Florida & Texas update

UncleScoopy

Florida beaches are OPEN (with rules and limitations)

Residents can go for a walk, swim, surf, run or fish, as long as they are adhering to social distancing guidelines. However, sunbathing, camping overnight and gatherings of more than 10 people will be banned.

UPDATE: they corrected the story to read 10 people, not 50! Either the Daily Mail made a typo or Florida backed down. I don’t know which.

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Texas to begin softening COVID-19 restrictions next week

State parks in Texas will be open starting Monday. One of the governor’s executive orders that he signed on Friday allows the state’s retailers to start using a temporary “Retail-To-Go” starting next Friday.

14 thoughts on “Florida & Texas update”

  2. I know people around where I live don’t get it. Most don’t understand that it is less than XXX number AND social distancing. Not one or the other.

  3. In Kansas the state parks have been open all along, and it hasn’t seemed to be particularly problematic. Those that I know that have been going are usually fishing alone or with family members that they are already in close contact with.

    FL beaches are a whole different story and DeSantos is an idiot in almost everything he has done during this time. (And most other times too).

    Keeping 50 people socially distant simply won’t happen (the same was true when the number was 40, and jumping to that number is stupidity.

  4. I have a most of my family in Texas, so I’m not happy.

    But their governor is easily in the Top 10 Stupidest Politicians list, so I’m also not surprised.

    1. And their Lieutenant Governor has come right out and said old people should risk death for the sake of their grandchildren’s economy. Or at least he said HE would be willing to do that, but AFAIK he has not done it yet. I think leadership by example is crucial here.

    1. But it’s 50 socially distanced people, not just 50 people getting together. So the number could be 100 or 500 and it doesn’t matter. As long as the whole group is keeping 6+ feet apart, why are people hung up on the number 50? Makes no difference.

      1. Except that the probability of people maintaining that distance goes down rapidly as the number of people goes up.

        There probably isn’t a lot of difference between 50 and 500. But there’s a huge different between 2-5 people keeping distance and 50.

      2. Because it is a logistical nightmare to keep 49 people in a gathering all six feet from the nearest person. It’s a math problem. As you increase the number of people , you increase the space required per person.

        Even if none of them move and all of them are in the optimal configuration, to accommodate a group of 49 people you would need an area of about 1296 square feet (36×36) – 27 sq ft per person.

        In contrast, a group of nine people can be accommodated by 144 square feet (12×12) – sixteen per person.

        And you can accommodate four people in 36 square feet (one 6×6 room where they stand in the corners) – nine sq ft per person.

        But of course people in a group do not remain neatly in one fixed place. They wander about. They go to the bathroom. They get a drink. In the real world, it’s just about impossible to gather 49 people together and keep them all from ever coming closer than six feet from another person.

        But that’s not the only problem. A family of four isolating together can infect no one but each other. So assume we have 12 such families, with one dad infected by his weekly supermarket visit and symptomless. That one person who is infected will transmit to only three others, possibly fewer. The infection is contained. (See footnote)

        If those same 48 people gather in one group instead of 12 separate ones, the one infected, symptomless person can infect 47 others instead of three, and any one person in the group is exposed to all 47 sources of infection instead of three.

        (Footnote: South Korea didn’t even allow the family of four to take each other’s risk if they could avoid it. They tested everyone going into permissible public buildings like supermarkets. If you were suspected, they isolated you until the test came back. If you were positive, they would not even let you go home to your family, but would ship you off to a special containment ward. Then they would test your family members and isolate any of them as appropriate.)

    1. Roger that.

      The Texas thing may or may nor be reasonable, but the Florida position seems reckless.

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