Covid...sometimes you gotta laugh or it will certainly drive you mad or make you cry.
Mask up on federal lands
- Thread starter MTGomer
- Start date
npaden
Well-known member
Sounds reasonable and I hope you are correct on the high degree of direction being given.
We have a mask required sign on our front door, but most of us work in individual offices and we don't require people to wear a mask if they are in their office. We have everything setup for the most part with social distancing in place.
I personally feel that for some people wearing masks gives them "permission" to not follow social distancing practices. Per CDC guidelines if you are within 6 feet of someone for 15 minutes or more you are considered to have close contact whether you are wearing a mask or not. Just because you are wearing a mask doesn't make it okay to get within 6 feet.
I personally think social distancing should get as much or more focus in these type of rules than mask wearing, it is actually more effective.
We have a mask required sign on our front door, but most of us work in individual offices and we don't require people to wear a mask if they are in their office. We have everything setup for the most part with social distancing in place.
I personally feel that for some people wearing masks gives them "permission" to not follow social distancing practices. Per CDC guidelines if you are within 6 feet of someone for 15 minutes or more you are considered to have close contact whether you are wearing a mask or not. Just because you are wearing a mask doesn't make it okay to get within 6 feet.
I personally think social distancing should get as much or more focus in these type of rules than mask wearing, it is actually more effective.
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I'm curious where you are seeing Forest Service LEO's? I know we have 1 but he's tasked with covering several thousand square miles and I doubt he will be looking for mask violations.
lastlight
Well-known member
Every single person here is already dealing with multiple repercussions from this virus and lockdowns and we have the most covid numbers and deaths I believe... so I guess what I’m saying is the path we are continuing to go down is insanity (doing the same thing expecting different results). Again, we have had the most strict mandates and shut downs and they haven’t worked well. So I guess my thoughts boil down to let people work, and if a small percentage of the population you’re referring to that don’t have the luxury and can’t collect unemployment if you open their place of work for being “at risk” well don’t be so damn selfish when people are losing everything already anyways... I dunno I’m rambling now. Biggest take away from this year is no one is willing to change their stance and the country is divided 50/50 like never before and that sucks. What sucks more is the narrative around covid and masks isn’t allowed to have nuance anymore. Its a closed book on the matter no if’s ands or buts..
We're a small business that got stabilization grants. I know a few others who did as well. There was a lot of graft at the federal level on those grants, with a ton of organizations &companies reeling in millions while small businesses went without.
Tom Brady bought a 4.4 million yacht, and took millions in stabilization grants. Joel Osteen was the same. Rather than dip into their own personal wealth to bootstrap their own companies, they let the US Taxpayer do it for them.
I'm of the opinion that if the Gov't forces you to shutter your business for any given period of time, then it's the Gov't's role to ensure that you don't lose your business because of that. Ideally, the funding from the relief bills congress passed would have helped do that, but it wasn't enough for either the out of work staff or the small business owners who are losing their investments & businesses from no fault of their own. I don't know how CA ran their small business stabilization grant program, but either there wasn't enough money in it, or some businesses didn't take advantage of it. It took accountants for us to get through it.
Every single person here is already dealing with multiple repercussions from this virus and lockdowns and we have the most covid numbers and deaths I believe... so I guess what I’m saying is the path we are continuing to go down is insanity (doing the same thing expecting different results). Again, we have had the most strict mandates and shut downs and they haven’t worked well. So I guess my thoughts boil down to let people work, and if a small percentage of the population you’re referring to that don’t have the luxury and can’t collect unemployment if you open their place of work for being “at risk” well don’t be so damn selfish when people are losing everything already anyways... I dunno I’m rambling now. Biggest take away from this year is no one is willing to change their stance and the country is divided 50/50 like never before and that sucks. What sucks more is the narrative around covid and masks isn’t allowed to have nuance anymore. Its a closed book on the matter no if’s ands or buts..
This is the "Not all lives matter" portion of pandemic planning.
npaden
Well-known member
I have seen a couple. Last time I saw one was when they were enforcing closing the camp grounds during the Obama administration.
I would see Park Service rangers being the most likely to be chasing down people for not wearing masks.
TheJason
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This could be applied to quite a few things today.
Seeking to slow the spread of the coronavirus, President Biden yesterday signed an executive order that will require visitors and employees to wear face masks while on federal property.
The order, which will be enforced for 100 days, applies to all 423 National Park Service sites.
"Put simply, masks and other public health measures reduce the spread of the disease, particularly when communities make widespread use of such measures, and thus save lives," Biden said in his executive order.
With the new Biden administration still taking shape, it's uncertain how quickly the mask mandate will take effect, but the president's order calls for "immediate action" by the heads of all executive departments and agencies.
Park superintendents today were still awaiting guidance from Washington on how to implement the new order, which will mark a big change for the park service. Until now, park officials have encouraged visitors and employees to wear masks, but lacked the authority to enforce a mandate.
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly called the new requirement "a very good thing" and wasted no time in getting his employees on board.
"Effective immediately, face masks are mandated within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park for anyone entering any facility in the park," Sholly said in a memo to park employees this morning. "This means a mask will be worn when inside, around anyone, at any distance."
Sholly said all employees will wear masks outside while in close proximity to other people or when recommended distancing cannot be maintained.
"NPS employees will also wear masks when driving government vehicles with other occupants," Sholly said in his memo.
Neither the park service nor the Interior Department responded to questions about whether park visitors who disobey the mandate will be ticketed or exactly how it will work.
The new order comes after the Trump administration declined to impose a mask mandate last year, vowing to keep most parks open even as thousands of federal employees contracted COVID-19.
Internal data obtained from the Interior Department last month showed that the virus had sickened 2,130 employees, killing 17 of them. The park service had the highest tally, with 522 employees testing positive, followed by the Bureau of Land Management, with 372 cases.
Citing the high number of cases, top House Democrats —- including Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Biden's nominee to lead the Interior Department —- had pushed hard for a federal mask mandate.
In August, Haaland and seven other Democrats, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, wrote a letter to then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt saying that the "practice of relying on passive signs to encourage mask use" was not working.
Grijalva weighed in again last month, urging Biden to make sure that a federal mask mandate would not be limited to federal buildings and that it include all national parks and other public lands. In a letter, he told Biden that such an enforceable mandate would help protect employees, visitors and "public health at large."
In his executive order, Biden said the new mandate would apply to all "on-duty or on-site federal employees, on-site federal contractors, and other individuals in federal buildings and on federal lands."
Biden said agency heads will be allowed to make case-by-case exceptions to the mask mandate but that they must all be documented in writing. In addition, the president's executive order asks all agencies to provide reports on their current safety protocols and safety plans.
Sholly said the mask mandate will be easier to enforce in the winter months, when Yellowstone gets only 30,000 visitors per month. He said he expects to work closely with NPS officials in Washington on exactly how the new administration wants the order enforced.
In his memo to employees, Sholly noted that "there will be many questions and nuances that need to be analyzed and discussed."
"It's our responsibility to work together with our teams, partners, and the public to keep Yellowstone accessible and safe to visit," Sholly wrote in the memo. "A follow-up written directive will be forthcoming outlining more specifics."
jryoung
Well-known member
Every single person here is already dealing with multiple repercussions from this virus and lockdowns and we have the most covid numbers and deaths I believe.
CA is well below the national average in deaths per capita at 85/100k and infection rate is closer to the middle at 7,500/100k
J
Jason73
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Or waiting to arrest a guy out in the ocean surfing.....it's happened and now with Sleepy Joe and ,la at the wheel it will get worse. Look at DC. 25000 guardsmen because 500 dumb asses acted insane. They will show their power. The elite ruling class is now back in control and you will obey!!
TheJason
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Oath Keepers, let's ride!!!
Hilljackoutlaw
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If some jagoff doesn't have enough respect to honor a business owners requirements on masks what makes you think that same jagoff is gonna respect big brothers requirements on masks? Their not, their gonna become more disruptive of the mask requirements. The mandates are eye candy to far left voters and government tyranny to the far right. And so the division grows stronger.
EYJONAS!
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84 till spring bear season......
TheJason
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18 hours until I'm out hunting with my dog.
Brandon270
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My wife and I had our first born in July, he spent his first 10 days of life in a children's hospital NICU. We had to visit him separately with a mask always on, all the nurses and docs had masks on 100% of the time. I pulled my mask down for a second a couple times in front of him and it was amazing seeing his reaction to seeing my face compared to wearing a mask. He didn't see my wife and I together/ bare faced until the day we got to take him home.
I get the mask mandates to a point but the outdoor requirements are ridiculous. There are however two things that cause me to question how helpful the masks are at preventing spread.
Living in a state that has mandated masks early on and constantly, it's rare to see an unmasked person in public at a store. With that amount of compliance we still have it spreading like wildfire locally even in a lesser populated semi rural area.
The second: my mother in law was in the e.r. for non covid issues and was talking to a nurse about covid in the hospital. The nurse told her half the staff has already gotten it and that includes people not treating known covid patients. She might have been exaggerating but it is still a high ratio of people getting it. Granted they are in the most likely place to pick it up, but with all the cleaning and ppe protocols and there's that many people still getting it makes me wonder how effective masks actually are?
Not trying to start any arguments just my thoughts.
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