Working 24/7
Well, you see, it was a very warm weekend.
Tens of thousands of people packed southern California beaches over the weekend, reigniting fears that large crowds in public spaces could reverse progress on containing Covid-19 in the US.
Photos of the gatherings in Newport Beach, Orange county, during a weekend heatwave sparked intense backlash and comparisons with Florida, where images of beachgoers raised alarms about the state’s coronavirus strategy. In recent days, beach and park reopenings have also prompted debates and public health concerns in Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and other regions looking to re-emerge from lockdowns.
But isn’t there some kind of magic thingy where crowded beaches don’t count? Because the sand scares the virus away? Something like that?
On Monday, California’s governor Gavin Newsom chastised those who crowded the beaches, saying “this virus doesn’t take the weekends off”.
“This virus doesn’t go home because it’s a beautiful, sunny day along our coast,” the governor, who last week urged beach-goers to practice physical distancing, said at his daily news briefing.
Ok it doesn’t go home but maybe it dozes while getting a tan, instead of infecting people?
Not very social distance.
So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.
Maybe gargling seawater helps. What have you got to lose?
They’re safe because they’re bathing in nature’s UV lamp. Trump said this works, how can you even doubt??
I’m no epidemiologist, but my suspicion is that the problem isn’t so much the “sitting in your beach chair” part, because people naturally do some social distancing — you don’t set up your beach chair next to a stranger.
Similarly, I don’t really see much risk in talking a short walk along a beach, any more than in a park or anywhere else, at least until it gets so crowded that distancing is impossible.
Not sure about the swimming in the ocean part, it probably depends on how the water circulates on beaches — is there a likelihood that the virus can be on infected Person A’s body, get into the water (this part I assume is true), and then survive long enough to get on uninfected Person B’s body?
I suspect that the real risk of this kind of beach crowding has to do with facilities. If you’re bringing beach chairs and coolers and such because you’re having a “day at the beach” (something which I have to say sounds great in theory but I can’t stand in practice), you’re almost certainly sharing changerooms and showers and toilets with a whole bunch of other people.
But from the photo it looks as if there’s a lot of not-social-distancing of the large group sitting together type – much larger than your average household. (It’s households that aren’t told not to distance, as opposed to families – I’ve been assuming because if you live together it’s already too late so don’t bother but everyone else, do very much bother, including adult children & their parents.)
Also the more people there are in a limited space the harder it becomes to distance. I assume that’s why there are signs in and around the (very small) parks in my nabe saying “crowded parks lead to closed parks – keep your distance.”
That horrifies me. I can’t understand how people can be so selfish that they would risk picking up the virus and passing it on to someone who won’t survive intact, if at all.
Our household is very much social distancing – I’ve had no contact with my daughter and her family (my husband and I live in a granny-flat/an apartment at one end of her house) since mid-March. My husband has to go into the house occasionally, but nobody from the rest of the family has been in our rooms since mid-March, and he and my daughter thoroughly clean the only shared room – the laundry room, which has a door to the garden as well as one to the house – before the other uses it, and they are never in it at the same time. Otherwise, we are completely independent in our caravan. We get weekly deliveries from the supermarket, because I get high priority due to my conditions (it is weird, though, ordering groceries three weeks in advance, instead of three hours when our daughter used to do it). I haven’t stepped outside in five weeks since we pulled up in the driveway back home in March, after our aborted trip to the UK.
This is very disappointing. California is the most urban state in the U.S., and had some of the earliest spread, so you would expect our outbreak to be very bad. But, thanks to early action, our death count (scaled by population size) is lower than that of the median state. Pretty impressive numbers that might be thrown out of the window now.
I’d like to think that fellow NorCal residents wouldn’t have done this, but it’s a moot point because our beaches aren’t the same. (We have some great rock pools, though!)
Just a few minutes ago, I saw something that made me shudder. While sitting, looking out my window, eating lunch, I saw people from at least three housholds mixing at less than 2m. distance for ten minutes or more. Older neighbour couple (Hh1) has grandchildren visiting (Hh2). Another neighbour with young son (Hh3) is outside with them. Children from 2&3 are interacting very closely, handling each other’s bikes. Who knows how many other children from other households those from 2 have been interacting with? The fact that parent(s) of grandchildren thought it was fine to drop kids off to stay with grandparents is not a good sign that their household is practicing physical distancing very effectively or consistantly. Some people just don’t get it. Fortunately my province (Ontario) hasn’t set any date at all for reopening anything, so I’m nowhere near the situation of people living in Red states southof the border.
Yeah, tigger, I wish we could do that, because I have asthma, and have had a respiratory infection since late February which is refusing to let go. Unfortunately, we are stuck with our grocery shopping, but it is the only time I get out. I have been meeting with my writing group using Zoom, and talking with my son on the phone, but that’s about it.
I do my best to remain distant in the grocery store, but there are many assholes here who seem to delight in violating that 6 foot space. In fact, I have been told to chill, to get over it, and other things by people who refuse to stay distant, refuse to wear masks, and bring their kids to the store without putting any control on the kids so they careen wildly from aisle to aisle with no regard for the occupants of that aisle and no regard for anything but that damn piece of plastic in their hand that they stare at incessantly.
And the store doesn’t even bother to mark anything in the store saying “Social distancing” or advocating any sort of staying apart. And at this point, there isn’t delivery.
Oh, iknklast! That sounds terrifying. All those people who have been persuaded by idiots on the radio and TV that the virus isn’t deadly, that the restrictions are a left-wing coup (how, in states and a country which have right-wing rule?) and that their freedoms depend on rebelling against them are going to cause death and disability, even if they escape largely unscathed themselves. Yes, I know it doesn’t feel real when it hasn’t touched us directly; it’s in the nature of infections. Hence all the idiot members of the pro-disease, child haters, bioterrorist cult.