Better Than It Seems

(Image from Wikimedia Commons. More at end of post.)

By the time you see this, I am due to be back in the UK. When I’m away I don’t like to broadcast it until after the trip is finished. For the Christmas holidays I visited my mother and aunt in the corner of southeast Texas where I grew up.

I’ve been surprised by what I found.

This was my first trip beyond easy driving range since early March 2020. Back then, my couple of weeks or so of visiting time was cut short to a day and a half when it became clear that borders were going to close sooner than we expected.

My FFP3 mask this time is more comfortable than the one I wore then. I chose an airline that puts extra emphasis on safety. They fly Airbus planes, so there’s no chance of being put on a Boeing 737-MAX (by any name). Their cabin crew wear face masks all the time. They wear disposable gloves when serving consumables. Their aircraft have good HEPA filters. I felt less at risk than I did in March 2020 on the same route.

From news and social media, I had an impression that face masks are even less common in most of the USA than they are in the UK. I had an impression that I was likely to catch flak about wearing my mask, and that it could easily become a violent confrontation. I thought most of the USA, especially in politically red states, was going about its business as though the pandemic is over. I thought prices and supply problems were comparable to where I live.

But Texas is more purple than its election results look. I won’t delve into that in this post. As I’ve said before, the safest, sanest places tend to have an even political divide.

Today I want to tell you what I learned about the gap between my impressions from afar and what I found.

Airport Security

In the UK on the way out? Same old, same old. Notebook PC, shoes, one-liter bag containing any liquids, jacket, belt, carry-on… all of that has to be laid out separately in the bins to go through the scanner. Nothing on top of anything else.

At Houston on the way back? I thought it would be like the UK, but it wasn’t.

Empty pockets, remove belt, stuff everything into luggage (including passport and ticket). Don’t keep a small plastic bag of tiny travel-sized liquids out. Don’t remove notebook PC.

Put jacket under carry-on bag in a bin. Put shoes and handbag (or whatever) in next bin. Take your turn standing in a magic scanner while bags go through their own magic scanner. Easy and quick.

Supply Chains

From mainstream media, I understand that supply chains are still messed up all over the world. UK government keeps saying shortages in Britain have nothing to do with Brexit and are no worse than anywhere else.

When I went into any type of store in southeast Texas, I still saw abundance. Shortages seemed limited and seldom glaring. Drugstore, grocery, DIY store… There weren’t many gaps on the shelves. Any gaps were small. A specific brand I prefer might not be there, but some other brand was available. The main exception? Lozenges for sore throats or coughs. That section was consistently nearly (not entirely) wiped out.

For months we’ve had empty sections on shelves in the UK, especially at pharmacies and supermarkets. They’ve been large. It has been especially common to find the entire section of cough and flu medicine bare, sometimes half an aisle empty on one side. ‘Nuff said.

Prices

Prices have shot upward in the USA as well as in the UK. After being away nearly three years, sometimes I was taken aback by how much prices have risen. Sometimes, not always.

Food used to seem “damned near free” (in the words of another Briton) in the USA. It isn’t any more. In particular, eggs are in short supply in both countries and can be absurdly priced. They’re as high as $5/dozen for major brands. But if you buy from a brand that is a cooperative of small producers, they are under $3/dozen. Depending on the source, they can cost more than or less than in the UK, where eggs are also in short supply.

Many restaurants have become expensive for those who eat out, on the order of $60 for two people having a mediocre meal. But at our favorite places, restaurant prices had not gone up as much as I expected. Our favorites are typically independent or part of a relatively small chain with relatively local ownership… with the exception of Popeye’s chicken, which we picked up to go.

When I crunch the numbers between American gallons and metric liters, then factor in currency exchange rate, automotive fuel is still less than half as much in Texas as in the UK.

Most utilities are less expensive too. My mother’s electricity costs about 2/3 as much as ours. Between lower utility prices and a milder climate, she can keep her house much warmer. My wife and I look like the Michelin character or the Pillsbury doughboy in our house this winter. Our living room, the warmest room in the house, is at least 15 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than my mother’s house.

An exception among utilities? Broadband. It was costing $50 plus tax to get 2.9 Mbps download speed, 0.41 Mbps upload speed. Speeds and reliability used to be better, but deteriorated over the past few years.

During my visit we switched the account to cellular broadband service. For about the same price, we got 22.9 Mbps download speed and 3.5 Mbps upload speed. Websites no longer time out in the midst of trying to do something. Video calls with my mother will be better.

My wife and I have faster speeds than the new service for about £25/month. Bear in mind that I had property in Chattanooga when that city began offering gigabit internet to every home and business, and now they have up to 10 gigs. Finding pitiful broadband in any USA city was disappointing, to say the least, and the price in Texas was higher.

Face Masks

Face mask wearers were a minority, but I saw considerably more mask wearing than in the UK. I even saw little kids in the grocery store wearing masks. A fair proportion of the face masks I saw were of high quality. N95 or KN95 masks were available beside chewing gum and candy as we waited to check out at the grocery store.

Television news, both local and national, often included people wearing face masks. There, too, they were a minority but significant. I even saw a news photo of a Republican officeholder with his face mask on, talking with a family on their front lawn.

Running errands and picking up supplies for DIY at the house, I only got one odd look at my face mask. Just one odd look. No comments, no confrontation, only normal friendliness. In one instance, a kid in a stroller seemed especially delighted to see me wearing a face mask. We waved at each other and smiled. (Don’t tell me that masks hide smiles. A genuine smile shows in the eyes.)

At one store where my mother needed to arrange for a service delivery, the young woman helping us was wearing a “baggy blue” mask that kept slipping out of place. I gave her two of my FFP3 masks and told her how to keep them working well as long as possible. She was grateful, not offended.

Outbreak Prevention & Surveillance

We had a visit with a few people who work or study at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. LSU is a big state-sponsored university in a state fully controlled by the GOP. You might expect pandemic denial.

Face masks are their starting point, not their only protection.

LSU has installed whopping serious air filtration throughout the campus. Instead of relying on increasingly fallible rapid tests, LSU monitors wastewater from student housing. If virus shows up in the wastewater from a dormitory, the university knows and can quickly step in to contain the potential outbreak.

I was impressed. This is cost-effective, intrusive only when necessary to keep infection from spreading, provides real-time notice of trouble… This model is smart. I would like to see more places adopt it.

In the UK, little of the pandemic surveillance system still operates other than the Office for National Statistics’ pandemic prevalence survey, which is a lagging indicator. Most of the pandemic surveillance system has been dismantled.

Vaccinations

Europe chose a bivalent booster vaccine based on the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and BA.1 from about a year ago. It is not very effective against the flavors of the virus currently circulating. To get my booster, I booked an appointment and went through a moderately long queue.

The USA chose a bivalent booster based on the original virus and BA.4/BA.5. It is significantly more effective against current flavors than the European booster.

I’m eligible. I got it as soon as I could. All I had to do was walk in, show my passport and vaccination cards, and get jabbed at no charge. The good news? The staff were great and the facility operates safely. The bad news? I was the only person there getting jabbed. I chose a day with hideous weather. I can understand most people not wanting to go out that day. When the weather was better, I routinely saw a few cars there, but never more than a handful.

Eating Out

In the UK, my wife and I going into restaurants happens about as often as a unicorn sighting. We’re comfortable getting takeaway. We’re happy to visit with people outdoors, go for walks with friends or family, have picnic lunches or small parties with friends outside, and eat at outdoor seating with well distanced tables at a pub or restaurant if the space hasn’t been surrounded with cloth or plastic “walls” that ruin the ventilation. We’ve learned what to wear to do this comfortably even in winter.

My mother occasionally goes out to eat. She got me to go with her. I can see why that has been okay for her when it isn’t for my wife and me.

The UK is densely populated, so everything tends to be compact. Tables in restaurants are close together. Buildings in the UK tend to be old and not have good ventilation. It’s an ideal environment to spread anything respiratory.

In Texas, the restaurant’s floor space tends to be larger with more space between the tables. There’s a central air system. Even if it doesn’t have HEPA filters in it, there is some type of filter to keep the ductwork and heat exchanger clean.

My mother chooses the place, day and time so she is the only or nearly the only customer in the restaurant. She can sit twenty feet away from anyone else. It may be at opening time for a place that fills up a couple of hours later. It may be at a bakery that serves lunches to hordes of people during the week, but on Sunday mostly hands over luscious desserts in to-go boxes to people who want to serve dessert after dinner. She can sit on the other side from where people walk in for takeaway and have the seating area to herself.

Getting Eyes Checked

In the UK, I’m entitled to get my eyes checked once a year. The place where I normally get my eye exam says on its website and in its annual reminder letter that it’s doing face masks, ventilation and social distancing.

When I went in for my checkup in August, none of that was true. Only one employee wore a mask. I was the only other person masking and the only one with a high quality mask. The shop was jammed full of people, too. The waiting area was elbow to elbow. Ventilation was limited to whatever wafts through the door as people come and go. The exam room at the back has no ventilation.

My appointment was incorrect. They said they had put me down for a week later. I told them to cancel it and left.

To be fair, the UK doesn’t have enough land per capita to allow a lavish amount of space in most shops of any kind. The climate is such that central air systems are uncommon except in big buildings in big cities. UK businesses can’t do anything about such things. They could require masks on their premises and they could add air filters. Hardly any of them have.

I paid for an eye checkup at Texas State Optical. Like most indoor facilities in Texas, it runs a central air system all the time. For all I know, TSO may only have ordinary filters in the system, not HEPA, but at least they have active ventilation with some filtration. They had a quarter as many people in about five times as much space, and most people were good about distancing. The exam room was twice the size of the exam room at my local eye place in the UK. I didn’t have to remove or adjust my face mask.

The exam was worth the price, expertly done and safe. I didn’t have to put myself at risk to get my eyes checked.

Doctors and Dentists

My mother’s primary care doctor and cardiologist both require everyone to wear a face mask at their clinics. If you don’t have one of your own, they supply a disposable mask for you. The cardiologist’s notice is especially direct. There’s no please or thank you, just a direct statement: “Wear a mask even if you’re vaccinated.”

In the UK, it’s hard to get onto the patient list for NHS dentists. My wife’s family has been going to a particular clinic all her life. They’re very good at dentistry. We pay privately to carry on going there.

They used have great pandemic precautions. Everyone masked whenever possible. Treatment rooms were aired out between patient appointments. Then the government declared everyone should behave as though the pandemic is over. The practice now says they’ll wear a mask if we ask them to. My next dental visit can wait until the tide turns again.

My mother’s dentist runs special filter units in every treatment room. The filters make what my wife and I use for rare indoor visits look puny. The dentist’s filters cost several hundred dollars apiece. They monitor the air for any particulates and fire themselves up to high speed as soon as they see anything in the air.

Summary

My impressions before my visit were wrong. I thought inflation was a little worse in the UK than it is in the USA. I thought supply issues were a little worse in Britain. The “a little” part wasn’t correct. I thought pandemic prudence would be more scarce in Texas than in the UK. I thought I might sometimes be at more risk in Texas. The opposite was true.

Why?

One factor I might have cited a few years ago seems wobbly now. In the USA, even when you’ve got health insurance, a serious illness or injury can lead to bankruptcy. It should be a powerful incentive to avoid getting sick. In the UK, we believe the NHS is ready to take care of us no matter what happens to our health. Whether or not it can do that has become increasingly uncertain in recent years. Have British thought processes caught up with the consequences of a health care system widely described as being on its knees? I’m not sure.

There are plenty of other differences between my two countries that could have something to do with what I found in southeast Texas.

Here is one. Britons are deeply conditioned to go with what authorities tell them. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard Brits say, “I just follow government guidelines.” It’s an advantage when authorities make wise choices (compliance with pandemic lockdown and mask mandates, especially the first time around, was good) and a disadvantage when authorities get it wrong.

Americans are inclined to question authority and not wait to be told what to do. In a mirror image of Brits, this is a disadvantage when authorities make wise choices that some people don’t like, and it’s an advantage when authorities aren’t doing what they should. These days nobody in government orders people to wear face masks when they go out in public or tells non-maskers not to hassle those who mask. Nobody told doctors in southeast Texas to make sure everyone masks at their clinics. Nobody told the dentist to put in serious air filtration. It made sense to protect themselves and their clientele, so that’s what they did, without waiting for authorities to make it mandatory.

I felt a lot less anxious than expected because more people were being sensible about airborne contagion than I had realized from the other side of the Pond.

It was better than it seemed from afar.

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Postscript: The Rainbow Bridge is between Port Arthur and Bridge City. Construction began in 1936 and made it the tallest bridge in Texas. It’s also among the oldest. I’ve shown an archive photo from before construction of the modern Veterans Memorial Bridge parallel to it. Legend has it that Janis Joplin and her friends used to climb the girders of the Rainbow Bridge. The scariest part of driver’s education was having to drive over it, especially if a big truck was coming at you in the other lane.

Still with me? Let’s sign off with a place that makes me laugh every time I drive by it when I visit my mother.