After living for more than a year under the conditions and circumstances brought on by COVID-19, it’s understandable to feel restless, itching to go back to some semblance of normalcy.
And while we are slowly gaining back the abilities to enjoy certain luxuries and activities that were unavailable before, we still have to remember proper CDC guidelines and regulations to help slow the spread so we don’t lose any progress.
We need to avoid rushing back into normalcy too soon to prevent another rise in COVID-19 cases. If we remain patient and compliant with what experts are recommending for the pandemic, we will be able to reach a point where we can resume our normal lives and do the things we have waited so long to do.
For this reason, it may be unwise to open the doors of certain venues and activities like sports stadiums for fans.
The Yankee Stadium’s capacity, for example, is approximately 54,251 people. It’s hard to imagine that many people gathering together given the circumstances.
According to the Dodger Blue website, Dodger Stadium is aiming to open for 18,000 fans or at 33% capacity after Los Angeles county has moved to the orange tier.
While this is technically compliant with the state’s safety guidelines, it is still unwise to allow this many individuals in a stadium at once. Even with the stadium being at 33% capacity and being as large as it is, the ability of staff being able to regulate masks and social distancing with 18,000 fans is a hard and dangerous task.
It’s more acceptable for restaurants to open up because it’s easier to control the amount of people walking through their doors.
According to the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health Officer, “indoor dining may only be open at 50% occupancy or 200 people, whichever is less.”
This is with the intention of keeping people safe and allows staff to more easily regulate customers complying with masks and social distancing mandates; the less people, the more safe everyone will be during these times.
This principle falls on its face once they reach numbers of 18,000 people attending a single event. If they cannot ensure safety at this time, it may be best to wait until conditions improve.
The reason it would be unwise to open the stadium is when you have thousands of people coming in for every event, it makes regulation and sanitization hard on the staff.
According to the CDC, disinfection is required multiple times throughout a day in higher traffic areas as well as places where people may not be wearing masks consistently. In a stadium where people may be enthusiastic about traditional baseball game amenities, you can probably expect that food will be served. After all, what’s baseball without peanuts and hot dogs?
Because of this, it is guaranteed that masks would be on and off. Sanitation would have to be very extensive and frequent, and failure to do so could have greater effects on the population which has the potential to set us back months.
Conditions are indeed improving as of recent news, but by no means does that mean we should be rushing out in crowds and disregarding the guidelines from our experts. We should remain patient and compliant so that very soon we can achieve the ability to live our lives normally under safe conditions.
