Interesting idea
Trump supposedly has told governors that he wants a massive sampling of the population to determine which counties have a low incidence, which might let us prioritize some counties for allowing more economic output and relegate others to tighter lockdowns. I can imagine something like this working, if we somehow avoided the stampede from more infected counties to less, which is a big "if." It would be nice to see goods produced by and shipped from "safe zones," even if the safe zones had to shift from location to location over time. But it's not like we have, or even want, county border guards.
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"or even want, county border guards. "
Tongue in cheek, I sorta like the idea- there are three choke points in my county. Two bridges, and one isthmus. Plus the ferries. Pretty easy to cut us off from Seattle.....
My peninsula is pretty easy: one bridge to the south, one road leading north. Of course we're exposed to invasion by the sea.
This looks pretty good, actually: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/good-news-from-washington-state.php
I have had conversations with some of the locals about just how many trees would have to be dropped to cut off all communications with the outside world. It's not many.
I'm hearing from a friend in Rockport that Aransas County, which I believe is in your neck of the woods, Tex, is instituting some draconian measures. She says the county issued a stay at home order, closed the beaches even for fishing, instituted a curfew, banned short term rentals, banned RVs moving in or out of the county, and required travel passes for work sites. She approves; I see the reasoning but am a little uncomfortable especially with the "travel passes for work sites" part of this (assuming her facts are correct).
Aransas County is exactly me. The order is not as strict as you might think; it has broad exceptions for types of businesses that can stay open: all grocery and hardware stores, for instance, all hotels and motels, restaurants (continuing the pattern for the last few weeks of being restricted to take-out and delivery), all construction and landscaping, all government jobs, home-delivery services, cleaning services, trash pick-up, the press, emergency medical and dental, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. If your job isn't in one of these fields, you can go out on personal business, including things like grocery and household shopping, taking care of relatives and the pets of relatives or friends, and all outdoor activities are fine as long as you observe distancing rules. The parks and beaches are closed, but the hiking trails and boat ramps are not, so we can all still fish.
I have as many people complaining to me that the order not strict enough as that it's too strict. In particular, they want to see outsiders banned. Now, this order makes me nervous, but I can't honestly say I disagree with it. We were starting to hear more and more about cases in nearby Corpus Christi, and the atmosphere was starting to get ugly. I asked the County Judge to amend the single draft I saw, rather at the last minute (he does these things in a tight inner circle with the local mayors) to let people keep using the boat ramps, and he agreed. I plan to support him publicly on this order, which probably will give him heart failure. The truth is, we have nothing like a police force to enforce it, so anyone who gets into trouble under it will be pushing really hard. There is a curfew from midnight to 5am, subject to a ton of exceptions, which is intended to control burglaries and I predict will be limited to that specific concern. Again, nowhere near enough cops to do otherwise, and no urge to, either.
The neighboring county is closed to construction and landscape workers. We can actually get work done out here for a change, being one of the few areas--and few residents--who still are hiring. We keep our distance; my home is up on stilts, and I mostly talk to them from the porch. We're being pretty careful right now.
I'm not really sure what they mean by beaches yet. We don't have but one area that's a real sandy beach, which is basically a park. I consider it closed. Most fishing that's not from boats is on piers (public or private) or wade-fishing. I take the exception for outdoor activities to include wade-fishing. The idea is not to have people bunch up next to each other on the sand. There's no restriction on fishing from a private pier. If a pier is in a park, you're out of luck. We'll sort this out as questions come up.
Thanks for the clarification. Your version makes more sense; e.g., I couldn't figure out how my friend planned to buy groceries given her description. Perhaps if half the complaints are about it being too strict and half about it being not strict enough that means it's right where it should be. The Goldilocks principle of regulations.
It sounds like you're a bit of an early test case for people from infected areas wanting to enter safe zones. My county is past that and there would have been no possibility of sealing it off even if we weren't and even if we could stomach doing so. We're a huge county; a lot of people commute into Mobile and Pensacola; and we have a significant military presence.
We had just cleared our building site and applied for a building permit when things got dicey. I figured the project would grind to a halt but the city came through with the permit and construction has started - the footings are poured. So far it's all outdoor work; the site is pretty isolated; and the subs all seem to be family and/or close friends so I imagine they figure they would be sharing any virus they pick up whether they're working or not.
Good luck with your construction! Tense times, but at least those workers have paychecks.
Tx. And, yes, I'm glad we are able to contribute to keeping the economy ticking over, at least a little.
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