Did New York City dwellers who fled to their vacation homes Spread Corona?

By Rusty Brooks

Yes, it is true New Yorkers from the 5 boroughs are not being treated well in smaller towns around the tri-state area. If you want someone to quickly social distance from you, tell them you are from Brooklyn, and there is a good chance they not only move 6 feet away, they might literally run away! City folk are the new “lepers” in the corona era. But did those lucky enough to have summer homes and other residences spread the coronavirus to beach towns and such? Probably not as much as expected

The New York Times pointed out in an informative article Long Island for example:  although Suffolk County on Long Island now has the fourth-most confirmed cases among the state’s counties, the caseload remains low in the Hamptons.

While New Yorkers with money went to their Hampton dwellings in large numbers at the start of the pandemic panic, they overwhelmed the supermarkets but did not bring Covid-19 in a grand fashion.

However there have been small bursts of the virus in these vacation areas. The Times reported:  that there have been small bursts of flu like the Adirondacks, the Jersey Shore, the Catskills and the Hamptons.

The NY Times reported: “It might not have emerged yet into deaths or I.C.U. beds being filled,” said Marynia Kolak, the assistant director for health informatics at the Center for Spatial Data Science at University of Chicago, which launched the Covid-19 Atlas to analyze positive diagnoses relative to area population to identify emerging outbreaks.

Many of these vacation spots, took actions to prevent large outbreaks. There is no legal way at this point in time to tell a Manhattanite who owns a Jersey Shore home they can not come to their own property, however there are ways to discourage them.

The NY Times reported. “Many Jersey towns that hug the Atlantic Ocean have closed their beaches and boardwalks in an effort to keep visitors from the north away.”

They also took such measures such as not allowing people to rent their homes for small increments (usually less than 21 days)

Another way local leadership can handle this situation is when people arrive from NYC to a vacation spot, they have to quarantine for 2 weeks, such as how Florida handles all New Yorkers.  Some leaders count on people being mature enough to do the right thing.

“Folks from out of state need to understand the critical need to follow stay-at-home orders,” said State Senator Michael L. Testa Jr., a Republican who represents New Jersey’s southernmost district, which cuts across Cape May and Atlantic Counties told the NY Times .  “It’s up to them to save their fellow Americans.”

The NY Times pointed out: Leaders from across Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, sent a letter to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on March 27, asking for official restrictions on travel to the area. The governor said on Sunday that he had not “heard any local officials raise concerns” about the need for more travel restrictions and had not yet considered introducing them.