JASON RANTZ

Rantz: Shame Seattle residents into following coronavirus stay-at-home order

Mar 23, 2020, 9:34 PM | Updated: Mar 24, 2020, 6:13 am
Coronavirus, shelter in place...
The Seattle skyline. (Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced a coronavirus stay-at-home order Monday evening after a weekend of millennial and Gen Z Seattle residents ignored previous guidance.

Will they listen this time? I don’t see why they would. So, it’s time to shame them.

For weeks, local and national public health officials and politicians implored residents to stay at home unless they had to leave. Inslee literally pleaded for social distancing. Yet, when it was sunny out, hundreds flocked to local parks and beaches. The technical terms for their behavior? Stupid and selfish. And now we have a more stringent order to stay-at-home.

Coronavirus stay-at-home order sans enforcement

Inslee made a note to say his order is enforceable by law. That may be true. But it won’t be.

The coronavirus stay-at-home declaration will not be enforced by any law enforcement; certainly not in a meaningful way. There may be limited involvement if a park has a bunch of people hanging out and cops want to break it up, but two sheriffs I’ve spoke to on air indicated they won’t enforce the stay-at-home order.

“If you think we’re gonna be out there in neighborhoods checking for people who are violating a stay-at-home order. No, absolutely not,” Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “We’re not gonna be doing that kind of stuff.”

They’re not staffed to. They’re also not being asked to, with shockingly little communication between the governor’s office and law enforcement agencies.

But teens and young adults will suddenly listen to the governor?

Selfish and stupid

Q13 spoke to some younger adults (who looked to be between 16 and 30) at Alki Beach this past weekend. They didn’t seem to care about the shelter request. It’s not like they were ignoring guidance to get to work; they were ignoring it to hang out at Alki. This is beyond selfish.

More rhetoric coming from Inslee can’t fix apathy. So what can? Unfortunately, two things we don’t want to have happen: More death and law enforcement.

We obviously don’t want people to die but when someone close to these selfish brats ends up getting coronavirus, it will become real. So how do we make this real to them, without having to subject older adults to the virus?

We also don’t want cops enforcing the coronavirus stay-at-home order. That can be dangerous, panic the masses, and create more tension and anxiety. So how to we get people to listen when there’s no enforcement?

I have an idea.

Grandma and grandpa: Shame the kids!

It’s up to the vulnerable population to speak up and plea with their grandkids. Be blunt. Tell them not only does their flouting the law disappoint you, but it puts your life at risk.

Ask them if they want to see you die.

They’ll laugh it off and call you dramatic. But then get even more serious and ask them if they want to see you die once more. Ask them until they take you seriously. Shame them. Guilt them. Yell at them. Do what you need to take them seriously. They only need to listen for a couple weeks and we’ll hopefully see the curve flatten. Then they can return to being selfish and stupid. But in the meantime, get on their cases.

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow @JasonRantz on Twitter.

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Rantz: Shame Seattle residents into following coronavirus stay-at-home order