from this horrifying report: “80% of people who died in jails from COVID were not convicted of a crime.” https://t.co/y8xzJxvpSr

— Liz Hamilton (@rationalfish) November 10, 2020

• Some geniuses are taking cruises again. It’s going about how you would expect.

• London has erected a new statue honoring early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and everyone hates it.

• “According to the new Census data, the median duration of current marriages in the U.S. has increased almost one year in the recent decade, from 19 years in 2010  to 19.8 years in 2019,” reports the Institute for Family Studies. The U.S. divorce rate is now at its lowest point in 50 years—”even slightly lower than 1970, when 15 marriages ended in divorce per 1,000 marriages.”

• A California state legislator is promising to introduce a measure to decriminalize psychedelic drugs:

1/ When the Legislature reconvenes, I’ll introduce legislation to decriminalize psychedelic drugs. These drugs have been shown to have medicinal value treating depression, PTSD & other conditions.

We need to stop criminalizing drug use & addiction. https://t.co/aWie5VF2iA

— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) November 10, 2020

• RIP due process on campus.

• Donald Trump lost in part because third-party voters from 2016 preferred Joe Biden this year.

• Vice president-elect Kamala Harris “is the first female vice president. The first Black vice president,” and “the first South Asian vice president. But, as some have mistakenly claimed, she is not the first multiracial vice president or the first one of color,” notes The Washington Post. “That distinction belongs to Charles Curtis, who served as vice president to Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933. Curtis’s mother was a Native American who belonged to the Kaw Nation, and he was raised on a reservation by his maternal grandparents.”