An Open Letter to the Weekend People

Dear Tourist/Weekend/Spring Break/Summertime Friends,

It's spring break! What an exciting time! I'll bet that that you can't wait to come to your beach house or mountain cabin, or for your week at that great hotel where you and your family have been staying for six generations and they know you by name. But as a full time resident of a tourist town, I'm going to ask you a favor.

Please, don't. Please stay home.

I know, I know. That's not what you wanted to hear, and as Americans in the 21st century, we are REALLY not used to hearing the word NO. Maybe you think all of this coronavirus/Covid-19 stuff is a sham, or nothing to worry about, and besides! You're not sick!

But here's the deal:

If you do get sick, this tiny tourist town cannot help you. Our hospital has 25 beds and no isolation rooms. We don't even have a maternity ward. You absolutely don't want to get sick here. You know how in Italy, folks in their 30s and 40s are dying from this disease, because their hospitals are overcrowded and underequipped? That could happen in a day, in this town. Maybe you're not sick today. But if you are coming from an area with hundreds of cases, you might be sick tomorrow. Do you really want to GET sick in a place where you cannot get the help you need? What if you need a ventilator and we don't have any? For that matter, what if you have a heart attack, and our ER can't get to you because they're too busy dealing with Covid-19 patients?

What I have not mentioned yet are the people who live here full time. For you, this is your summer home. This is your vacation. This is the place where you go to let your hair down and fly kites and have fun, and we WANT you to have that. Frankly, our economy depends on it. But for us, it's home. Everyone deserves to feel safe at home. When the population of our tiny village triples overnight, the stores are suddenly empty, and you're coughing into the avocados, our home starts to feel scary and unsafe, especially for the 60% of our full time residents that are over 65.

Once this is all over, please come back. We will welcome you with open arms. We will rejoice in the go-karts re-opening and the bookstores being packed, and the restaurants having a two hour wait time for a table. We will greet you happily on the beach and share our clamming guns and hand you a glass of wine when you stop by our campfire.

But for now, please stay home. And buy gift certificates.

Sincerely,

Your tourism-loving, full-time resident neighbor.