Thread by @gauravsabnis

People still fighting or debating the efficacy of masks? Kansas ended up conducting a quasi field trial by leaving it up to counties. This CDC report is as crystal clear as it gets. Infections declined in mask counties, doubled in no mask ones.

cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…

As I've been tweeting, NYC is still mostly masking up. WITHOUT a mandate. And I hear the same logic from many others as mine - "I don't wear it for me. I'm vaccinated. I wear it to not be a carrier."

Crisis time New Yorkers are bae. Other times too. 😍

nytimes.com/2021/04/29/nyr…

NYC officially fully reopens sans capacity restrictions on May 19th. It's been about 75% back to normal in terms of crowds and socializing for a couple of months. But curve declining. Combination of rapid vaccination and uniform mask wearing. Becomes a peer pressure thing too.

And a lot of it is due to the moral backbone of NYC - ubiquitous outspoken women in their 60s and 70s who were clearly activists in the 60s and 70s too. "Where's your myask?" you'll often hear an Estella Costanza type voice rebuke a non complier. Who wilts instantly.

One time I heard one such lady lecture a smoker "I understand you have to take it off to smoke, but you can slip it back on between puffs" 😂😂

I'd love to work with a comic book artist to tell some stories of these amazing elderly women in NYC, the flower child Vietnam ERA Hillary Clinton generation, whom wife and I have gotten to know really well through the pandemic. How nice and righteous they are just day to day.

When I started living in the city, I was often amused at how personal timelines were calibrated in terms of crises, "yeah those son of sam days were scary but were you here during that big blackout".

Now I'm totally one of them. My scale so far goes sandy, trump, covid.

These two bits perfectly encapsulate how NYC keeps weathering crises.
1. This "I don't want to be the first asshole" sentiment, which is strong here.
2. This collective responsibility we feel as New Yorkers to somehow show we are not self destructive fascists.