If you had the chance to move to the USA right now, would you?

[HiddenGiraffes]

Context is it's a major city we've lived in before and liked, and we're currently in London, and like the area we live too. Some family in both countries.

I'm just curious if, given the opportunity to get out of the UK right now, people would consider the US a superior alternative.

We’re in agreement. Desantis embarrassed the lockdowners & Florida’s defection was implicitly underwritten by an armed population.

I hated guns before lockdown, considered them archaic, though the constitution was archaic, but now I fully grasp its wisdom.

@Liorae 🤣 You are right. I forgot for a moment that emotion trumps data here.

I just don’t get the frothing at the mouth. Is it envy or what?

It happens here too, of course. Mention New Jersey and watch how absolutely rabid some people become, about how awful it is there. “Armpit” is a common descriptor. Ask those same people when and where they have spent time in New Jersey and they either haven’t been there at all, or once flew into Newark airport and then went straight to NYC.

Wow you are so enlightened. Not nearly as many employers are offering that as much as the media makes it out to be and even when they do it’s just corporate talk. But the small time managers don’t always agree with everything the company is pushing and have actively worked to stand in women’s way. We shouldn’t have to get our employers permission to do any of that. So what is your point exactly? You sound a bit happy about it all. Perhaps you should go live there if you think it is not ‘that bad’. As a Texas born woman I can assure you there are many people in texas who don’t agree with this. There is a great deal if gerrymandering in texas. look it up.

Got it. Agreed!

I live in Florida. We most certainly locked down during Covid. Much more so than in Britain in fact, with school closures, mandatory masking, and not being allowed to socialize with those outside your immediate family. DeSantis likes to now claim that Florida was "free" during the worst of the pandemic, but we were actually under heavy restrictions at the time.

Sounds exactly the same as my state.

It did seem like the universities were handling things very differently in Florida, though, compared to our state schools here, though.

In what way do you think our universities were handling things differently than other states?

No way- guns, healthcare and politics!

Here at a specific university they were:
Put into hotels so the dorms would be less crowed.

Not allowed to eat in the dining halls - all food take away only. Food was thus pretty and limited and instead of buffets someone would serve them an exact amount. If you wanted more, it went in a separate container. Hard to carry much all the way across campus. Since it gets cold much earlier, the only option was to eat alone in your room.

Assigned friends - pods of 6 that they were allowed to spend time around. Hanging out with others was forbidden.

100% online classes for - I can't even remember how long this went on but 2 full semesters at least. A complete waste for a university freshman to have these massive classes online where professors didn't even show up for the camera most of the time. They were allowed to watch whenever, no reason to watch live.

Where at JU for example, my family member was facetiming with a friend who seemed to be at a constant party, surrounded by friends and completely unrestricted. Maybe it was more a matter of culture where there were rules not being followed. But up here at this specific university everyone seemed to be doing exactly as told.

The outcome for so many of these kids has been dire. I don't personally think it was worth it.

I don't have any kids in state schools here, although I have friends who do. I know that campuses were open, at least in a limited way, but I believe all classes were online. I'm sure there were students who partied as if nothing unusual was going on, but that was probably the case all over the country and wasn't something encouraged by the universities here.

My child goes to an out of state school which was completely shut down for the 20/21 school year. Dorms weren't even open.

Florida's lockdown was certainly not worse than Britain's.

Florida never had a statewide mask mandate, that was all local.

DeSantis apologised for the lockdown, said it was a mistake & it won't happen again; Boris Johnson and his entire cabinet to this day call anti-lockdowners conspiracy theorists.

Florida's lockdown ended in September 2020 and Britain was in various forms of lockdown through 2021 - both of my kids' end of year school activities were cancelled in June 2021, both of their Christmas related activities were cancelled, in fact the UK very nearly went into another lockdown over Christmas 2021.

DeSantis does not have perfect anti-lockdown credentials - Kirsti Noem does, but he took a lot more heat, having a much bigger and older state and I think it reflects well upon him that he's owned up to the relatively modest lockdown damage that he inflicted upon Florida.

Hmm a few years ago we had that choice to make (SF area) and I decided not to.

I think the uk is in a mess, and I often wonder if we’d been better off if we went, but it was Trump era and I couldn’t.

There are other countries I would rather go to - Canada, I’d run! But that isn’t what you’re asking!

On balance, if I had grown up children or no children, I think I’d consider the US now if the money was great. With young kids - nope, not a chance.

I had friends that left SF more than a decade ago because they couldn't afford to live there anymore. Now, I wouldn't even want to visit. It sounds horrific.

If lockdown in FL ended in June 2020 that explains everything. School for these kid's didn't start until September.

I disagree, although perhaps you're right that it was more local rather than statewide. Floridian kids were out of school while kids in Britain were in school. Floridians weren't allowed to socialize with people not in their households while Britons could socialize with up to 6 other people. Masking was mandatory when people in Britain could choose whether or not to wear masks. Many places required proof of vaccination to enter.

Lockdown in Florida certainly didn't end in June 2020.

Nope. I could claim American citizenship but not a chance in hell I would

I thought that sounded weird. But what was "lockdown" for you? For me, restaurants were closed, we worked from home and masks were required in stores. By June, that was no longer stopping friends from traveling, having small gatherings at home, parties in the yard, etc. It definitely never seemed as restrictive as what was described in UK. And we absolutely didn't have a culture of getting lectured by family or friends if we dared see a friend.

There was a brief period were I was worried I would be stopped and questioned on the interstate if I drove between our houses. (Recently married and not yet officially moved in together.) That never happened and I drove between the two houses, in different towns, on a daily basis because my cats were still in my house.

Going against the grain with most answers here but I would definitely consider a move to the US. Visited for a time last year and was in a few different states (Georgia, Tennessee, N Carolina and Alabama) and have to say I absolutely loved it. Felt very safe, people were friendly. I'm a nurse and happened to be sitting beside an American nurse on the way home, at the start of the conversation we both had the opinion the NHS was better than their system, at the end of the flight we both felt the US had the better health care system for our individual circumstances that is. I understand if you are low income/ can't afford it it'd be a big worry. But in saying that the NHS is a complete shambles atm and is quite frankly scary.

No. Lived there for a year and wouldn't return save for holidays. Very beautiful in parts but Europe is far superior imo.

The US Supreme Court has just pushed this to the states so that would be struck down right out of the gate. Not going to happen.

That's what people said about the SC overturning Roe v Wade in the first place.

I suspect what will happen is a National ban will be made law, either through Executive order or through a 50.1% majority vote in Congress, depending on who's sitting where in a few years. Pro-choice states will sue, arguing States Rights. US Supreme Court will overrule what those states want on the argument that (they believe) abortion is murder, and that murder is unlawful no matter where you go. Knowing them, they'll probably point to anti-slavery precedent to justify it, and twist equal protection under the law.

It's my dark and pessimistic theory. I hope for the saner outcome instead.

The reason it will remain unresolved is that the Dems like to use it as a wedge issue. It’s an important tool for them, and that ranks high above women.

They’ve had ample opportunity over the past 50 years to rectify what everyone knew was a poorly formed ruling.

Of course, now that “women” doesn’t mean natal females to them, it’s even less likely they will do anything about it.

It's hard to remember exact timings, but certainly early on in the pandemic there were stay at home orders in place, restaurants and other non essential businesses were closed, and masks were required in any public place.

I remember that my family in England had a lot greater freedom to socialize and it was a long time before masks were required, and even then it seemed to be that you could opt out if you wanted to. And for some reason children were exempt.

That first Christmas (in 2020) wasn't there some kind of rule in place that people in Britain could see a certain number of people from outside their households? We didn't have that. Not that we would be arrested or anything, but the rule was you didn't socialize outside your household.

In the 2020-21 school year, parents had the choice of whether to send their kids to school in person or be virtual. In person they had to wear masks. I don't know whether my young family members in England have ever worn masks!

I caught Covid for the first time in March 2021. I'm pretty sure I know where from. We were eating in a restaurant where people weren't masking when moving about the restaurant and where a lot of people seemed to know each other and were moving and socializing among tables. That was a year in to the pandemic and seeing that was incredibly shocking because it was so unusual while we were still being told to social distance. We should have left when we realized how dangerous the behavior was. Thankfully none of us had serious side effects from the disease.

Now whether these restrictions were a good thing or not is something we can consider with the benefit of hindsight, but from my perspective, seeing the difference between life in Florida at that time, and life in England at that time, it seems like everything was a lot more open over there.

www.kwqc.com/2021/03/15/timeline-covid-19-cases-in-the-state-of-illinois/

A partial timeliness the lockdown in Illinois.

School closures were announced overnight in mid March 2020, around St Patrick's Day iirc.
School districts moved immediately to provision of iPad or chrome books to students and online class began during the following week.

Shelter in place orders were issued by municipalities. The streets were eerily empty and silent immediately.

Playgrounds were shut, taped off with police tape. Libraries shut.

Mask orders were put in place by municipalities, the battery, and individual businesses. Bouncers manned the doors of supermarkets enforcing a one in one out policy. There was a maximum of two people per trolley allowed locally - no big groups were allowed in together. People without masks were turned away. Sanitizing sprays were used by supermarket employees to spray handles of trolleys. Arrows were placed on floors of shops so there was one way traffic through the store. Markers were placed six feet apart at the checkouts. Aldi stopped taking the quarter tokens and instead an employee sprayed down each trolley and gave it to the next person in line outside the store.

All bars and restaurants were closed - the pint sized Mayor of Chicago was so stern about shutting down the city, including all bars, restaurants, public amenities, that she was turned into a meme. The St Patrick's Day celebrations were canceled.

The only shops that remained open were hardware/ DIY shops and shops selling food. They could sell clothes or any other goods they offered if they also sold food.

Public pools were shut for the summer.

Only essential workers were allowed to go to work. All HCPs including MH therapists were included.

School districts in my area continued to provide free meals to all students in the programme. The meals changed to dry and canned goods. Families picked up a package estimated to last a week. As time went on, school districts opened availability of free meals to all students.

The plight of British students getting random free meal items was reported in the news.