Originally Posted by
WhyFi
Okay, so that's a theory. How does this square up with the spread among cyclists IRL? Is it those damn pacelines in FL and TX that are leading the surge? Somehow, I doubt that.
My impression from watching friends, acquaintances and associated networks of acquaintances that includes pretty much the entire local government: the problem isn't necessarily group rides, fast or otherwise. It's the complex network of associates.
Many of my friends and acquaintances continued group rides throughout the pandemic, with the exception of a brief pause for a month or so in spring 2020.
At first they tested the waters with one group ride a week among close friends.
Pretty soon, some were also joining other small group rides. And members of those other groups also joined other groups. And so on.
Some are directly involved in local government, or in businesses that are actively involved in local government. And photos on social media indicate they continued participating in many indoor activities -- where masks have limited effect. By summer 2020 most had discarded masks in most situations, especially outdoors.
So it's not just a group ride, fast or otherwise. From what I've seen among friends, if they participate in any group rides at all, they probably have a diverse network of other contacts. And the longer they went without experiencing any COVID symptoms, the more risky contacts they engaged in.
It's likely the people who did become ill were their older family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, clients, etc. The handful of reports in the news about COVID deaths indicate these were mostly folks who were elderly and/or disabled or with compromised immune systems, diabetes, heart or respiratory disease, etc. That includes the elderly parents of a local personal trainer, whose clients included the mayor. His parents both died. The mayor got sick but recovered. That's just one example. Most got little or no news coverage.
The main problem wasn't resistance to reasonable precautions while waiting for vaccines. Most folks just didn't believe it was real, or really serious, so they didn't see much need for precautions. The economic crisis took priority, which is understandable. The main problem continues to be resistance to vaccines. It was predictable that people would quickly tire of masks, social distancing, constraints on business, travel, etc. But it wasn't predictable that we'd see so much resistance to the easiest practicable solution -- vaccines. That's a head scratcher, at least for those of us who grew up in an era when immunizations were considered a routine, mundane thing that we just did because it made sense and it worked.