Coronavirus and The Tourist Town [Archive]

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SiouzQ.

5-15-20, 11:02am

Our governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced yesterday that retail will start to open tomorrow (Saturday May 16) but under strict guidelines. Everyone must wear a mask in public or private spaces and capacity will be at 25%. Many gallery and shop owners up here in Madrid seem to be of the mind to wait two more weeks before they open just to see what happens, to see if there is a significant uptick in the infection rate. My bosses at the gallery are okay with this plan to stay closed two more weeks.

My significant other is very leery of me going back to work at all because he is afraid (as a 35 year long Type I diabetic) that I will bring the virus home. I am too, but I miss working and I want to be working for my income! My bosses have been kind enough to pay me for the last two months; I do still caretake the gallery and have my studio in the back, but they cannot keep paying me for much longer without the gallery bringing in income. I guess we all need to wait these two weeks before we make any sort of decision about being open. The gallery feels crowded when there are 10 people in it, so I guess 25% capacity means no more than three people in at a time, but as the sole person running it, it might be hard to "crowd" control and keep the door handles clean and ask people not to pick up bunches of stuff if they have no intention of purchasing, all the while hopefully ringing up sales...

Here's what I think will happen starting on Saturday: a bunch of people will come up from Albuquerque, chomping at the bits for something new to do, going in and out of places that have opened up. Hopefully they will have masks on but there are always those people who think they are an exception to the rule. Since so many people have lost their jobs there may not be that many sales of non-essential items, but rather people just looking for entertainment for the day. We call them lookie-loos. I really don't want to risk getting the virus due to people just looking and not buying!

I do commend our governor for the excellent job she has done right from the get-go; the last thing New Mexico could possibly handle is the health system getting overrun with very sick people. The Navajo Nation is having a really terrible time of it. Decent, consistent health care can be such a difficult thing to get already in this state during normal times.

So, two more weeks. I can sign up for unemployment if the owners need to lay me off. The hard thing is my jewelry sales will be WAaaaay down for a long time, I bet. I don't need to produce anymore for the galleries right now so I am just kicking back and making stuff just for the fun of it while my supply of silver lasts and trying to heal my wrists. I am not going to be investing in any tools or equipment for quite a while.

happystuff

5-15-20, 11:27am

SiouzQ - These are hard decisions to make in hard times. Wishing you the best of luck and hoping all turns out well.

JaneV2.0

5-15-20, 11:54am

I read that Doctors Without Borders came to help the Navajos. It's shameful that our own government didn't.

catherine

5-15-20, 3:17pm

The hard thing is my jewelry sales will be WAaaaay down for a long time, I bet. I don't need to produce anymore for the galleries right now so I am just kicking back and making stuff just for the fun of it while my supply of silver lasts and trying to heal my wrists. I am not going to be investing in any tools or equipment for quite a while.

Do you have an Etsy account?

pinkytoe

5-15-20, 3:52pm

It would be a hard decision while living with a compromised person to go out in public. There are no doubt a lot of bored, looky-loos with no intention of buying anything. I hear they go to the big box stores just for something to do. Hard decisions these days.

Teacher Terry

5-15-20, 5:00pm

Ireland has donated a lot of money to the Navajos because during a famine they sent money to them. My sister saw it on the news. Really sad our country isn’t helping. All our festivals are cancelled for the summer. I wonder how many tourists we will get. My husband will be working in a big city in California.

Alan

5-15-20, 5:06pm

Ireland has donated a lot of money to the Navajos because during a famine they sent money to them. My sister saw it on the news. Really sad our country isn’t helping.The US Government has allocated $600M for Covid aid within the Navajo Nation.

bae

5-15-20, 5:29pm

My tourist-dominated community is about to get swamped.

Gardnr

5-15-20, 6:54pm

My tourist-dominated community is about to get swamped.

Good luck:confused:

catherine

5-15-20, 6:58pm

The lodgings in our tourist-oriented area can open May 22, but we have a 14-day quarantine for out-of-staters, which should essentially keep business out.

Gardnr

5-15-20, 7:50pm

The lodgings in our tourist-oriented area can open May 22, but we have a 14-day quarantine for out-of-staters, which should essentially keep business out.

Who will police that?

My dumbass in-laws let their grandson/GF/great-grandson come up from the hotbed Las Vegas for 5d last week. Inlaws are in their 80s! We not thrilled we would not "come on over and spend the day with us". Seriously?

Our state also has a 14d quarantine.......but that didn't keep the wealthy dude who flew his jet into a resort town. He was pissed when the airport owner instructed him to go home. The county is rural with a tiny critical access hospital and had a no-out-of-towners policy in place enforced by police.

jp1

5-16-20, 9:51am

Gardnr, your story reminds me of a couple of friends of my sister in San Diego. Both 70 years old, one obese, one with high blood pressure. A couple of weeks ago, as cases were spiking just south of the border they decided that they needed to go visit one of them’s sister, who also has assorted health issues, in Mexico.

I read an interesting piece in the N.Y. Times yesterday that talked about the fact that the pandemic may ‘socially’ end before it medically ends. The basic thought being that society could largely collectively tire of waiting for a vaccine/treatment and decide that the current plan of shutting stuff down is not sustainable and will simply go back to ‘normal’ life and accept the deaths that come from it. It does appear that this is happening in various places. And if one doesn’t know anyone who has been infected, much less someone who has died, it’s easy to see why this would happen.

Gardnr

5-16-20, 10:22am

I read an interesting piece in the N.Y. Times yesterday that talked about the fact that the pandemic may ‘socially’ end before it medically ends. The basic thought being that society could largely collectively tire of waiting for a vaccine/treatment and decide that the current plan of shutting stuff down is not sustainable and will simply go back to ‘normal’ life and accept the deaths that come from it. It does appear that this is happening in various places. And if one doesn’t know anyone who has been infected, much less someone who has died, it’s easy to see why this would happen.

Yes. I think we have millions of "no see ums" singing LALALALALALA......I can't hear you, everything in my world is fine so screw ya'll and your stupid hoax.

About 3/4 of my state is of this mindset. And one of their counties is spiking new cases big time! I'm going to have to wear a blindfold and earplugs.....I'm exhausted from educating the uneducable. RNs must educate......I can't do it anymore.:|(

Yppej

5-16-20, 10:35am

iris lilies

5-16-20, 10:40am

Gardnr

5-16-20, 11:16am

There doesn't seem to be any correlation with government orders and caseloads. A CNN story yesterday lists states with cases falling fastest:

New Jersey - strict
Missouri - businesses allowed to open May 4
Idaho - opened May 1

And states with cases rising fastest:

South Dakota - never closed
Arkansas - reopened May 4
Maine - still under a stay at home order; 14 day quarantine for anyone coming in from out of state

NO! Idaho is not "open". Here is the Governor's 4 stage plan. The capital city is stricter than the state plan. https://rebound.idaho.gov/stages-of-reopening/

And Idaho does not have a 14day run of decreasing new cases even though that is part of the national recommendation and is stated in the plan.

jp1

5-16-20, 12:11pm

There doesn't seem to be any correlation with government orders and caseloads. A CNN story yesterday lists states with cases falling fastest:

New Jersey - strict
Missouri - businesses allowed to open May 4
Idaho - opened May 1

And states with cases rising fastest:

South Dakota - never closed
Arkansas - reopened May 4
Maine - still under a stay at home order; 14 day quarantine for anyone coming in from out of state

For this to be meaningful one would also have to analyze when the lockdown happened in a given locale compared to the volume of infection there at the time. For instance NY already had 1000's of cases and dozens of deaths before the lockdown started. The six county San Francisco Bay Area, on the other hand, did not have anywhere near that amount of infection at the time the lockdown was instituted so we've had only a small fraction of the infection and death rate. Of course if Moon Jae-in was our president, maybe the entire country could have avoided needing lockdowns in the first place.

pinkytoe

5-16-20, 8:34pm

Teacher Terry

5-16-20, 8:54pm

I find the lack of empathy for fellow Americans to be appalling.

Yppej

5-16-20, 8:55pm

I watched the Roosevelt special on PBS and was struck at how different citizen response is now compared to back then. There was much more solidarity to get through tough times like the Depression unlike now, where it seems like many don't want to give up their "freedom."

I think you are talking different freedoms. Roosevelt talked about freedom FROM want and freedom from fear. Today the concern is freedom TO do things like travel or run a business. Whereas Roosevelt tried to tamp down fear, the media are hyping up fears of the virus when its impact on most people who could and would like to be working is not severe. In my state 60% of the deaths are in nursing homes and average age is in the 80's.

ETA fear is also caused by the unknown. My governor is keeping his reopening plan a big secret so businesses cannot prepare. He is arousing anxiety amongst many small businesspeople rather than allaying it.

bae

5-16-20, 8:59pm

I watched the Roosevelt special on PBS and was struck at how different citizen response is now compared to back then.

I'm not sure that we have that many people anymore who are "citizens" in the classic sense.

https://dogood.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Where%20Are%20Americas%20Volunteers_Research%20Bri ef%20_Nov%202018.pdf

Yppej

5-16-20, 9:08pm

I'm not sure that we have that many people anymore who are "citizens" in the classic sense.

https://dogood.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Where%20Are%20Americas%20Volunteers_Research%20Bri ef%20_Nov%202018.pdf

In terms of volunteering, the topic of this article, people are volunteering to go to the store for at risk individuals and in many cases no one is taking them up on it.

bae

5-16-20, 9:15pm

In terms of volunteering, the topic of this article, people are volunteering to go to the store for at risk individuals and in many cases no one is taking them up on it.

I'm speaking to the general case.

iris lilies

5-17-20, 10:04am

In terms of volunteering, the topic of this article, people are volunteering to go to the store for at risk individuals and in many cases no one is taking them up on it.

our neighborhood report last week was 14 people signed up to run errands, still no takers after 5-6 weeks.

SiouzQ.

5-31-20, 9:33pm

I am going to open the gallery on Friday, June 5th. From the looks of it, it is still very slow during the weekdays but the weekends have brought people up. The restaurants are able to do outside dining (with the proper social distancing of course). The weird thing is now I kind of resent all the noise the motorcycle people from Albuquerque are bringing up here; it is disturbing the lovely peace that I've enjoyed all these weeks! And though it is required by state law to wear a mask when outside in public places, I am seeing a lot of people walking around without them. People's guards are being let down (plus, it is getting HOT here).

For people to enter the gallery, they must wear a mask and I am going to limit it to 4 people at a time. I have spent the last few days doing a very deep cleaning (washing the walls and windows after a terrible moth infestation the past few weeks). I still have about two more days of intensive cleaning. I'm sure it hasn't been done this thoroughly for at least a decade!

Gardnr

5-31-20, 9:39pm

Our mountain cabin is in a tourist town. It was overrun with visitors this weekend. We took off for an offgrid backcountry drive yesterday and we couldn't believe how many people were swarming the streets and the lake beaches as well as lots of watercraft on the lake. This county had only 2 cases of COVID and that was back in early April.

Employees here are wearing masks as a rule by the Medical Director at the local Critical Access Hospital. Visitors? Not so much. I pray that this town was not infected this weekend. We will know in 14 days what the outcome will be.

pinkytoe

5-31-20, 9:59pm

disturbing the lovely peace that I've enjoyed all these weeks!
Yep, I get that. We have a lovely neighborhood park down the street, heretofore unknown to most except the hood. It is now swarmed with people from who knows where. Cars, radios blaring, loose dogs. Gazebos and playgrounds were cordoned off yet people tear off the tape, disregard the signs and use them anyway. Trash is overflowing. I want my park back:(

Teacher Terry

5-31-20, 10:31pm

The casinos are reopening Thursday and I wonder if California people will come and what will happen.

SiouzQ.

3-30-21, 4:36pm

I had search way back for this thread I started back last June!

What a month we've had (said with a bit of trepidation)! I closed the gallery for six weeks after Xmas because it just didn't seem worth the risk of getting exposed; SO many people were traveling then and visiting family in the area when they weren't supposed to. So in the meantime the interior of the gallery got repainted and I did a big deep clean in order to get ready for the spring break rush in March.

I have had a busier March than some of the traditionally busy Octobers we used to have due to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. It's great to see people out and about but what I am noticing is people letting their guard down, not wearing their masks properly, or completely forgetting to put them on when entering the gallery (masks are still mandatory in New Mexico). K is completely vaccinated but I am not. I am just under 60, which is the current cutoff point for getting a vaccine in NM right now. I have tried all sorts of things like signing up to get one if they have extras at the Santa Domingo Pueblo, I've called all the pharmacies in Santa Fe, our local clinic, and this morning I signed up for a slot in El Paso if one opens up somehow. Otherwise, I just have to be patient.

Traditionally it slows down a little bit in April and May. I am getting a bit worried about a fourth wave; with so many people are traveling for spring break it seems inevitable. But it is nice that the gallery made some money this month, and I sold a lot of my jewelry (March is my annual sale for my older work that needs a home). Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer tourist season. I sure hope I am vaccinated by then.

bae

3-30-21, 5:25pm

My village/community is booming now, it seems the tourist season is starting a couple of months early. Ferries packed, housing unavailable for summer workforce, summer workforce too small for demand, you have to look both ways before crossing the streets, and remember to make reservations if you want to try one of the just-reopened restaurants.

Yowza.

I've been trying all week to score a ferry reservation to get off to the mainland next week for a medical appointment, and that's just not going to happen it seems. The spring breakers have descended here in previously-unseen numbers. I'll end up taking my own boat, or walking onto the ferry, then bicycling to a car rental place or finding an Uber.

Teacher Terry

3-30-21, 6:03pm

Wow Bae that’s early to start tourist season. The California people and seniors in general are coming back to the casinos as they get vaccinated. There were lots of people for March madness. Easter is usually busy with many ethnic groups that don’t celebrate it.