The kids aren’t alright

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Hola Pandemic Pals,

I took a walk on the beach this morning before work.

Everyone has a story about what they were going to do in 2020 if COVID-19 hadn’t shown up. Back in late January, when things started going sour, the year was young and full of potential. 

We moved to a bungalow right on the beach at the end of February. For a few brief weeks the entire Pacific Ocean was our front yard. It was glorious. 

(The view from right outside my house. The beach was completely closed until last month. We’re allowed access Monday – Friday between the hours of 6AM and 10AM now).

But then the quarantine hit Mexico and inside we had to go. We went from living our best lives — starting our days with our feet in the sand and taking long, romantic, moonlit walks on the beach after watching the sun set — to stuck inside. Don’t get me wrong, if you have to be quarantined it’s not a bad deal to have a nice view and perpetually perfect weather. 

Today, I went early enough to find some isolation. It was just me, a few people catching their breakfast, and some very happy beach dogs. Normally the beaches here would be full of tourists, vendors, horses, and surfers. But today it was like my own private paradise. And that made me very, very sad. 

Because any day now the government is going to completely shut the beaches back down again. 

Nobody’s talking about Mexico, but we’re reporting the third highest increase in COVID-19 deaths behind the US and Brazil. The common sentiment here is that the government is likely under-counting the number of cases and deaths. This, all in spite of the fact that Mexico took action earlier than the US. 

I don’t know what’s going to happen to my little beach community. If the beaches don’t open for the rest of the summer, the families and workers who depend on tourism for income likely won’t make it through winter. And if Spring Break doesn’t happen in 2021, I fear hundreds of people in my neighborhood will go hungry, lose their homes, or worse. 

I think about these things when I’m walking alone on the beach. But I think about them even more when I go purchase water and see people out in public without masks on or when I pick up groceries and see people shaking hands and hugging one another in greeting.

Most of us are following the rules and trying to protect each other. But a few aren’t. I wonder why those people hate my neighborhood and the wonderful people in it. I wonder why they want the beaches closed, the elderly at risk, and every sick person who lives here endangered. 

That we have data emerging that indicates there is medium or long term cardiac consequences for even asymptomatic people & still decided to open schools in person.

That we didn’t put together the tools— tests & contact tracing— to make them, their schools & their families safe.6

— Andy Slavitt @ 🏡 (@ASlavitt) August 4, 2020