As LA Mayor Eric Garcetti kicks off the most restrictive lockdown in the country in the City of Angels, it appears even walking and exercise are now banned as California takes a page out of Australia’s COVID-19 playbook.
During comments earlier this week, the LA Mayor warned “it’s time to cancel everything”, including “unnecessary travel on foot” – also known as ‘walking’.
Less than a day after issuing new health guidelines that banned trick-or-treating and other Halloween activities, Los Angeles County public health officials walked back the decision Wednesday.
Citing an inability to maintain safe social distancing and the potential for gatherings beyond household members, county officials initially nixed trick-or-treating along with other Halloween traditions, including haunted houses and parades.
But Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday that the guidelines have been “slightly revised.”
Ferrer said the change distinguishes between activities originally prohibited under the health officer order from activities that are “not recommended.”
“This year, it’s just not safe to celebrate in the ways we usually do,” Ferrer said. “We are recommending that trick-or-treating not happen this year.”
The Department of Public Health previously said that because some of the traditional ways in which Halloween is celebrated do not allow contact with nonhousehold members to be minimized, it is important to identify safer alternatives.
“Trunk-or-treat” events involving car-to-car candy dispersal, which are sometimes held by churches or schools, also are not recommended under the revised order.
One of our readers reached out early this evening—September 1st, 2020—letting me know he saw a formation of four MH-6 Little Birds flying in tight formation over Interstate 5 near downtown Los Angeles. I joked at the time that it will be just a matter of hours until people start freaking out due to the urban training operations they were likely about to execute. Just like clockwork, a few hours after the sun had set, the social media posts began emerging. People couldn’t understand what they were seeing, and how can you blame them? Watching blacked-out little helicopters, most of which usually run with no lights, ripping low over rooftops, landing on tall buildings and quickly departing, and even flying down city streets, is certainly concerning—any action movie will tell you that. But the reality is that it’s only the world’s best helicopter pilots that are tasked with the hardest missions practicing to fight future wars and to respond to terrorist incidents in what the Pentagon has dubbed ‘megacities.’
Hellbound and Down 
