Social distance

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

Social distance

All my rooms are booked now. Because of "corona-crisis" actually it surprises me.

But my guests are generally young people (students) and the new semester just started.

But there is still the "social distance" rule. None of the (BTW nice)  guests seems to be bothered about that, nor inside or outside the house.

What is your experience and how to promote the "social distance" rule without acting as a policeman ?

30 Replies 30
Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Emiel1 @Sarah977 @Anonymous @Sandra126 

 

I am a bit concerned about our state of South Australia. We have not had a new COVID-19 cases since August 23rd and we are letting our guard down. Restrictions have been lifted, social distancing here has all but stopped.....patrons can mingle cheek to jowl at the front bar in the local pub or in any restaurant! We can have 150 at weddings and funerals, 20,000 at the local football match, we have gone back to normal, and we are playing right into the hands of this virus. I have not seen one person in public with a face mask on in the last month, and people everywhere, (me included) are hugging and shaking hands with our relatives and friends!

 

Just across the border to the east the virus is rampant, there are still double digit numbers of people dying every day and they are experiencing more new cases every day than we in this state have had in the last 5 months. I am not blaming them in VIC but, I think we are headed for the same scenario because we are starting to feel this whole COVID-19 thing is a storm in a teacup and doesn't need to be taken seriously. Every day we have someone illegally trying to cross the border into our state and it's only a matter of time before one or two of them succeeds and we will be thrust into a second wave here as well. 

 

There is all this big deal about testing, but a COVID-19 test is just a snapshot in time, it proves nothing.

It needs 3,000 replications of the COVID-19 virus in the body before it will show up as a positive test! A negative test does not mean you don't have COVID-19......it simply means you don't have enough of the virus to test as positive!!!

 

Please do your bit and make sure there is no possibility of you either passing this virus on to someone else or contracting it from someone else. 

We have been exemplary in my state but, I fear pride cometh before a fall, and the thing that this virus feeds on is apathy .....and there is apathy in bucket loads here at the moment! 

 

Don't do what we are doing, keep your guard up and do what all the medical experts say is the right thing to do, take this virus seriously and stop it from doing what it does best....jumping from one human to another!

 

Cheers........Rob 

@Robin4  Yep, as soon as people start acting like the virus is "over", it just spreads again. I'm starting to feel like humans are among the stupidest creatures on the planet. A disease can spread through a herd of animals and kill them all, but unlike humans, they don't have the benefit of the collective knowledge of highly qualified scientists and medical personnel. Humans do, and yet they idiotically ignore or even deny the science because they're "bored" of the virus, as if it's some TV show they're no longer interested in.

 

We might as well be back in the dark ages when infectious disease wasn't understood and thought to be caused by evil miasmas that could be fought off with amulets. 

 

If we want things to "get back to normal", people have to stop acting like things are normal. 

Unfortunately here in Korea, your concerns are happening @Robin4. We have seen a huge surge in the # of confirmed cases during the last 2wks of August. 

 

As Korea saw a significant decrease in new cases end of April~May, people started planning and going on vacation, taking trips, eating out and meeting friends/family. Even the government planned to give out special vouchers to get people to go out more and spend money in order to boost the economy. Historically, last week of July ~ mid August (till around Aug 15 which is our Liberation Day) is summer peak season in Korea so EVERYONE travels somewhere. And now we are seeing the consequence of our complacency. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_South_Korea

kcdc.JPG

 

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-04/why-is-south-korea-facing-another-wave-of-coronavirus-covid-1...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/world/asia/south-korea-covid-19.html

 

 

 

@Sarah977 @Ann72 @Emiel1 

@Jessica-and-Henry0  I just can't fathom why people and governments are so impatient (yes, I understand they want to get the economy back up, but if you just have to lock down again 2 weeks later, what's really the point?). It's like they're all a bunch of little kids who want to open all their Xmas presents before Xmas. 

 

Its obvious by now that when the population follows mask and distancing directives, the infection rate plummets. So everyone needs to keep doing that until there are zero cases. Only then do you open things back up and at the same time keep the borders strictly closed. And you don't open the borders back up until there are no more cases anywhere, or at least require anyone coming into the country to stay in a strictly monitored quarantine facility. You can't just tell people they need to quarantine for 14 days, because many will say they will, but won't.  

 

It all just seems like blatantly obvious common sense to me.

@Sarah977 

A week ago, there was news about international students. They arrived in Korea recently and went thru the mandatory 2-week quarantine at the international student dorm, then per procedure, at the end of the 2-week quarantine they are tested once more and need to get a negative result in order for the quarantine period to be "officially" over.

 

UNFORTUNATELY - the school let the students leave to dorm and break quarantine at the end of 14 days but before the final test results came out......... which came out as POSITIVE. 

 

Imagine a bunch of 20 yr old kids just coming out of a 2 week quarantine - they were roaming all over the neighborhood and Seoul for 1.5 days before people got a hold of them and moved them to a separate observation site for confirmed cases. 

 

Of course...... it was all hush hush~ and this incident got very little news coverage. I happened to find out about it because it happened at a local university close to where I live. A few of the places these students visited were places Henry and I normally frequent so we got sms notifications - which is how we got the full story. 

 

Sigh~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 🙄 

@Jessica-and-Henry0  Wow, how incredibly stupid, to let the kids out before their test results. It makes the entire quarantine just a useless exercise. I hope whoever was responsible for that decision got royally censured.

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Emiel1  I found this post from you odd because I only know you from the community, where you seem to know every rule and Airbnb term of service better than anyone else.  So it made me think you were a "rule" person - no judgement.  Anyway, I'm surprised by your post because of that.

 

I think we all have to work to educate others to protect the greater good, so I think it is your task as a host to provide clear guidance to your guests. 

 

If you want to protect your housekeepers, let your guests know that when the housekeepers come, they will wear masks and that your guests will need to wear masks when the housekeepers are there.  Leave a supply of masks at the place for your guests.

 

And I think some version of @Chris232's message would be an excellent idea for you to send your guests before they come or to send to the guests you have now.

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Ann72 

The meaning of this post is: young people act as if there is no pandemic at all. Most of my guests are in general well educated, international (older) students (aged 21-26). 

As @Sarah977 wrote in this thread :

"because they're "bored" of the virus, as if it's some TV show they're no longer interested in."

That is exactly what it is.

You can not force people to follow certain rules with such an attitude. It is not unwillingness, they simply forget !

 

And I am a host, not a policeman.

I know, @Emiel1, I'm sorry, I just have post-traumatic New York City Covid stress and I'm still freaked out by people who come close without masks.

Lisa723
Level 10
Quilcene, WA

@Emiel1 I think people willing to rent a room in a house they will share with strangers are, by definition, not concerned about distancing and other virus safety measures.

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

I agree completely @Lisa723  which is why I also mentioned this in my reply to @Emiel1  (although perhaps not as directly 🙂 ).

 

 

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Lisa723 

They are international students, they allways live in shared space, like on the campus, studenthouses  etc, having no other (affordable) options. And yes, they are not concerned, as i experienced with a lot of young people these days.

@Emiel1  Perhaps you should find articles which document the COVID deaths of other people their age who were perfectly healthy and fit, who thought the virus was no big deal and died from it. Frame the articles and put them on the wall of your rentals.

@Sarah977 It seems disingenuous to ask guests to take Covid more seriously, while simultaneously profiting from having them in shared housing with other guests.

 

This entire business model is based on being in denial about the risk, and the host is as complicit in that as the guests.

@Anonymous  Agreed, and I said as much in my first reply here. I can see where a host like Emiel, who rents long-term to students would think, "Well, they're going to end up renting somewhere (and probably looking for shared housing so it's cheaper), so why should someone else earn  that rent instead of me?", but the bottom line, when we're talking about stopping the spread of a pandemic is that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.