{"id":257509,"date":"2020-06-09T07:50:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T11:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=257509"},"modified":"2020-06-09T07:50:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T11:50:49","slug":"at-lake-of-the-ozarks-its-almost-business-as-usual-despite-the-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/06\/09\/at-lake-of-the-ozarks-its-almost-business-as-usual-despite-the-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"At Lake Of The Ozarks, It\u2019s (Almost) Business As Usual, Despite The Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: The Grand Glaize Bridge in Osage Beach, Camden County, Missouri, USA. This is Route 54. (Photo By Ben Jacobson (Kranar Drogin) – Own work, CC BY 2.5<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OSAGE BEACH, Mo. \u2014 On a sun-kissed summer Saturday in this tourist town, one could almost imagine the pandemic didn\u2019t happen. Dozens of people mingled, unmasked, outside the frozen custard stand. The putt-putt golf course and the go-kart track had plenty of customers, and the Grand Glaize Beach at Lake of the Ozarks State Park was crowded with visitors tossing footballs and digging their toes in the sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cHardly anyone wears masks here,\u201d observed Bob Harrison, visiting with his wife, Etta Harrison, from Olathe, Kansas, outside Kansas City. \u201cPeople are sort of like, here, it\u2019s a vacation resort, and they don\u2019t have to worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As summer approaches, tourist destinations from Cape Cod to Yellowstone National Park face looming questions over how to reopen tourism-dependent economies while balancing risks from the coronavirus. At the Lake of the Ozarks, a 54,000-acre reservoir thrust into the spotlight over Memorial Day party photos, the answer seems to be: We\u2019re open for business.<\/p>\n

Many residents and visitors at the lake remain relatively unperturbed about the virus and the national outrage over scenes of packed pool parties<\/a> at Backwater Jacks and other Lake of the Ozarks bars over the holiday weekend. Even after reports surfaced recently that one pool party attendee tested positive<\/a> for COVID-19 and potentially could have infected hundreds of others in the Midwest, some still look on the sunny side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good thing,\u201d said Larry Clark, who was selling coffee at a farmers market stand. \u201cIt showed we can open up. \u2026 It\u2019s not something that should control our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife, Kat Clark, said people have been eager to get out of the house and don\u2019t want to be told what they can\u2019t do. \u201cIt\u2019s just the nature of freedom lovers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Just two stalls over, vendor Kathy Peironnet had another view of the infamous partiers. \u201cI have a name for people who do things like that: covidiots,\u201d said Peironnet, who wore a mask while selling art and jewelry at her booth.<\/p>\n

Since Missouri\u2019s stay-at-home order expired<\/a> May 3, retail businesses of various sizes are allowed to reopen as long as they limit occupants to 10% or 25% of a building\u2019s capacity. Restaurants must seat no more than 10 people at a table. At all times, the new order says, people should practice social distancing of at least 6 feet.<\/p>\n

The Lake of the Ozarks region opened up cautiously at first. Camden County, Missouri, which houses much of the lake, has recorded 37 cases and one death<\/a> from COVID-19 as of June 5, a rate of 80.76 per 100,000 people. For comparison, the city of St. Louis \u2014 where many lake visitors live \u2014 has a case rate more than seven times higher. But if out-of-towners did contract the coronavirus in Camden, they would take it, and their case counts, back to their home counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of total cases, the lake area has been very minimal,\u201d said Nathan Bechtold, editor-in-chief of LakeExpo<\/a>, a news outlet that covers the lake lifestyle. \u201cBy early to mid-May, it seemed like business was picking up. By the time we hit Memorial Day, I think everyone had a sense, economically speaking, we may be making up for lost time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some out-of-towners who own area vacation homes came to the lake in March and April to ride out social isolation lockdowns. Then, as the holiday neared, demand skyrocketed as visitors from surrounding cities and states booked their getaways. Some boat dealers reported record-breaking sales. On Memorial Day weekend, the population of Camden County swelled from its typical 50,000 residents to hundreds of thousands of visitors, Bechtold estimated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was pent-up demand regionally to get out, to get in the sunshine,\u201d Bechtold said.<\/p>\n

Russell Burdette, owner of Your Lake Vacation<\/a>, a property management company, said his company sold out for the Memorial Day weekend for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

Viral video showed customers crammed at local swim-up pool bars over the holiday weekend. Geospatial data analytics platform Tectonix published an analysis of anonymized cellphone data<\/a> showing that customers at Backwater Jacks traveled to and from St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Iowa, Illinois and other locations for the holiday weekend. St. Louis County<\/a> issued a travel advisory and the Kansas<\/a> state health department<\/a> asked anyone who attended the crowded parties to self-quarantine for 14 days. In an interview on CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci<\/a>, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the party scene \u201ctempting fate and asking for trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

No covid concerns at the lake of the ozarks😳 #loto<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Yrb4UNM64u<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Scott Pasmore (@scottpasmoretv) May 24, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Late last month, the Camden County Health Department issued a press release <\/a>saying a Boone County resident had tested positive for COVID-19 after being at the lake Memorial Day weekend. The person visited Backwater Jacks, Shady Gators, the Lazy Gators pool and Buffalo Wild Wings and \u201cwas likely incubating illness and possibly infectious at the time of the visit,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

In response to the backlash, Backwater Jacks posted statements to Facebook<\/a> saying that \u201cno laws were broken\u201d and \u201ccustomers should have the freedom to choose\u201d whether to visit. Hundreds posted supportive comments to social media.<\/p>\n

But not everyone was a fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was stupid,\u201d said Etta Harrison, the woman visiting from Olathe, who is also a retired nurse. \u201cBut these are young people and they want to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that recent Saturday, she and her husband wore masks after eating lunch in the cafe at the local Dierbergs<\/a> market, which had installed a hand-washing station outside.<\/p>\n

Kathy Turner, an Osage Beach resident watching her daughter\u2019s dance recital on an outdoor stage, said people make \u201cbad choices\u201d everywhere, but she wasn\u2019t too worried about visitors bringing the virus to town.<\/p>\n

Bechtold, the LakeExpo editor, said many people felt the national media sensationalized the story. He said lakeside pools might have held a few thousand people, but hundreds of thousands were at the lake, most of them acting responsibly. \u201cThe pictures of the pools,\u201d he said, \u201cwere not a very fair and complete representation of what happened here last weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the negative Memorial Day party publicity will end up being positive for the lake, predicted Burdette, the vacation property manager. He envisions a busy summer as Midwesterners rethink faraway vacation plans and look for closer destinations where they can spend time outdoors \u2014 boating, fishing and grilling.<\/p>\n

Burdette said he wouldn\u2019t have gotten into the pool shown in the viral video. \u201cOn the other hand, we are a tourist community, and if people act responsibly, there are plenty of things to do here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have plenty of room for people to social distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fauci, in the CNN interview<\/a>, cautioned against making quick conclusions. Some people are asymptomatic carriers, testing still isn\u2019t widespread, and the virus takes time to incubate. A study<\/a> published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine said virtually all who develop symptoms of COVID-19 do so within 11.5 days.<\/p>\n

Fauci said \u201cpeople who were out there frolicking\u201d should not be overconfident if cases don\u2019t rise immediately. \u201cThe effect of spreading is not going to be seen for two, three or maybe even more weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason why we encourage people \u2026 to take a careful look at the guidelines and to the best extent possible, to follow them.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OSAGE BEACH, Mo. \u2014 On a sun-kissed summer Saturday in this tourist town, one could almost imagine the pandemic didn\u2019t …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":257511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-sara-shipley-hiles","mauthors-kaiser-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257513,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257509\/revisions\/257513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}