The New York tri-state area including Connecticut and New Jersey announced Monday that governors in those states will lift nearly all COVID-related capacity restrictions on May 19.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, retail stores, food services, theaters, fitness centers, amusement parks, hair salons, museums and other businesses in those states will be allowed to operate at full capacity as long as they can maintain social distancing.
“The tide is turning against COVID-19 in New York, and thanks to our increasing vaccination rates, as well as our successful, data-based regional approach, we’re able to take more steps to reopen our economy, help businesses and workers, and keep moving towards returning to normal,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement.
The governors admitted that continued 6-foot social distancing requirements could mean that many establishments will still face significant limitations on their capacity, but said the capacity was only limited by the space they have available.
“Incentive to be vaccinated”
“Life should be returning to normal” for vaccinated people, Cuomo said during a press conference on Monday. “You’re vaccinated. And it’s an incentive to be vaccinated.”
Commentator Meghan McCain, who is conservative compared to her co-hosts on “The View,” blasted other health officials and leaders Monday on the show for “psychotic” messaging on vaccines that she said basically removes all incentive to get them.
As her co-hosts mocked people hesitant to get vaccinated, McCain said that was exactly the wrong approach.
“The messaging towards evangelicals and Republicans is ‘you dumb hillbillies, stay the hell away from me,’ and I don’t think there’s any way that’s going to convince anyone of anything if that’s the messaging coming out of the White House,” McCain said.
“The messaging on this is absolute garbage towards conservatives and Republicans, and it’s getting worse,” she continued. “It’s a public health crisis. I agree we should all be vaccinated. I myself am vaccinated. I have no problem with vaccines. But the messaging is psychotic.”
Not enough
The recent CDC guidance that said it wasn’t necessary to wear masks outside if someone is vaccinated really doesn’t go far enough to incentivize vaccination, either.
If only 74 people out of the 75 million who have been vaccinated have contracted COVID and then died, as Business Insider reported, it seems to me that vaccinated people should be going back to their normal lives. They currently have a less than one in a million chance of dying from COVID.
If that’s not a low enough risk, I don’t know what will be.
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