Coronavirus image/CDC,Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS
National parks and their facilities remain open during the coronavirus epidemic in the United States while National Park Service officials await further guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agency staff said Thursday.
"To help guide the National Park Service operational response to the novel (new) coronavirus (COVID-19), the NPS Office of Public Health and the U.S. Public Health Service officers assigned to the NPS are closely monitoring the situation and keeping staff informed," Park Service acting chief spokesperson Stephanie Roulett told the Traveler in an email. "They are relying on the most updated data and information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM), state and local public health authorities, and coordinating with the DOI Office of Emergency Management.
"The national parks are open and facilities are maintaining continuity of operations," she added. "The NPS is focused on ensuring employees, their families, volunteers, and visitors are safe by following the most current guidance from the CDC, OPM, OEM, and other federal, state, and local health authorities."
The Park Service has been working to keep the public up-to-date on the situation via its public health website.
Representatives for Xanterra Parks & Resorts and Delaware North, two of the largest concessionaires in the National Park System with operations in places such as Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Sequoia, and Shenandoah national parks, did not immediately reply Thursday to emailed requests for how they were approaching the epidemic in their park lodges and restaurants.
Comments
Maybe doctors should just tell people who have lung cancer that they just have a cold too? The difference between the flu and Coronavirus is that we have vaccines for the flu. Humans have been living with the flu for thousands of years. This is something unknown and new. It has spread for a few cases in a fish market in China to a global pandemic in a little over 90 days. The death rate (not numbers...rate) is higher than the flu. Without a proactive response it is possible that it could easily overwhelm our healthcare system as it did in China. There is nothing wrong with being cautious. Having said all that I would agree that National Parks should remain open at least for now. Closing visitor centers and gift stores might be a good idea, as well as indoor parks like historical sights.
One problem with this theory is that 90% of park visitors do not hike farther than to popular, crowded overlooks. They also crowd into gift stores and visitor centers. Another favorite activity is congregating in "animal jams". Only about 10% of visitors go hiking off by themselves. Restrooms are typically rarely cleaned "pit" toilets.
You go hiking, but the vast majority of the six million visitors that park gets do not. They crowd into popular overviews, visitor centers and gift stores, not to mention the peatry dishes called public restrooms, most of which are vault style without even running water. Parks do not have the resources to keep these areas disinfected.
From recent statements...we will be closing Wednesday....how true that is....we shall see #ElTovarEmployee
People are going into restaurants, retail stores, groceries, etc. all over the nation. If those aren't being closed, it makes no sense to shut down National Parks, does it?
This is such bs, parks staff are wildly underpaid ppl, lots of them are older retirees working pt, lots of park hosts are also elderly retirees that are volunteer labor. I've seen for weeks now people coming sick into my park, coughing all over the place, touching everything. You can only wipe things down so many times and with how slammed parks are, contamination is everywhere, public facilities, on souvigneirs in park stores, on RV electrical boxes, lodging facilities, hose cleabibs,A everything a park visitor touches. We can't disinfect it all! A disinfection cleaning only lasts til the next person touches it. Not to mention the staff exhaustion from a mild winter which lead many parks to not have a traditional slow down, plus the chaos of spring break, coronavirus and now extended spring breaks. Do the right thing and give a shit about parks staff health, elderly volunteers, and the public health. Close state and national parks NOW. We're just begging to be transmission hot spots!
I work in the Grand Canyon, we dont have a plan for the coronavirus epidemic when it hits us. It's not about where its gonna hit us. I just spoke to a manager about a plan just in case, but apparently we're flowing orders from NPS. It's like the time this past winter where we had almost no power on for 24 hours and they finally wanna do something about it, almost what 7 - 8 hours later on because they had no plan to start with. They're blind to see what's gonna happen "when it hits us".
u know for the vaoult restrooms in national parks, they should add hand sanitizers in the vault restrooms.