No walks on beach, boards
We hade mixed emotions about the decisions to close the beaches and Boardwalks and Promenades in Cape May County because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The wide open beaches and the oceanfront walkways in places including Ocean City, Sea Isle City and Cape May seem to be perfect for getting some outdoor time while being able to get some fresh air and exercise, two ingredients that are even more important now that Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive order has required so many people to isolate themselves from friends and extended family.
The space should allow for people to practice social distancing at the same time they are exercising. A walk on the Boardwalk and beach is peaceful in normal times, and given that these aren’t normal times, could be more helpful to maintain healthy mental attitudes.
Right after Mayor Jay Gillian closed the Boardwalks and beaches, there were still a lot of people taking advantage of them for walks and bike rides, but we have noticed the continual crackdown has cut that down. With new barriers up at all the entrances to the beach and Boardwalk, and police enforcing the ban, we expect that to mostly eliminate it.
In a letter to the public, Gillian wrote, “Two of the most urgent mandates to slow the exponential spread of COVID-19 are to eliminate social gathering and to limit movement from place to place. To leave the beaches and boardwalk open would ignore both those mandates. I understand that nobody is happy about not having access to these outdoor areas. But these are not normal times. We all have to make sacrifices to make sure this pandemic does not spread through our community, our region and our nation.”
We see immediate validity on one of those points and growing validity on the other.
The immediate validity regards limiting movement from place to place.
We believe the closure of the beaches and Boardwalks and Promenades is clearly meant to deter people from coming to the shore towns from more populated areas. Officials have been clear they don’t want visitors right now, from day-trippers to second-home owners. They believe more people coming to the area in this normally quiet time has the potential to bring more cases of the coronavirus to the area and, if more people get infected, to potentially overwhelm the medical resources here.
If people know that they can’t take advantage of the beaches and ocean air by walking the Boardwalks or Promenades, they will have a lot less reason to travel here.
On the second part, the social distancing, that doesn’t seem like an issue right now given the open space available on the beaches and walkways, but as spring brings warmer weather and sunshine to the area, there is the potential for the number of visitors to grow and, over time, more crowding on these popular resources.
From what we see in the continuing social media responses, there are a lot of local residents who agree with the position of closing the resources to the public and with official positions for non-locals to stay away, including those with property here.
We also are seeing resentment from those second-home owners who believe they are being unfairly targeted, a new take on the fact they pay taxes here but don’t get a say.
People should know this is not limited to the Jersey shore. This is taking place in tourist-driven communities along the East Coast. There are multiple places that go dormant in the winter, small towns and island communities, from the Outer Banks in North Carolina to the Jersey shore to the Hamptons in Long Island to Rhode Island, that are having the same concerns. Watching for out-of-state plates is becoming a sport and some communities are going so far as to check for residents of New York, which has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
We can’t forget that other states may not want residents of New Jersey. Consider Florida requiring anyone flying from this region to self-quarantine for 14 days after arrival there.
It is natural for people to want to flee from areas where the virus is rampant to areas they view as safe, and it also appears the natural reaction from those “safer” areas is to view outsiders with distrust.
We continue to believe all people should be limiting their travel, practicing safe hygiene and social distancing, to try to stop the spread of COVID-19, which threatens great harm all across the world. We also continue to believe that if the local-vs.-non-local anger grows, it has the potential to do long-lasting harm right here at home.