Today's 'Block Island Times' has a report on the town budget. Oddly, it was last night that I began to conceive of Block Island without those 20,000 visitor days from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and somewhat smaller crowds in May, September, and October. The summer homes pay some amount of property tax no matter what. They also pay, from what I gather, pro rata utility fees. How much those fees include implicit subsidy for the Islanders, I don't know.
That report also notes that the Island-wide (still not sure if it'd be a municipal utility) fiber internet project is paused. That's not surprising. About the only benefit of not having an 'open' Block Island is that the wind farm will be sending over lots more energetic electrons than the Island ever uses.
So, what might happen? The good news would be that Covid-19 withdraws enough by Memorial Day that all the usual suspects can go on to business as usual. I give that about a 1% chance. Infections across the Northeast continue to rise, and if The Orange Shitgibbon browbeats enough governors into ending mitigation efforts, infections will come back with a vengeance. That's a 25% chance. While some states, latterly Utah, are attempting to 'manage' their borders, that's clearly not Constitutional. From the point of view of RI and Block Island, they would have to bar entry, somehow or another, to those from states ending mitigation or as New York now, in high transmission. We know that NYC was infected by outsiders, now most likely Europeans. Despite what The Orange Shitgibbon insists, New York (city and state) didn't create the epidemic on its own. It would be fairer to require states which end mitigation before medically safe to quarantine their citizens within their borders, in order to protect the remaining states from these fucking morons.
Unless Providence ships gobs of financial support to the Island, a positive future is hard to conjure. The most that town government might be able to do unilaterally is forehead fever scan everyone coming off the boats and airplanes. That won't catch asymps, unfortunately. The bulk of the 20,000 come over on multiple ferries in the morning and return that day. Can the police require that anyone with fever stay on the boat and go back to the mainland on the next trip? Where to put such folks? The upper, open, deck downwind of the clean people. When it's above 50 degrees and not raining, of course. A 50 minute leper colony. Same for the airport, although those planes are flying sardine cans; would they be required to make separate 'infecteds only' return trips?
As the Island's doctor has made clear: the medical center isn't equipped to handle even on Covid-19 patient. The one there was may be a native (the report doesn't say whether NYC or the Island is primary residence, but leads me to believe he's known by name to the Islanders), and was shipped off Island. That's a medevac helicopter flight during summer season. The dayhoppers disappear after a few hours; long enough to infect Islanders and imported service staff. The latter don't live in quarters possible to social distancing, should they get infected. And are not likely to have insurance and moolah to pay for a medevac flight and hospital stay.
Each base handles about 300 transports a year, and the rides cost about $11,000 each, according to the report.
The whole situation begins to spin away from simple answer to complicated problem before you've finished your-wake-up-to-pick-your nose ritual. I hope there is still the Block Island of the last 20 years, when it's safe to have one. But it could well devolve into a summer season-only playland for the 1% set. Nantucket on LSD. Well, both Nantucket and the Vineyard face much the same difficulty.
No comments:
Post a Comment