Occam's Razor

We’re leaving New York City after three days of playing tourist. It’s my first trip away from home since the pandemic began.

It’s been interesting to see how much has changed for tourists in the age of covid, which turns out to be quite a lot. In NYC there are definitely privileges associated with being vaccinated. For one, we could get in to see two Broadway shows. Our vaccination cards and IDs were checked at the door, but even so we could not take off our masks during the performance. If you were eating or drinking food from the concessions, you could briefly unmask, but that was the only exception.

Amtrak requires you to self certify that you are vaccinated or have a recent negative covid-19 test, but doesn’t check your credentials. You wear your mask on the train, except when eating or drinking. Their cars are pretty big so it’s likely it wouldn’t be a problem if you were unmasked, but better safe than sorry. The penalty for not wearing a mask could be permanent disbarment from Amtrak.

You end up wearing a mask most of the time because most of the time you are indoors. There are a few exceptions when indoors. It’s pointless inside your hotel room. We had breakfast at our hotel and it was not possible when eating, but to get into the restaurant you had to show proof of vaccination and show an ID. Most people kept their mask on in the restaurant except while eating.

When outdoors, most people were unmasked. Those who were masked probably just didn’t want to bother temporarily unmasking. It’s not pleasant to spend most of your day breathing your warm air, but you do get used to it. The only real problem if that masks can get wet from your own breath after a while. I discovered a cloth mask is preferred, as a paper one I bought failed when looping it over my ears.

How safe is all this in the delta age? It’s hard to say. It’s unlikely I have acquired an infection, but for all I know I might test positive. I just don’t have any symptoms. I’m probably fine despite being in close quarters with other humans for hours at a time.

Without a N95 mask, masks won’t prevent me from getting covid, although they can lessen the odds. Their purpose is to reduce the risk that if I have the virus that I will pass it on to others. It’s basically common courtesy; wearing a mask effectively says that I care to take proactive steps to inadvertently pass it on to you. Not wearing a mask effectively says the opposite: I don’t care enough about you to bother to inconvenience myself by wearing one. No wonder that those of us who are vaccinated by 2:1 majorities are for requiring mask mandates for everyone.

So the vaccine can’t prevent exposure to the virus or ensure you don’t get the disease. If most everyone masks, it reduces greatly the odds of getting infected. But it does mean that if you are exposed to the virus, you may test positive but have no symptoms. The main point of the vaccine is to lessen the likelihood of hospitalization and death. That’s how vaccines work. So I expect that I will get covid-19 at some point, or at least test positive for it. If I’m lucky, I’ll never develop symptoms. If I get it, I will almost certainly not die from it and avoid hospitalization. And if most of us wear masks in public we can markedly reduce the level of infections and deaths.

I am noticing some new trends. At least in New York, restaurants are going menu-less: you need a smartphone to see the menu. You scan a QR code and follow the link to the menu. This saves a lot of paper, obviously, but it also allows restaurants to save money printing menus and to dynamically change prices. This is true of museums and other tourist attractions as well. For example, when we toured St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we used a QR code to download an electronic tour.

We were last in New York City in November 2019. The city has obviously changed since then. There are a lot of closed restaurants, even close to Broadway. Many restaurants are taking over sidewalks and parking places, allowing outdoor dining. The city doesn’t feel quite as busy and vibrant as it did back then. Broadway is about half reopened.

In general, New Yorkers are vaccinated and vaccine-savvy, and don’t have a problem masking up. They suffered 30,000 fatalities early in the pandemic, which helped, but being a large multi-cultural city they have learned to mostly get along with each other and are used to following rules.

It’s not surprising then that the city has weathered this latest covid wave reasonably well. These restrictions seem to be working reasonably well, allowing the city to do what it does best: make money. Judging by our hotel rates and ticket prices, they are making plenty of it again. I doubt this is true of most Southern states.