Here in Santa Clara County, our public health department demanded that play structures close down during the first lockdown order and many parks closed. It is the one part of the response that I thought was really stupid and lambasted at the time.
Afterwards, many parents were still anxious and didn't let their kids out.
It's related to an overall value on "Purity" as a moral virtue.
I think what happens is that people like the author are very influenced by shame and therefore project the intent to shame on situations when they FEEL shame.
If I do something and someone tells me not to, I don't feel "shame", regardless of whether I agree with the direction or not.
That's not the case with some people.
I believe it's also associated with narcissism. If you are powerfully negatively impacted by shame you will do everything possible not to feel it including intense denial gaslighting and narcissism.
- Shame and social pressures from other parents' judgments about us.
- Desire to instill rule-following behavior within my kids.
At that point, since you didn't know any more about the epidemiology of covid than the experts, I should hope you had another reason to stay away not just arbitrary rule following or social pressure.
BTW, if you start tracking the current spread of Omicron, there is strong evidence that Omicron is contageous enough through close proximity even outdoors for short periods of time: Benches, ski chair lifts, playgrounds, hiking trail bottlenecks.
The original COVID variants weren't that contagious, but if they were equally threatening and as infectious as Omicron, it would have been a completely correct policy.
A weakly justifiable perspective that was away from the consensus view at the time and caused harm (probably reduced compliance with the reasonable measures, in addition to all the secondary harms).
I had cops threaten to give me a massive ticket for standing in the middle of a field with a telescope by myself. Said cops were 100% of my human contact outside my household in March. This probably wasn't our best enforcement bet.
> there is strong evidence that Omicron is contageous enough through close proximity even outdoors for short periods of time
I don't buy this. I'm in a test-100%-weekly environment and this happening any more than rarely isn't compatible with our observations.
> The original COVID variants weren't that contagious, but if they were equally threatening and as infectious as Omicron, it would have been a completely correct policy.
We already had a decent estimate of R0 as 2.0-3.5 even in dense environs, and consensus was already forming around a 2.4 "best guess". We also knew that indoor was the vast majority of that 2.4.
But we're in a mountainous region and it's winter, and we all ski. I know 3 people that got Omicron and the only close proximity to people they had in the time period was chair lift lineup and the chair lift itself.