I just took a 1,600-mile road trip from Washington to St. Louis and back. I was shaken by what I saw.

(1/x)

Almost everywhere I stopped — gas stations, rest stops and hotels, across Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois — there was a sign on the door saying that people had to wear masks to enter. And almost everywhere, most people ignored the sign.

(2/x)
At a Fairfield Inn in Ohio, a middle-aged couple sat unmasked on a lobby sofa for hours, drinking beers and scrolling through their phones. The hotel staff evidently did nothing about it.

(3/x)
At a convenience store in Indiana, a hand-drawn sign on the door read: “Face masks are required. Please do not enter without one!!” Customers did anyway.

(4/x)
Nationwide, about half of Americans are not wearing masks when in close contact with people outside their households, according to a survey by the University of Southern California. (5/x)
Wearing a mask isn’t much fun, I realize. But the inconvenience sure seems worth the benefits.

Study after study has shown that masks reduce the virus’s spread.

(6/x)
Millions of Americans have decided they would prefer more Covid — for their communities and potentially for their families and themselves — to more masks.

(7/x)
Accelerating the vaccination campaign is an urgent task for Biden, and he seems to have a plan. But if he doesn’t find a way to persuade more Americans to do their part to slow the virus’s spread, a lot more people will die in the meantime.

(8/x)
https://t.co/cuSSBtFKqv
I feel like I just drove across a country that’s losing a winnable fight.

(fin)

https://t.co/cuSSBtFKqv

More from Society

It is simply not correct to point fingers at wind & solar energy as we try to understand the situation in TX. The system (almost) had a plan for weather (almost) like this. 1/x


It relied on very little wind energy - that was the plan. It relied on a lot of natural gas - that was the plan. It relied on all of its nuclear energy - that was the plan. 2/x

There was enough natural gas, coal and nuclear capacity installed to survive this event - it was NOT "forced out" by the wind energy expansion. It was there. 3/x

Wind, natural gas, coal and nuclear plants all failed to deliver on their expectations for long periods of time. The biggest gap was in natural gas! The generators were there, but they were not able to deliver. 4/x

It may be fair to ask why there is so much wind energy in ERCOT if we do NOT expect it to deliver during weather events like this, but that is an entirely different question - and one with a lot of great answers!! 5/x

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