Push for Utah to mandate statewide mask wearing


Plein Air
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5 hours ago, Midwest LDS said:

I know you were kind of joking, but it might work if you really can't get people to stop trying to hug you or shake your hand. My sister and her family had a bad case of COVID. They recovered and have been fine for months but whenever anyone hears it they treat them like a family of lepers (hence why they only tell close family members and friends now lol). It might be worth a shot.

I was totally joking, but you are right, it would likely work too well!  A safer statement to prevent being driven out of town would be something like "It turns out I tested positive for COVID-19, but they said I don't need to quarantine!"   👁️👁️

 

It will be interesting to see how many people in our ward are wearing masks from this point forward. Previously, the Bishop was often the only other person wearing a mask, besides my wife and I. 

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On 7/10/2020 at 8:16 PM, Vort said:

You mean your former friend, I presume.

Still my friend.  I have this principle that if I can handle it (or, in this case, my husband can handle it), I try to keep friends even when they do bad things to me so we can continue to be an influence, hopefully it will help so they can stop doing bad things.   Yeah, it requires a dose of naivete but I like to think we're made of tuff leather.

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On 7/11/2020 at 1:20 AM, Plein Air said:

Yup, people losing control of themselves is in pandemic mode just like a whole bunch of other stuff! A friend of mine was sitting on a sidewalk bench out in front of his business in a city that is not under a mask order, not wearing a mask, and a friend of his drove by yelling unpleasant stuff at him out of the car window for not having a mask on.  At first he thought he was joking, but sadly, he was not. 

I don't know exactly where the "Utah Area" covers, sounds like the whole state, but I just got an email from the Utah Area Presidency asking for all Latter-Day Saints to wear face coverings when in public. It will be interesting to see how that is received. 

Probably in the same manner as CCW church policy in Florida.  Those that feel that the policy contradicts their deeply held personal convictions that drive what they do will continue to do what they do.

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2 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Probably in the same manner as CCW church policy in Florida.  Those that feel that the policy contradicts their deeply held personal convictions that drive what they do will continue to do what they do.

Just one glaring problem with masks vs concealed guns, everyone will know you aren't wearing a mask!   lol 🤓

Most if not all of the older sisters and many of the older men in our ward won't be attending church until everyone is wearing masks, or they will sit as far away from and behind the non masked members and likely leave early after taking the sacrament. I have no problem with staying home from church until this is over, even if it takes another year or two, letting the younger folks do all the socializing if I don't like the mask situation at church. If I get the virus it is highly unlikely that I will survive. Catching it and dying doesn't worry me at all. I would prefer that there had never been any kind of a shutdown. But my wife has asked me to do everything I can to avoid getting it, so, for her, I will stay home until the odds are close to zero of my contracting C-19. Of course by that time there will probably be some new killer virus, or two or three, out in the wild. 

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2 hours ago, mirkwood said:

This is not a post saying I disagree, but a counterpoint that some may be considering or thinking (I have a child in Utah, and we did discuss recently about following the counsel of leaders over political ideals, but unsure of what they will actually do.  I did hear that currently most do not seem to be wearing masks there).

What happens if it really IS something that is not in accordance with the Lord's wishes?  There are stories where individual leaders did things directly against what the Lord desired or wanted.  A prime example...but not current...

What if you were in one of the wards 100 years ago which had a Bishop which decided that polygamy was a big enough issue for them to tell you to join another congregation?  Is this something to follow?

What if you were told to disregard safety concerns by your stake president and/or laws as well?  (Has happened, also resulted in injuries and death when people followed such things...though most of the events I know of were in relation to Youth and various activities such as climbing/repelling, white water, or other activities).

How far does one take this counsel to follow what their church leader tells them to do?

PS: And, as people probably could tell, I DO agree with the idea of wearing face masks.  It should be obvious from many of my posts.  In this instance it is one where I'd probably agree with the policy on a personal level, so more than just following the leaders.  On the otherhand, it would be much harder, as I am in the vulnerable population more than some others due to age  (but not over 80 yet, b. 1947)  if they had commanded us all to return to worship INSIDE a church building.  This is more of a hypothetical question,

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22 hours ago, mirkwood said:

 

21 hours ago, Grunt said:

I saw that on Faceplant today and really enjoyed it.

 

18 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

What happens if it really IS something that is not in accordance with the Lord's wishes?  There are stories where individual leaders did things directly against what the Lord desired or wanted.  A prime example...but not current...

 

We were just talking about Martin Luther in that other thread.  As Pope Francis has stated - Luther had a medicine that the church was in dire need of.  Unfortunately, Luther administered the medicine in a way that does not conform to God's order.

Same in the LDS Church.  The Church is led by fallible people.  But there is an order established to account for the fallibility and a way for people to get relief from the fallibility of leaders but not fall out of God's order.

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Well, this sort of answers the question of whether they will listen to what their leaders suggest or put their political beliefs first...

Anti Mask Rally in Provo Utah

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As the US sees record number of COVID-19 cases, protesters in Provo, Utah gather on Wednesday (July 15) to rally against the mandate to wear masks in schools.

Governor Gary Herbert — who ordered last week that students, faculty and staff all wear masks on buses and in schools but stopped short of extending the mandate to all Utahns — is now being asked by Utah County Commissioner Bill Lee for a “compassionate exemption,” with a rally planned before Wednesday’s County Commission meeting in Provo.

"We have more cases in our county than 8 states, and 124 countries, only 15 countries have a higher concentration of Covid-19 cases than Utah County. We have more deaths in Utah County than 89 nations, and we have leaders who fight against even the most sensible precautions. They and are willing to risk the lives of members of our community." said local resident and filmer John.

There's a video there.  Granted, it's not as big a crowd and probably is a small minority of a minority of those in Provo, Utah...but it IS in Provo Utah which has one of the highest percentages of members in the world.

This after the Area Seventies (I think that was who it was from what I've heard and understand) sent out a request for all members to wear masks...

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We took a drive to St George Utah today. Compared to about a month ago, I would say that mask wearing had more than doubled at the places we visited on both trips. We went to a large new car dealership that we had not been to for several years and found that not a single person working there was wearing a mask, nor did they ask if we would prefer that they did. We were both wearing masks the entire time we were around any other people. 

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Two days ago, Colorado's governor issued a statewide mask order for all indoor public areas.   Shortly after, 2 or 3 county sheriffs issued statements like this:

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In later interviews, we hear the executive order is worded as basically ordering the owners of the public areas to require masks, and trespass those who refuse.  All the LEO agencies as far as I can tell, will respond to trespass situations and trespass people.  

My local WalMart handled it well - with a giant (at least 3 inches taller than my 6'1" self) young friendly greeter, with a big smile on his face and a box of masks.  My daughter and I watched a few maskless folks head in, they all either put on their masks, or put on one he gave them.

 

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At church today, only 2 adults did not wear masks. An older sister and a visiting 20 something brother. I was pretty surprised by the older sister not masking up. Almost every kid who could walk, wore a mask of some kind. In previous meetings according to reports from other members, at best maybe 10% of the congregation wore a mask as the high number and less than 1% as the low. The deacons did a great job passing the sacrament, leaning over the empty row in front of the member occupied rows to offer the bread and water so nobody else had to touch the tray handles. With the water, they had a second tray without the cup holder top on it so people could drop their used cups into it easily, without having to reach across or possibly touch the unused remaining water cups. I don't know where the plan for the passing method originated, but I was impressed regardless.  It was my first time back to church since mid March. It lasted about 40 minutes and included 1/3 of the ward membership, segregated alphabetically into three separate rotating meeting blocks. Three hymns including the sacrament song and one talk. It was one of the most memorable I have been a part of. After the meeting, we were asked to wipe down the wooden bench surfaces with provided sanitizer cloths in the pew where we sat.

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18 hours ago, Plein Air said:

At church today, only 2 adults did not wear masks. An older sister and a visiting 20 something brother. I was pretty surprised by the older sister not masking up. Almost every kid who could walk, wore a mask of some kind. In previous meetings according to reports from other members, at best maybe 10% of the congregation wore a mask as the high number and less than 1% as the low. The deacons did a great job passing the sacrament, leaning over the empty row in front of the member occupied rows to offer the bread and water so nobody else had to touch the tray handles. With the water, they had a second tray without the cup holder top on it so people could drop their used cups into it easily, without having to reach across or possibly touch the unused remaining water cups. I don't know where the plan for the passing method originated, but I was impressed regardless.  It was my first time back to church since mid March. It lasted about 40 minutes and included 1/3 of the ward membership, segregated alphabetically into three separate rotating meeting blocks. Three hymns including the sacrament song and one talk. It was one of the most memorable I have been a part of. After the meeting, we were asked to wipe down the wooden bench surfaces with provided sanitizer cloths in the pew where we sat.

That's great that you're progressing towards normalcy.  It's really impressive to me how 11-13 year old boys rise to their priesthood authority when called upon, especially knowing these boys and how clumsy and how much of a goofball they can be in other things.  :)  My 16-year-old got a one-day job last Saturday constructing a lean-to carport.  I asked him, "you sure you know how to build a carport?".  Anyway, at the end of the day, the guy who owns the carport sent me a picture of what he built and I have to say, I was very, very impressed!  I have learned while raising my children that children has this amazing capacity to do great things when simply given the responsibility.

We still haven't gone back to the ward building.  I'm completely okay with it.  I am enjoying our backyard sacrament meetings.  We're going to have a new investigator with her inactive spouse join us on Sunday.  I'm excited to meet them.  Our ward (maybe Stake, because my in-laws are still attending our backyard sacrament meetings) decided not to start ward building meetings until things go back to normal.  Our bishopric, with the help of the quorum presidencies have been checking up on everybody to make sure all active members of the ward, especially the elderly who can't have missionary visits yet, have the opportunity to have sacrament with proper priesthood authority at least once per month.  I have to say, though, I miss seeing everybody every Sunday...

 

 

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Interesting thing in Florida.

So, we don't have a statewide mask mandate but we have mayors that issue mask mandates in some cities.  Walmart came out and said they are going to enforce mask mandate in all their stores.  Winn-Dixie came out and said they are not going to enforce mask mandate in all their stores to avoid conflict between their employees and their customers.  Interestingly, I just happened to go to two Super Walmarts and 3 Winn-Dixies the past few days.  Walmart customers in the mask-mandated city has mostly maskless customers even as they said they're enforcing masks.  Walmart also has those "this way/wrong way" aisle markers that most people are ignoring.  Winn-Dixie, on the other hand, had mostly masked customers even after stating they're not enforcing masks.  There was one Winn-Dixie where I didn't see a single person without a mask except for the Winn-Dixie employee gathering the carts at the parking lot.

This is the kind of stuff, we data analysts itch to get to the bottom of.

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3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Interesting thing in Florida.

So, we don't have a statewide mask mandate but we have mayors that issue mask mandates in some cities.  Walmart came out and said they are going to enforce mask mandate in all their stores.  Winn-Dixie came out and said they are not going to enforce mask mandate in all their stores to avoid conflict between their employees and their customers.  Interestingly, I just happened to go to two Super Walmarts and 3 Winn-Dixies the past few days.  Walmart customers in the mask-mandated city has mostly maskless customers even as they said they're enforcing masks.  Walmart also has those "this way/wrong way" aisle markers that most people are ignoring.  Winn-Dixie, on the other hand, had mostly masked customers even after stating they're not enforcing masks.  There was one Winn-Dixie where I didn't see a single person without a mask except for the Winn-Dixie employee gathering the carts at the parking lot.

This is the kind of stuff, we data analysts itch to get to the bottom of.

Here in Wyoming there's a philosophy of "let local people make the rules".    A few towns have enacted mask mandates because it makes sense there (like Jackson Hole where you have tons of tourists packed into a tiny valley).  Most towns it just doesn't make sense (we're naturally distanced, small head counts, infection rates are really low).  It's totally respected that you choose to wear a mask, or ask people to wear a mask on your property (including your business), but no Big Brother is going to force you to wear a mask everywhere.

This week, Walmart announced that they were going to mandate mask wearing as part of their national (international?) policy.  And people completely swarmed the stores before they were forced to wear a mask -- I haven't seen the aisles so packed, shelves so empty, or tensions so high since this whole thing started.  The resentment of the rule is very real, and people are deferring to other stores instead.      

I myself... admittedly I'm irrationally resentful of it.  Yes, I'll do it because you asked, but I really don't like it.  Which is strange because when I visited Denver and had to wear a mask absolutely everywhere (those are the rules there) I was totally fine with it.  But here where I'm usually the only person in the grocery aisle ... it amazed me how resentful I was of it this weekend.  

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4 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

Here in Wyoming there's a philosophy of "let local people make the rules".    A few towns have enacted mask mandates because it makes sense there (like Jackson Hole where you have tons of tourists packed into a tiny valley).  Most towns it just doesn't make sense (we're naturally distanced, small head counts, infection rates are really low).  It's totally respected that you choose to wear a mask, or ask people to wear a mask on your property (including your business), but no Big Brother is going to force you to wear a mask everywhere.

This week, Walmart announced that they were going to mandate mask wearing as part of their national (international?) policy.  And people completely swarmed the stores before they were forced to wear a mask -- I haven't seen the aisles so packed, shelves so empty, or tensions so high since this whole thing started.  The resentment of the rule is very real, and people are deferring to other stores instead.      

I myself... admittedly I'm irrationally resentful of it.  Yes, I'll do it because you asked, but I really don't like it.  Which is strange because when I visited Denver and had to wear a mask absolutely everywhere (those are the rules there) I was totally fine with it.  But here where I'm usually the only person in the grocery aisle ... it amazed me how resentful I was of it this weekend.  

Oh... about wiping out aisles... Walmart AND Winn-Dixie got wiped out of Goya products which, admittedly, is the reason I went to 3 Winn-Dixies and 2 Walmarts... looking for the Goya empanada wrappers.  There's a big hole where the Goya wrappers were... I've never seen them run out!

And guess what else... I couldn't find a single appliance store in 3 counties that has freezers in stock.

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I went to a Walmart today and was decently happy with what occurred.  I have my own mask, but just to see what would happen, I went without one to see if they would give me one.  They had someone at the door handing them out and so I got a nice mask from the individual giving them out at the door.  So nice for that to happen.  It was nice.  I saw that there is some stupidity going on though.

A restaurant here is only open for takeout and delivery and it seemed people were boycotting it because of that, while one which had it's dining room open and because of the way they did this has had at least half of their staff come down with it and a few of their staff hospitalized in the past two weeks was crowded (who knows how many people have gotten the disease from that one restaurant) and packed.  No social distancing there.  I got a story of one of their workers this past week where they asked for the restaurant to cover their medical bills (in the thousands now) since it was pretty obvious they got it from there...the restaurant refused and fired them instead.  They have thousands of dollars in medical bills from being hospitalized.  Restaurant is still continuing...apparently wants it's workers to still work after all the infections there (and so many people going there as well), but won't cover any medical bills if they come down with it.  Popular restaurant in the area these days, as I said, probably because it's dining area is open.  The other one which is protecting it's workers (and though I don't know about covering medical bills, at least offers medical insurance to those working there) is boycotted by many here.  Strange what people choose to support these days.

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What kind of message are we sending to the vulnerable members of our ward by not wearing a mask? Being one of those myself with maybe a 90% chance of dying from C19, the message I get is: "My desire to not wear a mask is more important than your desire to attend Sacrament meeting."  or "If you feel the need for everyone to wear masks to church, you should just stay home."

If someone has a problem wearing close fitting masks, then they should try something different such as a full face shield. They aren't as effective as an N95 masks, but they do block fluids from launching at high velocity over long distances from a cough or sneeze. Though I do not support mandated mask wearing, I do feel the right thing to do is to always wear a mask at church and in private businesses or other locations where they ask you to. I don't have to go to WalMart to stay alive. I can ask or pay someone to deliver my food. But to deny me the ability to attend Sacrament meeting in a relatively safe environment is very wrong in my view. 

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1 minute ago, Plein Air said:

What kind of message are we sending to the vulnerable members of our ward by not wearing a mask? Being one of those has maybe a 90% chance of dying from it,

What kind of message are high-risk people sending by voluntarily placing themselves in potential danger by attending Church right now?
If they are that high-risk, then stay home. Don't place yourself in that high degree of potential danger if you are worried about it. In our area, Phase 1 Guidelines state:

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“High risk” individuals will be encouraged to refrain from attending the in-person sacrament meeting"

Stay at home and keep doing "Come Follow Me".
 

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7 minutes ago, NeedleinA said:

What kind of message are high-risk people sending by voluntarily placing themselves in potential danger by attending Church right now?
If they are that high-risk, then stay home. Don't place yourself in that high degree of potential danger if you are worried about it. In our area, Phase 1 Guidelines state:

Stay at home and keep doing "Come Follow Me".
 

My choice as to whether I want to attend church, regardless of my risk factor, should not be impacted by those who refuse to wear a mask contrary to the request of priesthood leaders.

Despite the directive about high risk people staying home if they choose to, which I believe was inspired, the negative message is still there. Technically everyone is at risk.  Let me rephrase them a bit. 

"My selfish desire to not wear a mask at church is more important than your desire (as a normal risk member) to attend church."

or 

"If you as a normal risk individual want to attend church but are concerned about members like me not wearing masks, stay home!"

It is wrong either way. 

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6 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Restaurant is still continuing...apparently wants it's workers to still work after all the infections

The workers still have a choice.  The business can choose to stay open; the employees can choose not to take the risk of working; customers can choose whether or not to go.  Each person possesses the freedom to choose for themselves.

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2 minutes ago, person0 said:

The workers still have a choice.  The business can choose to stay open; the employees can choose not to take the risk of working; customers can choose whether or not to go.  Each person possesses the freedom to choose for themselves.

If it were only that simple. 

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