As COVID-19 cases in California increased, Apple announced this weekend that the company was closing all of its retail stores in the state. Also, as a new strain of the coronavirus sprouted up in London, Apple decided to close their stores in the greater London area as well.
Rich Duprey for The Motley Fool:
Apple operates 53 retail locations in California and has over a dozen in London. It’s the second major closure of its stores in the U.S. since Apple shuttered all its stores globally earlier this year in response to the pandemic.
Despite having some of the toughest containment measures in place in the U.S., California is still seeing one of the most severe increases in new coronavirus cases.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed new lockdown orders and bans on travel. A number of countries have imposed travel bans from the U.K., although the country is still allowing people to fly in.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s retail store site states the following for California locations:
Temporarily closed. [We] are currently open for pickup of existing online orders, previously scheduled in-store Genius Support appointments and previously reserved one-on-one shopping sessions with a Specialist made through Tuesday, December 22. For best service, please arrive during your reserved time.
Apple’s London-area retail store pages state:
We’re currently open for click-and-collect including returns, and storefront Genius Support by making an appointment. We are unable to welcome walk-in customers at this time, but look forward to welcoming you for storefront pickup and support.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Fools.
Tim Cook in a nutshell:
Moral narcissists are helping to make sure America’s COVID-19 lockdown continues in full force, shaming anyone who objects, refuses, questions, or even simply voices concerns or complaints…
We’re supposed to think that the continued shutdowns over the coronavirus are good. Those who dare to ask about the science and models behind lockdown orders, the increasing collateral damage to our economy, or the difference between dying with or dying of the virus, much less the deaths that are happening because of the shutdown—receive swift judgment from the moral narcissists. Not in the form of factual or intelligent answers, but rather, questions framed to shame:
“Don’t you care about granny? Do you want more people to die? Is the economy more important to you than people’s lives?”
…Even though one-size-fits-all versions of anything rarely fit anyone at all, the narcissists still insist on this style of sweeping, draconian strategies to combat the virus. The individuals suffering from lack of proper medical care for other conditions, unemployment, etc., are but specks in the narcissist’s imagined grand picture of the greater good for the collective…
The crisis of the virus has certainly given power-hungry state and local politicians a power-grabbing opportunity that they couldn’t let go to waste. But for the moral narcissists, it delivered them the perfect scenario for shaming others into conformity: new rules in order to save lives from the virus—the perfect companion cause to add to their quest to save the planet from climate change…
Reopen Society And Shut Down Moral Narcissism — Cindy Simpson
Nobody questions your right to ask awkward questions. The problem is when you answer those questions with “facts” that are simply not true. You employ those nonfactual assertions by posing a false dichotomy (either ignore medical advice or shut down completely) and come down on the side of “reopening society” by denying that the strategy has real costs for real human beings like the 113,000 who are currently hospitalized and the 305,000 who have died.
You would be an expert in stating facts that are not true.
By your logic car and plane travel should end in order to stop all the deaths associated with modern travel.
Exactly the false dichotomy I just mentioned. We don’t end motor vehicle travel, but we do mandate that cars have operable brakes and that riders wear seat belts. We prevent preventable deaths. We do not just shrug our shoulders and buy extra refrigerator trucks to store the bodies because cars with brakes are more expensive.
Likewise, if the Guy in Charge who knew exactly how deadly the new coronavirus was in January had followed the already-existing pandemic response plans, rather than telling everybody that it was going to disappear on its own in April, that measured response would have made the lockdowns unnecessary. If he and his supporters were not still minimizing the virus almost eleven months later, droves of otherwise sane citizens would not be engaging in the behavior that has made the latest lockdowns necessary. It is not an either/or.
You’re just not a bright person.
Drug overdose deaths far outpace COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco
A record 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far… The [WILD OVERREACTION to the] coronavirus pandemic has disrupted city services like housing and treatment, and left many people who rely on others to help save them if they overdose to die alone.
Weak-minded people like you, Gavin Newsom, and Mario Cuomo’s retarded children cannot weigh risk and respond appropriately.
You and your ilk do far more harm than good because you’re too stupid to see the full picture. You’re incapable of thinking more than one move ahead.
You react to COVID like a herd of sheep to a thunderclap. “BAD! SCARY!” and you bolt off the nearest cliff. Unfortunately, in this case, you’re taking a lot of innocent people over the cliff with you. May they somehow survive to someday wreak their revenge.
But drug overdoses aren’t contagious. Likewise, notwithstanding the potential for infections spreading to the general public, Apple has a duty of care towards its employees.
San Francisco has an extremely low coronavirus death rate (less than 22 per 100,000) precisely because of the restrictions and compliance with them. California as a whole has 58 per 100,000, largely thanks to Los Angeles County being 88. North Dakota has 162; South Dakota 154; Mississippi 148.
So, San Francisco is an argument for how well social distancing works, not an argument for deregulation while cases are rising.
In Florida, most counties have so far smartly refused to implement mask mandates while others, usually in high population centers, have kowtowed to those who claim to follow “science,” yet fail spectacularly to do so.
Justin Hart and the team at Rational Ground just released a comprehensive data analysis of masked vs non-masked counties in Florida. A total of 22 of 67 counties in the state have implemented a mask order at some point during the period of May 1 through December 15. Many or these include almost all of Florida’s largest metro areas.
To be more than fair, if an area added a mask order at some point during the outbreak, the study’s authors gave a 14 day period to allow time for cases to begin subsiding. “Cases were summed for both mandate and non-mandate jurisdictions and adjusted per 100,000 people for days the mandates were or were not in effect.”
So, if your beloved masks performed even remotely as advertised, one would expect to see the counties that went maskless to be absolute dumpster fires next to the counties that implemented mandates, right, ye genius who strives in vain to control everyone’s activities and thoughts due to some deep seated personal defect?
“When counties DID have a mandate in effect, there were 667,239 cases over 3,137 days with an average of 23 cases per 100,000 per day. When counties DID NOT have a countywide order, there were 438,687 cases over 12,139 days with an average of 22 cases per 100,000 per day.”
In other words, for the TXLosers in the room, the counties with mask-mandates actually did WORSE than those that smartly refused to implement them.
Rational Ground then went on to compare U.S. national results for the smart states that did not try to force statewide mask mandates against those cowardly and stupid states led by authoritarian nincompoops mandating masks.
“When states DID have a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 cases over 5,907 total days and averaged 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states DID NOT have a statewide order there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.”
Mask mandates do nothing to stop or even slightly curb the spread of COVID-19.
Read it and weep, as we all do, for your embarrassingly low IQ and for your insipid knee-jerk need to immediately bow before “the experts” like the weak beta pawn you so clearly are:
https://rationalground.com/post-thanksgiving-mask-charts-still-no-evidence-that-masks-work/
As you yourself point out, the counties with mask mandates were mostly the urban counties with high case rates anyway. Comparing those with lower-density rural and suburban counties is apples and oranges.
In any case, the issue is not whether a county had a mask ordinance, but whether most people chose to comply with it. I’m guessing that there was pretty low compliance in the counties where the sheriff announced that his deputies would not be enforcing mask requirements.
Again, the death rate in maskless states like Mississippi and the Dakotas is three times the rate in California and up to eight times the rate in early-adopter San Francisco.
Face reality…people will die. Just like flu, pneumonia, etc. Open up and let people decide what course of action is right for them. Taking away the right to earn an income and support yourself and family is beyond oppressive…and far beyond the ramifications of Covid.
How about repealing the laws against armed robbery that take away the right to earn an income and support yourself and your family? Sure, people will die, but why not open up and let folks decide for themselves?
Doing that would ignore the threat to the victims, just as refusing to address coronavirus ignores the threat to innocent victims. The public’s right to health and safety trumps the rights of both armed robbers and COVID scofflaws.
TX USER:
Your socialistic religious beliefs apparently far outweigh your logic. You griped about the comparisons others made between high density population areas and less denser populated areas and then you guessed (speculated) about the willingness or ability of the respective residents of those areas to follow COVID “restrictions” and guidelines and the like. Now, you choose to compare honest, law-abiding, non-violent citizens with armed and potentially deadly bank robbers.
Who is the nut job here? It’s YOU!
If they are violating mask rules, they aren’t law abiding. If they are denying the risk, they aren’t honest. If they are spreading the virus, they are potentially deadly.
They share all those characteristics with bank robbers, yet nobody thinks we should let robbers “decide what course of action is right for them” without considering the rights or safety of others. Nobody thinks that laws against robbery are “taking away the right to earn an income and support yourself and family.”
The whole point of any criminal law is to make people refrain from doing something they would otherwise choose to do. We pass laws because that action is harmful to society. There is no constitutional right to put others at risk.