Smartphone data shows out-of-state visitors flocked to Georgia as restaurants and other businesses r
Source: WaPo
One week after Georgia allowed dine-in restaurants, hair salons and other businesses to reopen, an additional 62,440 visitors arrived there daily, most from surrounding states where such businesses remained shuttered, according to an analysis of smartphone location data.
Researchers at the University of Maryland say the data provides some of the first hard evidence that reopening some state economies ahead of others could potentially worsen and prolong the spread of the novel coronavirus. Any impetus to travel, public health experts say, increases the number of people coming into contact with each other and raises the risk of transmission.
It's exactly the kind of effects we've been worried about, said Meagan Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
This is not an unpredictable outcome with businesses opening in one location and people going to seek services there, said Fitzpatrick, who has reviewed the findings by the university's Maryland Transportation Institute.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/smartphone-data-shows-out-of-state-visitors-flocked-to-georgia-as-restaurants-and-other-businesses-reopened/2020/05/06/b1db0056-8faf-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=wp_main
Squinch
(51,053 posts)Those assholes are 1) killing people and 2) screwing up all the progress the rest of us have made.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)too soon, because the leaders in other states want to keep that money in their own state.
yardwork
(61,715 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,047 posts)People who do have a reason to come in (returning residents for example) have to self-isolate for 14 days. And self-isolate means no grocery shopping, no walks, nothing.
People are being turned around at the provincial borders.
The result: New Brunswick went 14 days with no new cases, and just one or two in the past couple of days.
It is opening up a few businesses, slowly, like many places in Canada, except Ontario which has the highest case load.
PatSeg
(47,649 posts)What kind of risks will people take to eat in a restaurant or get a haircut? How disturbing and embarrassing.
Americans are the stupidest people on the planet. Thank the right wing think tanks and media for that. The populace is brainwashed. Education and science are mocked. Religious superstition is encouraged because these people will vote against their own interests to save a fetus, then show contempt and utter disregard for sentient beings. Americans as a collective are also incredibly selfish and self-centered.
PatSeg
(47,649 posts)that has been feeding on a steady diet of reality TV for years and they believe it IS reality. The same people of course get their news from Fox News and right-wing radio. They didn't become this way overnight. I can understand how many of them became brainwashed and believe in bizarre conspiracy theories, but I'll never understand the cruelty and insensitivity towards other people. They want what they want when they want it and everyone else be damned.
luvtheGWN
(1,336 posts)...for me, and too bad for the rest of you.
liberalmuse
(18,672 posts)But to waste your mind like that and actually choose to be dumb. What a waste!
PatSeg
(47,649 posts)where almost any information is at one's fingertips 24 hours a day. This should have been a golden age of learning and growth.
Nay
(12,051 posts)people believe and do anything if you repeat it often enough through those 2 media.
PatSeg
(47,649 posts)when they didn't get off their couches, but then they took their ignorant beliefs to the streets and even worse the polling place. There was a time when such people didn't vote and showed no interest in politics or world events. They watched the dumbest television programming for decades, so I guess it was an easy progression to go from Jerry Springer and professional wrestling to Fox News, then social media on the Internet. Because some of their reality TV has the word "News" in it, they assume they are well informed.
It took years, poor education, and bad television to create these herds of zombies. It might take a virus to get rid of them, if deprogramming isn't an option.
ananda
(28,885 posts)We have em here in Texas too.
greymattermom
(5,754 posts)Don't you think people would travel from Minnesota to Wisconsin if one state opened? Watch Keisha on the news if you want to see the real face of Georgia.
BComplex
(8,073 posts)It is what it is.
Igel
(35,374 posts)in the US. Not a southern city.
There was pushback against a couple of red (or reddish) states when they tried to stop travel from more infected areas into their states.
When it was Rhode Island, people objected until the name and politics of the state was pointed out, upon which pushback became, essentially, "Oh, okay then, I guess."
It's not just a southern thing. Fostering the perception that it is just leads to half-truth. We saw it in Wuhan, we saw it in nothern Italy, and we saw it in NYC. The infection spreads via the hosts. To stop the infection, you stop the hosts. It's fine when we can blame those we want to blame. Harder to blame New Yorkers.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)So they know where people came from but only that they went to GA?
Strikes me that unless you show growth in border area influx why couldn't some of be Atlanta airport hub then, as more people fly.
Remember seeing heat map of Ft Lauderdale during and after spring break and you could see where people went.
gab13by13
(21,440 posts)before other countries start locking their borders from Americans coming in.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,047 posts)Bengus81
(6,936 posts)Remember when Texas was checking for Louisiana ID's at the State line? Maybe still are.
FakeNoose
(32,823 posts)...and immediately there was an influx of Pennsylvanians crossing over to West Virginia and Ohio to purchase liquor in those stores where individual retails owners could decide whether to stay open or close.
Immediately there was an outpouring of resentment by the local residents towards PA people crossing the state border, so what did they do? Instead of sensibly closing their liquor stores (since they were nonessential) the neighbor states required every customer to show a WV driver's license to purchase in West Virginia, or an OH license to purchase in Ohio.
Of course this is going to happen everywhere. People from out of state are coming to you, if you choose to ignore the quarantine. Isn't this the reason why you're doing it? Why else would you take the risk? No place - and no person - is safe until we have an effective vaccine.
luvtheGWN
(1,336 posts)were (and are) considered essential in Ontario and remained open. Of course, with all the extra financial costs caused by Covid-19 for the province, it was "essential" that the province continued to receive tax revenues from liquor and beer sales!
FakeNoose
(32,823 posts)We have state-run liquor stores that control the sale of wine and spirits. However for nearly 100 years beer can be sold through private retail beer distributors and breweries (by the case or keg) and also private bar/tavern owners are allowed to sell 6-packs of beer to take out.
We are literally the last state in the Union to change this setup that's a holdover from the end of Prohibition Era in 1933. So we haven't gone completely retail yet, but we're slowly moving away from state control of liquor sales into retail sales. It has taken a lot of legislation to get this far! A few grocery store chains have applied for and received licenses to sell beer and wine - that was a major step for us almost 10 years ago. Eventually there will be privately owned retail liquor stores (and the PA state stores will slowly close) but we're not there yet, and now this pandemic happened.
I think the pandemic has made everyone realize what a PITA it is to have one entity (namely our governor) who makes a decision to close everything in one fell swoop. We went from everything open to nothing open in a matter of days.
Rae
(84 posts)They never closed. So Pennsylvania isn't the only state.
FakeNoose
(32,823 posts)It's a throwback to ending the corruption of the Prohibition Era. There was a LOT of it in Pennsylvania, as I have learned. Gangsters, mobsters, bootleggers, crooked politicians, corrupt cops, we had it all here.
Now we have State Stores. Not corrupt, but horribly inefficient and unresponsive to the market.
Rae
(84 posts)There has been talk of changing that in NC, but there's a lot of money to be made by the state. I'm from Illinois originally, so the system was quite the shock when I moved down. Can't buy on Sundays, extra shopping trip required to get hard liquor...and of course the taxes. It's nuts.
BComplex
(8,073 posts)down since early on (March 23? I think), and our state isn't going broke like a lot of states. I think state control of alcoholic beverage sales is a good thing. The employees are all State employees, and if they get caught (always the security cameras are rolling) selling to drunk people or minors, they can lose their jobs (pensions, insurance, etc.). A quick phone call brings the ABC Officers (Alcoholic Beverage Control) quickly to the store.
I think it's a good system. There are always those who want to "privatize" everything. But so far, NC has kept a good thing going.
WVreaper
(623 posts)Visit here to get sick, go home to die!
Roc2020
(1,616 posts)the best idea to kill as much people as possible is knowing many cannot resist the temptation to crowd together and go back to how is was. 'how is was' mentality is the virus best and most lethal weapon.
Jakes Progress
(11,123 posts)Stupid is as stupid does.
tavernier
(12,410 posts)Snake Plissken
(4,103 posts)dhill926
(16,373 posts)unnerving...
Wednesdays
(17,450 posts)packing restaurants and other businesses. In the middle of a pandemic.
What could possibly go wrong?
Marrah_Goodman
(1,586 posts)SWBTATTReg
(22,176 posts)fester and continue onwards until it burns through the entire population. Very sad and avoidable. Points to the fact that a new leader/president is needed at the front lines. Otherwise...
BComplex
(8,073 posts)Am I prejudiced?
Tenngal
(19 posts)I live about 20 miles from the GA line and have not been aware of anyone doing this so I doubt the story.
mercuryblues
(14,547 posts)<snip>
For example, Zhang said, the biggest jump 17 percent came from Florida, where some beaches had reopened but most businesses deemed unessential remained closed until this week.
NC, SC, FL, AL, and TN all border GA. 62,440 is more visitors is not a stretch.