I flew to the US yesterday after three months in Japan and got my first glimpse of how Americans are behaving in the pandemic. So, a short thread on social distancing theater from someone with a mild case of public health culture shock:

First, the baseline I'm used to from Kyoto. Mask wearing is at maybe 80% outdoors, rising to 100% on transit. People don't eat in public and don't have audible conversations in public spaces (bus, grocery store, walking through train station). That last bit is just a social norm.

The first leg of my trip was a bullet train ride from Kyoto to Haneda airport in Tokyo, transferring at a major hub called Shinagawa. The train was not very full, but otherwise this trip was unremarkable compared to pre-pandemic times. I would not have noticed anything different

I got lost in Haneda because they have just renamed the terminals, part of an absolutely terribly timed expansion of international travel. So I wandered like a lonely spectre through most of what has become a ghost airport.

Then, from a distance, I heard the first loud indoor public talking in three months, as our American flight attendants walked the length of the empty terminal to get to our flight. I stress loud talking because there has been an emphasis on it in Japan's public health response.

The flight to Seattle was as socially distant as you can get in an airplane. Maybe 50 passengers, separated by acres of empty seating. Whether to cut workload or minimize interaction, meal service was very bare bones for an international flight, which was great! I'll eat at home.

Passport control took maybe six minutes. As usual, the sight of the border patrol was jarring; they wear flak vests and weapons in one of the safest workplaces on earth. I don't know if this is meant to intimidate or just tactical fashion. Most other countries do shirtsleeves.

The only health check at the US border is a question about whether you've been ill. There are footprint decals on the ground warning to keep 6 feet/2 meters of distance, but the queue leads back across every kiosk and then zigzags, so there's no way to maintain lateral distance.

Seattle requires arriving international passengers to exit the secure area and get re-screened. They have also closed the little tram between two terminals, but not updated the signage. So I had to walk the length of the entire busy airport and back to get to my connection.

Each individual business in the airport has dutifully painted its little social distancing footprints in front of it, for queueing, but no thought has been given for how to keep crowding down globally (or even laterally in the queue). Random construction makes the situation worse

The masks are worn as a sort of magical talisman. A lot of people just hook them under their chin, or take them off to talk on the phone or inhale a burrito while walking along. Most parents don't mask their kids, who ideally should be sealed in a soundproof diving bell.

(Incidentally I saw similar behavior in Japan, where a number of older men in particular would pull their masks down off their nose, for easier breathing)

My next flight was from Seattle to Salt Lake City, another Delta hub. The airline has blocked out all middle seats and urges passengers to keep six feet apart while boarding and "deplaning", that magnificent travel verb. They make everyone wear masks and give you a travel wipe.

Salt Lake airport is even more crowded and less mask compliant than Seattle. I didn't take any pictures because I wanted to get the hell out of there. People are clearly not as afraid of air travel as they were in March. Maybe they're right? Not a lot of airplane or TSA cases

Salt Lake City has banned the usual corps of people greeting returning missionaries at baggage claim, so my hopes of seeing a "WELCOME HOME ELDER CEGŁOWSKI" banner were dashed again, a pain that does not diminish with repetition.

I had to take a Lyft from the airport, and the driver was of course an immigrant. I didn't chat him up, Tom Friedman style, so we wouldn't be talking in a confined space. He had a phone mounted to the windshield showing music videos, and rewound "I Want It That Way" twice.

My overall impressions reinforce something I'd already come to believe (imagine that!) The various social distancing policies are well meant, but ultimately it all comes down to how people behave individually, and that will be driven by some mixture of anxiety and social norms.

Clearly, people in a state like Utah are not too scared right now. The roads are full, the parking lots are full, and in public spaces like supermarkets and stores you can see a lot of people not wearing masks. Social distancing is limited to artificial situations like queueing.

When the fear goes down, the behaviors (chinstrap mask wearing, keeping your distance front and back but not laterally) become ritualized. But at least people know the safety behaviors! Presumably if they grow more afraid again, they'll become stricter in compliance.

To me the Delta safety wipe is emblematic of our pandemic response. We will make token gestures, but Americans have also noticed that they're fairly safe right now outside of a nursing home, slaughterhouse, or a few metro areas, and you can't make them un-notice this.

This is why I've been so adamant about using data from our surveillance economy to see what people are actually doing. Too much analysis focuses on what policy went into effect on what date. I'm way more interested in the behavioral changes that only intrusive spying can capture.

I'll leave on a happy note, though. Lots of the masks I saw people wearing were decorative, including a bunch of camo masks for the tough guys. I heard one man compliment a woman on her U of Michigan mask. Go Wolverines! This is a good sign the social norm is getting established

If I could Japanify America a bit right now, I would ask for this:

- Stop eating in public
- Speak quietly if at all in public
- Install more plastic screens at checkouts
- Have little kids wear masks too
- Keep the mayo off the sushi