SallyCat
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Limiting locals to make space for travelers is absurd pandemic logic. I'm sorry, I'm about to be super-obnoxiously opinionated here:
NOBODY should be traveling to ski until this disease is reasonably under control or there is a vaccine. Resorts should shut down their lodging operations and only allow locals/in-state residents to ski and only if it can be made reasonably safe, which would mean lots of inconveniences such as closed lodges, no food service, etc.
Wearing masks isn't enough, people also need to stop moving around.
Vermont has pretty good containment right now, but if people come up in big numbers to ski, stay in hotels, shop in our cramped little stores (lookin' at you, Ludlow Shaws...) get hurt and ride in the back of an ambulance and visit our hospitals, they will create exponential exposure. Our little state has done well COVID-wise because we're small and rural, but also because we have very high mask compliance and people here are generally making good decisions about distancing and other safe habits. One week of Christmas visitors pretending things are "normal" and behaving carelessly could be a disaster for our service-industry workers and their families.
I realize that we suffer from a near-total lack of leadership on this pandemic at the national level, and that businesses are being shoved toward the brink while working people whose PUA subsidy just ended are desperate for income. Our political leadership incentivizes all of the wrong behaviors, and I don't blame people for the decisions they make out of brutal necessity. But I'm still stunned at the individual choices that people are making to take unnecessary out-of-state trips.
NOBODY should be traveling to ski until this disease is reasonably under control or there is a vaccine. Resorts should shut down their lodging operations and only allow locals/in-state residents to ski and only if it can be made reasonably safe, which would mean lots of inconveniences such as closed lodges, no food service, etc.
Wearing masks isn't enough, people also need to stop moving around.
Vermont has pretty good containment right now, but if people come up in big numbers to ski, stay in hotels, shop in our cramped little stores (lookin' at you, Ludlow Shaws...) get hurt and ride in the back of an ambulance and visit our hospitals, they will create exponential exposure. Our little state has done well COVID-wise because we're small and rural, but also because we have very high mask compliance and people here are generally making good decisions about distancing and other safe habits. One week of Christmas visitors pretending things are "normal" and behaving carelessly could be a disaster for our service-industry workers and their families.
I realize that we suffer from a near-total lack of leadership on this pandemic at the national level, and that businesses are being shoved toward the brink while working people whose PUA subsidy just ended are desperate for income. Our political leadership incentivizes all of the wrong behaviors, and I don't blame people for the decisions they make out of brutal necessity. But I'm still stunned at the individual choices that people are making to take unnecessary out-of-state trips.