I attended.
I left before it started.
I didn't feel comfortable. It looked like a super-spreader event.
It was a Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Forum. There were 110 people in the ballroom, shaking hands and leaning in, talking loud near each other to be heard amid the buzz of competing conversations. It was a good crowd of politically engaged Republicans. They were at a country club lobby and meeting room to listen to seven candidates for governor make their cases.
I the only one wearing a mask.
I spent 10 minutes total at the event. I am vaccinated and boosted, but I don't feel invulnerable. People get breakthrough cases, then spread COVID, sometimes to people more fragile than themselves. My longtime accountant, a fellow Rotarian, is vaccinated and boosted. He just caught COVID and gave it to his wife. Both are OK, but I considered it a warning. It could happen to me.
My county had 424 new cases of COVID yesterday and we are having a surge. The official number for Jackson County is 1,167 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days. People are infectious for about seven days. This means at least 1.2% of local citizens are infectious. The real number is far more than that, of course. Some vaccinated people are infectious and never know it. They aren't included in the statistics. Other people have symptoms, and maybe take a home test, and learn they are positive. Why bother telling the county health people you have COVID? They were infectious for a while before they tested. Who knows if they isolate? A fellow who helps me at my farm got COVID, and his wife and three preschool children all got it. They never told anyone. COVID is out there.
I did a seat-of-the-pants calculation. There are over a hundred people here. What subset of the population would be most likely to be COVID-positive and unknowingly exhale omicron into this room? With the possible exception of a rural cowboy bar filled with young male partiers, I could think of no subset of people more likely to be COVID carriers than this one, even as cleaned up and polite as they all were.
As a group, Republican partisans are vaccine and mask skeptical, and many are adamant and proud of it. They have bumper stickers to say so, like the one on the car parked next to mine. This is a group of extravert activists, happily attending an event where they protest mask and vaccine mandates. They did not seem one bit concerned about getting or spreading COVID. That made me concerned.
I was wearing two masks, a tight fitting K-95 mask with a surgical mask over it. Masks like that protect others but don't do much to protect me. I wanted out. While leaving, I noticed an older woman wearing a N-95 mask. There were two of us!
I approached her. I said, "Hello, I see you are wearing a mask."
"Yes. I have lung cancer," she said. "I am trying not to get COVID on top of the cancer." I nodded and hoped my eyes above my mask showed empathy.
"It is inconsiderate for people not to wear masks," she said.
I nodded and said, "Well, they are doing what they want. It's a free country and we are free to leave."
When I attend events like this as a "political tourist," I try not to say much or reveal my own politics. I want to hear what people think when they aren't getting cues from me. But at this candidate forum that was impossible. I was sending a clear body language message with my masks.
I wish I had left sooner. Omicron is in the air. The event looked like those "chicken pox parties" people used to have. Everyone here was sharing the air. Probably some people were vaccinated, probably some were not. Either way, candidates and crowd were back to normal. Maybe one gets COVID, maybe not; maybe one spreads it, maybe not. Who knows? The hospitals are full? Oh, well. Quit fussing. Get on with our lives. Don't let people tell you to do something you don't want to do. Seven GOP candidates for governor were on display and their faces were making clear their position on COVID.
Head's up to skeptics: This may be a winning political strategy.
Oh dear. I'm glad you left to protect yourself.