[2006alum]

Political disaster. Very unwise.

You wouldn't know it's a political disaster if you were up here in Oregon. We just drove from Eugene out to Depoe Bay on the coast with family (staying with family in quarantine, BTW) Friday and then back to Eugene today. Oregon seems mostly settled in support of the governor's caution. Nobody anywhere without a mask, businesses all complying ... during the total of five hours driving back and forth, we did encounter one Trumpism parade of 10 pickups with flags, today, Sunday ... the rest of the traffic quietly ignoring them, passing in the left lane, and avoiding them. No sympathetic honking. Lots of rolling eyes. Local papers reporting the new shutdown without a lot of comment.

+1.

Had a zoom call earlier today with my friends back home in Oregon (where I grew up). One is an ortho whose business was devastated from the shutdown in the spring, and has been recovering ever since. She's worried non-emergency dental work will be next to shutdown. Nevertheless, she went out of her way to say she was debating about writing Governor Brown a personal note thanking her for following the science and aggressively putting the public health above politics. (Notably, her sister is the chief attending at my hometown hospital's emergency room, and she's seen her ICU SWELL with patients in the last 10 days, and says things are going to get dire really fast if something doesn't stop it.)

Notably, my other Oregon-based friends on the zoom, each of whom lives in one of several other cities in the state, seemed not the slightest bit perturbed by the governor's order - if anything, they're furious at the anti-maskers for turning this into a year-long ordeal. And several have kids who've had to attend school remotely essentially non-stop since March.

I'm sure there's a self-selection effect, but that self-selection long (20+ years) precedes COVID. Among my crew, it doesn't sound like a political disaster to constituents who are among those most affected (both positively and negatively) from the shutdown.

[2006alum]

Political disaster. Very unwise.

You wouldn't know it's a political disaster if you were up here in Oregon. We just drove from Eugene out to Depoe Bay on the coast with family (staying with family in quarantine, BTW) Friday and then back to Eugene today. Oregon seems mostly settled in support of the governor's caution. Nobody anywhere without a mask, businesses all complying ... during the total of five hours driving back and forth, we did encounter one Trumpism parade of 10 pickups with flags, today, Sunday ... the rest of the traffic quietly ignoring them, passing in the left lane, and avoiding them. No sympathetic honking. Lots of rolling eyes. Local papers reporting the new shutdown without a lot of comment.

+1.

Had a zoom call earlier today with my friends back home in Oregon (where I grew up). One is an ortho whose business was devastated from the shutdown in the spring, and has been recovering ever since. She's worried non-emergency dental work will be next to shutdown. Nevertheless, she went out of her way to say she was debating about writing Governor Brown a personal note thanking her for following the science and aggressively putting the public health above politics. (Notably, her sister is the chief attending at my hometown hospital's emergency room, and she's seen her ICU SWELL with patients in the last 10 days, and says things are going to get dire really fast if something doesn't stop it.)

Notably, my other Oregon-based friends on the zoom, each of whom lives in one of several other cities in the state, seemed not the slightest bit perturbed by the governor's order - if anything, they're furious at the anti-maskers for turning this into a year-long ordeal. And several have kids who've had to attend school remotely essentially non-stop since March.

I'm sure there's a self-selection effect, but that self-selection long (20+ years) precedes COVID. Among my crew, it doesn't sound like a political disaster to constituents who are among those most affected (both positively and negatively) from the shutdown.