U.S. - Americans in several states are readily adopting new social distancing measures that will guarantee that no one ever gets sick again. California, New York, Michigan and Washington state legislatures have all issued new orders to their citizens to indefinitely don a plastic hamster ball whenever they decide to travel outside their home. The human-sized hamster balls are made to be impervious to all foreign particulate matter from the outside world including viruses, bacteria, and oxygen.
"I guess if it keeps everybody safe, we have to accept the new normal," said Carol from Seattle, WA, as she attempted to climb into the hollow sphere and snap the plastic portal back into a tight seal so she could get over to the grocery store. When she reached her car she quickly realized that she could not open her car door, or indeed interact with her car at all in any way, so she began the 2 mile journey to the store with a carefully executed controlled roll down her driveway.
The hollow safety spheres are creating a stir and cities are quickly scrambling to invent new traffic codes and install "tracks" along the roads that cars were once allowed to travel in order to minimize collisions and the occasional hamster ball getting stuck in a culvert or sliding off into a ditch.
"This is just the way things have to be and anyone who disagrees just wants grandmas to die," declared Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. "My conscience is as clear as these plastic safety spheres," she said as she pointed to the recently added selection of human-sized hamster balls right next to the seeds and gardening tools which were still behind a rope barrier and various signs deeming those items non-essential.
Citizens will have to travel to the store somehow to purchase the safety spheres and there is a grace period until everyone is able to pick one up.
"You can walk into a store with a mask, but you have to roll out in a safety sphere," declared Governor Andrew Cuomo.
"You don't want to be carried out in a coffin do you?" the governor added.
At publishing time, it was unclear if the order would cease to be necessary at some point or if this was just how things have to be from now on.