Dear Beachside Mayors and Leaders: Given the existence of the Covid-19 pandemic, I encourage you to take measures intended to stop the inflow of tourists, persons from high risk areas, or persons from areas with strict lockdown or stay at home orders, into Brevard County's beachside communities. Now is not a good time for tourists, or short-term, overnight visitors to be visiting beachside communities. Unfortunately visitors appear to be coming in droves, seeking escape from their own communities, wisely increasing restrictions due to Covid-19. The negligible economic benefit to a very few residents, selling a few extra take-out orders, or booking additional hotel rooms or short-term rentals, is not worth the increased risk of exposure to permanent residents. The majority of residents do not see any economic benefit in catering to tourists or short- term visitors during a pandemic. Permanent residents must still use essential services, such as their local grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, banks etc. Allowing tourists and short-term visitors to continue visiting our communities only makes residents' local essential services more crowded, increasing the risk of contracting Covid-19. The Governor's recent directive asking persons arriving in our community from high risk areas, to simply voluntarily quarantine themselves is naïve at best, if not laughable. You have the emergency powers and resources, to temporarily ban overnight visitors until further notice, and require any over-night, short term visitors to vacate without delay. You should exercise those powers, widely publish notice of such emergency actions, and enforce the same to the greatest extent possible. Some communities, such as Monroe County, have wisely already taken similar measures. The health experts have been "spot on" as to their predictions, and the next two weeks or so will be a crucial time, for taking extreme measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in our communities. Unfortunately, the State and Brevard County are not heeding such predictions. I sincerely hope you will take appropriate action to stop Brevard County's beachside communities from being the dumping ground for people seeking to escape the inconveniences or stricter measures associated with Covid-19, taken by their own states and communities. Sincerely, Concerned Brevard County Beachside Resident

We are having a telecom with all Brevard County mayors tomorrow. I have forwarded your posting to the chairman of the telecom for discussion.

Good!

There are still a lot of folks who have a "No Big Deal" attitude about COVID-19. BUT, we all must presume that we will see the local, and Florida, number of cases "explode" by the end of next week.

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Dora Hates You

Edited: 03/25/2020 at 11:11 AM by dingpatch

Below is a quote from a resort / timeshare client of mine in the Keys, on a short term visitor refusing to hit the road, violating Monroe County's emergency order. "The Code Compliance Officer and MCSO Officer are on site and escorting all three owners off property now. Sgt. Johnson did not give them a set time; however, he did say he is staying on site until they all leave and he doesn't intend to be here all afternoon."

The US is still showing geometric growth.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Click on the US cases on the left, see our growth graph on the lower right and expand.

When that starts to flatten out (compare to S. Korea) we can relax a bit. Otherwise any "it's about over" or "it won't be too bad" is horsecrap.

Ergo, our lack of mass testing (and likely poor implementation of social distancing) means we are still waiting for the tsunami.

Edited: 03/25/2020 at 01:43 PM by TeeBirdForever

Local news has mentioned that the Brevard County Commissioners may decide to close the beach during their meeting Friday.

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Dora Hates You

Today, the Town of Melbourne Beach will prohibit beachside parking, not just the parking lots next to the beach accesses but also the streets near the beach accesses, will be "no parking". Stay away or risk a ticket. Time to get serious.

Thanks for the info. Seems like a well thought out move for Melbourne Beach - no reason to actually close the beaches preventing permanent residents from using, just as there's no reason to stop a permanent resident from going for a walk in their neighborhood. My biggest concern is still the influx of visitors - it's definitely happening. Local hospitals are already at their brink. (so I hear) The prospect of a hospital being tasked to care of a visitor falling ill, choosing to come here at this time for some non-essential reason, as opposed to staying put in their own community, is disturbing to say the least.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

Without an enforced lock down there are always going to be enough "cheaters" to ruin it for everybody else. Voluntary action that benefits the collective will always fail because not enough people will adhere to a social contract if violating the social contract has some short term benefit for the individuals that decide to defect. Iiiifffff everybody cooperated then there would be a net benefit. But, there will always be "defectors" that fuck it all up. See the people packing the sand bars and spoil islands on the boats which prompted the governor to make a way too late executive order to ban boats from doing that. Basic application of game theory to economics. Heard on the radio yesterday that the hospital in Sun Valley Idaho has 25 beds. Sun valley also has a lot of people "fleeing" to it from Washington and Los Angeles. That hospital is about to be swamped. There are still a lot of out of state plates flocking to the beach to the airboat tours on the St. Johns... We live in Rockledge. I haven't been to the beach in two weeks. I have friends beach side. I could park at their houses. But that violates the intent of social distancing recommendations. But for every one of me that voluntarily does the extra cautious thing there are multiple more that are going to be selfish. Thing is, that is a message framing issue. You don't get someone to cooperate by telling them they are being good. You get them to cooperate by effectively communicating to them that they ultimately benefit. Or, since that likely won't work you have to do like South Africa or New Zealand and just make lockdown mandatory.

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I see what you did there