I get it.
No hunkering down for me and the hubs.
In my current work place I consider myself middle management with administrators telling me “get your vaccine and see your patients”.
I’ve tried to get quarantined a FEW times.
Although seemingly not too much in the Asian communities near me. I went to an Asian supermarkets last year - at a time when it is the law to wear a mask inside such places. None of the Asians were wearing masks - not staff, not other customers. I got the things I needed and got out of there as quick as I could and have not been back. Covid is major issue amongst our Asian communities - there are high levels of infection and lowish levels of vaccine take-up. That appears to be multi-facted. Asians tend to be amongst the poorest communities - low paid insecure work, often customer facing, so often unable to self-isolate even when infected. And many live in cramped housing in multi-generational families. So, serious practical societal reasons why infection rates are high, leaving aside the issue of not wearing masks, even when legally required to do so. It leaves a not inconsiderable hole in the government’s restriction relaxing strategy which may well come back to bite them on the arse.
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In Canada, prepandemic, some Asian students who were visiting or were international students would wear masks when they had the flu/colds, but it wasn’t common with Asian Canadians raised in Canada, or Asian Canadians who have immigrated to Canada.
It mostly was the Japanese community and some Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese communities, and maybe the Korean community, that were using masks preCovid in the Toronto area. I live a 10 minute walk from Koreatown and a 20 minute walk from Chinatown, and masks weren’t too common preCovid. Mostly, I’d see 20something university students wearing masks, and they were usually Japanese or Chinese international students.
I don’t get the impression that it was that common outside Japan.
In Japan, masks are also used for allergies.
There might be more shoppers who would wear masks in the suburbs north of Toronto, where there are several Asian Shopping Centres, as well as a Japanese shopping centre, where most shoppers are Asian Canadian or Asian.
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Regarding masks and Asian communities: I live on the edge of the San Gabriel Valley, in Pasadena, and for years, when shopping in the predominantly Asian communities/stores, it was not at all unusual to see people wearing masks.
An odd experience from January 2020 (it was soon after the new year, as the store still had displays related to the Rose Parade): I went to a neighborhood chain drugstore (of the CVS/Walgreens ilk) one evening. There were four Asian women in the store, all wearing masks and gloves, filling multiple shopping carts with tissue, paper towels/ kitchen roll, bleach and bleach cleaning sprays, cleaning gloves and medical gloves, and every bottle of hand sanitizer in the store.
They were still shopping when I checked out. I asked the cashier how his evening was going; cashier said this was the second group that had come through and bought carts full of stuff, and that other stores in the area were also being cleaned out.
I didn’t think much of it at the time; later, when we’d run out of toilet paper, I wished I knew what these ladies knew.
To the original intent of this post…
My and our comfort level is remaining at home now and for the foreseeable future.
I’ve had my first jab and second is scheduled for the end of the month. My partner is two weeks behind me in the vaccination queue (I’m immuno-compromised and so qualified for the vaccine earlier than he did).
We are very aware of how privileged we are, to be able to work from home, to have a house where we are not on top of each other, to have a yard where we can be outside and isolated.
And we are thankful that most of our immediate family members are in similar situations and are now vaccinated.
That said, we have both lost loved ones to this virus - people who died horrible, miserable deaths - and know others who survived, some of whom are “long haulers” and still impacted by severe, life-altering symptoms.
One of my closest friends, a woman battling cancer who did everything right, caught the virus while undergoing a radiation treatment.
She did not deserve to die, much less deserve the hell of the death she experienced.
No one does.
Given the development of variants, given the possibility of being asymptomatic carriers and/or incubating variants, given that my partner’s work is in public health and currently focused on data related to the virus in California so we are looking at real-time numbers and discussions among public health/epidemiologists constantly, neither of us has any desire to dine out - indoors or outside - or to be anywhere in the public space where our masks are off.
This is for our safety and for those around us.
This is a very small sacrifice.
This is what we can do and we do it willingly.
Edited to Add:
Looking at the numbers and looking at current infections and those being hospitalized, an individual’s age and health are not great indicators of whether they will get sick, require hospitalization, or have lasting/long term post-viral complications.
On a slightly different note and as has been mentioned in other posts, risk assessment should certainly include one’s location/region. Los Angeles County is massive and while county leadership has been good with pushing for masks and social distancing messaging, the same is not true for nearby counties (Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino) nor is compliance.
People move regularly/daily between these areas and there’s ongoing interstate and international travel. Given these realities, there is a greater likelihood of encountering individuals who may be asymptomatic or who may be symptomatic and dismissive of that fact.
The more each of us chooses to refrain from interacting, the more time we collectively gain in getting a better handle on the virus. That’s good for all of us.
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I wonder if your experience reflects a language difference. In America, “Asian” still connotes, first and foremost, people of Oriental extraction, whereas in the U.K., if what I see on Britbox holds true, it’s the Indian subcontinent and adjacent countries. In American cities’ Chinatown districts, facemasks have been commonplace for the last two decades or so.
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That certainly accounts for it. I had forgotten that North Americans have "different " Asians to “our” Asians. As you say, to Britons someone of Asian heritage has a link to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. I’m never quite sure about whether it includes Afghans, but it probably does.
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A question for those who are comfortable with indoor dining: does the permitted occupancy limit (if there is one) influence your comfort while dining or deciding where to eat?
Follow on question: if a restaurant appears to be exceeding the permitted occupancy (25%, 50%, etc), would you still choose to dine there?
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I don’t think the occupancy percentage matters to me as much as having all of the tables spaced at least 6 feet or more apart and the workers wearing masks. I would be fine dining at a restaurant at 100% occupancy if all of the tables were spaced accordingly. I would not be comfortable dining at restaurant at 25% occupancy if the tables were on top of each other. Proper ventilation is also important for indoor dining. Last night we dined at a new restaurant, and it was one of the first times that I felt uncomfortable. The servers wore masks, but the hostess/owner did not, and was kissing and hugging all of the regular customers. The restaurant was fairly empty when we arrived, but filled to almost 100% capacity about one hour later. The tables were on top of each other. Luckily we sat in a separate area away from the main dining room cesspool, and had some breathing room. I felt like I went back in time pre Covid. Needless to say we won’t be returning back to that restaurant no matter how good the food was.
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I approve.
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In my part of the UK (England), regulations have not been based on percentage occupancy. I wish they were. Instead, they require tables to be spaced at 2 metres - but they can space at 1 metre with “mitigations”. Now, mitigations are not well defined but they might involve having screen between tables or a table arrangement where you were back-to-back with the other table. When places briefly reopened in the summer, we found most felt OK. We didnt feel crowded except on one occasion. In that place, whilst the servers were wearing masks and windows had been opened, that appeared to be probably the only changes that had been made. Certainly the room seemed as though no layout changes had been made and, small room as it was, felt quite crowded. I felt uncomfortable and wouldnt go back.
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But not the dress.
Some of you may be interested in this. The Boston Globe (April 20, 2021) reports that The Aspen Institute’s Food and Society Program has released a guide called “Safety First: Protecting Workers and Diners as Restaurants Reopen”.
At-a-glance guidance is available for restaurants and their customers.
For restaurants
Our COVID Pledge
For customers
Diner Code of Conduct
For those curious to know more, you can find the Globe article here. (Sorry, you may hit a paywall if you reached your limit of free articles and aren’t a subscriber. Not including the entire article because of copyright.)
For me, this was the most informative bit of the article:
“Q. When diners decide to go out for dinner, what should they ask? What should they look for?
A. I think they should feel good if they see the Diner Code of Conduct and the COVID Pledge up in the window. I would ask, “What have you done for ventilation? What are the new steps you’ve taken and how does it work in your restaurant?” In New York, I ate in one of those outdoor cabanas with a big, wide opening. There’s not the cross-ventilation I would like, but one door is open. I said to the server, who was incredibly friendly, what is your procedure between dining parties? I wanted him to say we take a big-ass fan and vent it out, but he said we’re very careful about wiping down the table. I thought, you should know by now that’s not what counts.”
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My observation from pictures and video and some business air travel is that diner/passengers consider a glass of water in front of them a free pass on wearing a mask. That’s just wrong.
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Thank you for the links, @tomatotomato.
From the Aspen Institute site, it appears the guidelines were published in May 2020 and yet the interview was just now. I’m not a subscriber to the Boston Globe (can only access through Safari’s Reader View option) and cannot see if there is a comment section, but am curious if these guidelines have been updated since originally published.
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Hi @ElsieDee! Yes, the guidelines were published earlier in the pandemic and updated this month (April 2021), according to The Boston Globe article. Guidelines will again be updated as CDC guidance evolves, the article said.
Also, I hope it’s okay if I say that I’m thrilled that you are a careful reader. 
ETA: Orginally i typed April 2020 but I should have typed April 2021. That’s on me!
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@Lambchop, I was correcting myself as you were noticing the error of my ways. You have certainly earned a spot in my Careful Reader Hall of Fame!
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Lol, was going to delete my post, but you’ve edited yours in such a way that it will make sense!
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