— by Minor Lile, Orcas Issues reporter —
And suddenly it’s May. With our monthly Village Voices series, we take the pulse of the Orcas Island community. Every month we’ll be out and about, asking people to share their point of view on a particular topic. Sometimes the questions will be serious, sometimes more light-hearted. We invite you to join the conversation by sharing your response to the question in the comments area.
When do you think tourism activity should resume on the island?
Asked outside Island Market on Saturday, May 2, 2020
(answers have been lightly edited for clarity)
Lori: Probably next season, like this time next year. Not only for our safety, but their’s too. I could see people getting angry otherwise. I just don’t see it happening this year.
Maurice: Good grief, I don’t know. I’m not an epidemiologist.
Stephanie: That one’s hard. I feel in between the two fences of the economy and personal safety. The economy can kick back in, but we can’t bring back lives. We should wait until we have enough testing to understand who carries antibodies and until we can be sure our at-risk elders are safe.
Mark: Certainly not before May 31st. Not until we have the numbers from the State showing that people coming to the island isn’t vastly increasing risk.
Eugene: Sooner rather than later. I’d like to see things open up in the next couple weeks, but the first priority is to be safe. I think we need to protect ourselves. In doing so we protect others. So use a mask and wash your hands and follow the guidelines.
We invite you to join in the conversation.
When do YOU think tourism activity should resume on the island?
Please add your thoughts in the comments area.
I’m with Lori and Stephanie
September 1, because by that time the school question should be resolved.
Tough question to answer. What defines tourist (family coming to visit?)? Define activities too. The whole world is changing big time through all this – and by the way AirBNB’s latest tactic is to “encourage” much longer stays.
I could easily see writing off tourism on the islands for 2020. But what choices do we actually make?
The economy won’t be able to “kick back in” if we keep the tourists off island. All the elders (I’m one) will be safe at home but lacking a gym in which to exercise, watching our waistlines grow and our intellects shrivel from too much time online or our noses in books. (My joints are no longer able to go jogging in our lovely environment). Meanwhile our small businesses are dying in front of our eyes.
Require masks, hand-washing and social distances and let nature take its course. We’re only postponing the ultimate emergence of the virus, according to the latest thinking anyway, unless a vaccine emerges miraculously earlier than any other vaccine ever under development.
When either the pandemic is over, or when we have the capabilities to test everyone coming & going at the ferry terminals, or when there’s an approved vaccine, and everybody has gotten a vacination.
for a real world perspective from one of the world’s leading epidemiologists, I recommend this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwPqmLoZA4s.
It’s an hour long so it’s not quite as simple as watching fear propaganda on CNN.
We need to stop focusing on the exposure of “elders.” Everyone is at risk.
Yes, everyone is at risk, at least in a purely theoretical sense. But the salient question is what is the level of risk? The best available data from the Stanford studies indicate that the actual mortality rate from covid-19 in persons under 60 without comorbidities is on the order of of 0.01%. That is not 1 in 100, or 1 in 1,000, but 1 in 10,000!
How many lives will be ruined by bad policy intended to reduce mortality to zero?
People who are vulnerable can effectively self-isolate, as has been shown on Sweden and Germany.
To put it another way, are we seniors the tail wagging the dog, or are we the dog?
Geez Scott, that is NOT the best data, nor the best analysis. The Stanford study has not only been criticized, it’s been pilloried by the mainstream community of epidemiology. The study features sample bias and ignorance of Bayes theorem (they draw conclusions from a test with an error rate larger than the size of the signal they are trying to study!).
“‘I think the authors owe us all an apology… not just to us, but to Stanford,’ wrote Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University.”
At the very least, please acknowledge that you want us all to make decisions based on your private and personal view of the evidence, rather than the consensus of educated opinion.
And please read “There’s a more accurate way to compare coronavirus deaths to the flu” in the Washington Post which discusses a basic statistical error people have been making when they breezily cited Flu mortality numbers.
We should start permitting tourists immediately… when we have the means to require and administer reliable Covid19 screening before they are allowed to board any form of transport to the islands.
Without that we might just as well demand that they just stay at home and ship the virus to us.
It breaks my heart to see the decimation of those businesses that contribute so much to our island’s appeal but we must understand that the benefit will be bought at the cost of innumerable lives.
Are any of Orcas small business recipients of any of the CARES funds ??
or are they being left out??
Nope, James, I don’t “want” you to do or decide anything based upon my views. Why is it so important for you to suppress alternative views other than social media approved groupthink?
I will not be posting any longer on Orcas Issues as it is not an open forum, much less “the voice of the community”. Geez, you are citing an opinion published in the Washington Post?
Tourism should restart only when and if the knowledge base reaches the level that those decisions can be made with a reasonable amount of certainty. Better to wait too long than act hastily. Economies and personal wealth CAN be rebuilt, financial hardship is just that, hardship. It’s horrible to see decades worth of work evaporate in a few months…but none of that matters if you’re DEAD.
Scott, there seems to be a bit of a double standard there. You have openly disagreed with other’s interpretations of what constitutes best practice in this pandemic, even going as far as calling those of us that choose to wear masks sheep obeying our “socialist overlord”… does this community forum cease to be “the voice of the community” only when your perspective has to weather a bit of critique?
Again, I’m with Lori, Stephanie, and Joe on this one. We need to wait!
I’m with Lori, Stephanie, and Joe on that one. We need to wait!
Opening the island to tourists will mean a lot of extra work for our already overworked and understaffed public health officials, who have been doing an amazing job by keeping our diagnosed cases down to only 14 and deaths to zero. They have been doing this in part by testing asymptomatic essential workers, such as doctors, nurses, EMTs, grocery clerks, pharmacy workers and others. Our rate of tests per diagnosed Covid-19 cases is about 54, on par with that of South Korea!
But bringing in tourists will introduce a real wild card (or cards) into this mix. The overworked public health department would have to identify, isolate and quarantine anyone who comes down with the disease while here, which could easily be a difficult proposition for those without regular island addresses.
Which raises an important question: what about second homeowners who want to return to the islands this summer? Do we treat them as ordinary tourists?
It’s complicated. If visitors are coming – not adhering to the non-essential travel and not wearing masks, will it put us back?
Will it mean locals continue to shelter-in-place, whilst visitors without masks are out and about?
There’s going to be a large contingency that wants to go early to phase 2, and likewise lots that want to adhere to the Phase 1 until the end of May.
The issue seems to be visitors – what can be done about that?
I’m ambivalent, with a strong preference being so safe that for kids being able to go back to school in the Fall.
Scott Halquist: The policy has never been to reduce Covid-19 mortality to zero–it’s been to SLOW the spread of it so that our health infrastructure can deal with it without collapsing, while awaiting vaccine and/or therapeutics. It matters little to me as an older person who visits the island and who does not. I am self-quarantining. It does matter to the front line workers who ARE getting infected and dying, at far greater numbers than proposed in the discredited Stanford studies. Market clerks, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and clinic staff–concern for them is not undue or inappropriate. And nothin his clearer than the the fact that the country (and the world) is full of idiots who will not follow the reopening rules. Look at the beaches.
Someone raised the question of the relative impact of the different sectors of our economy. I would be interested to know the relative proportions of tourism, construction, and non-tourism service workers in the County or on the island.
Michael Riordan points out that county health is already overworked and understaffed. I too am with Lori and Stephanie; it’s not only testing that must be sufficiently available but contact tracing and isolating/self quarantining.
A few points: Screening typically means testing for temperature, so it is not a reliable means of protecting ourselves from asymptomatic people coming to the island. Property owners who wish to return to the islands for the summer might be allowed to do so, but should also agree to isolate themselves for two weeks, the incubation time of the virus. My wife and I need to go to the mainland for a medical procedure and we plan to self-isolate ourselves for two weeks afterward. Others who find it essential to go to the mainland might consider doing the same thing. Most of the infected on the islands contracted the virus while visiting the mainland. Personally, I don’t see a strong reason to flood the islands with tourists. Other than a few seasonal businesses, our economy is not critically dependent upon tourism. Better that we protect our residents.
looks like i stirred the murder hornet nest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Xjjy4knSA
“let ‘er rip!’ panic addicts.
Something wrong? It says 22 comments, but I see only 2.
Kathleen, I think you have to scroll to the bottom and click on the “Previous” button.