Bad weather forcing Grand Canyon National Park visitors inside raised fears from some employees about catching coronavirus/Rebecca Latson file
Editor's note: This updates with news that the Washington Monument will close to the public on Saturday.
Concern over the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 on Friday led to cancellation of the annual maple sugar festival at Indiana Dunes National Park, the planned closing of the Washington Monument on Saturday, and worry for park employees who must interact with visitors in the National Park System.
Though there was no announcement from the National Park Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., about additional closings, it was possible that facilities such as national seashore lighthouses, where visitors can be packed close together as they climb and descend, and possibly tours of Mammoth Cave and Carlsband, also would be shut down in the days ahead. Also uncertain was how crowds in lodges, restaurants, and cafeterias in the parks would be managed. Though the peak summer season is weeks off, spring break typically brings large crowds to parks such as Zion and Grand Canyon.
On a closed-to-the-public Facebook page used by Park Service employees, the overall sentiment Friday seemed to be frustration and anger that Park Service leadership had issued no guidance to the public or employees. Many of those who commented mentioned that their park operations were in violation of state guidelines restricting group gatherings
Whether the decision to cancel the Maple Sugar Time Festival, and to shutter the Washington Monument, would spur similar moves elsewhere in the park system was unknown. In Washington, National Park Service Deputy Director David Vela, the de facto director of the agency, was busy dealing with the situation and unavailable to discuss how the Park Service was responding to the sweeping epidemic.
At Delaware North Parks and Resorts, which operates in or near Grand Canyon National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yosemite National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, Olympic National Park, and Shenandoah National Park, spokesman Glen White said the concessionaire was working closely with the Park Service on the matter.
"We are taking appropriate measures to help ensure guest and employee safety, which is our highest priority," he said in an email. "At the restaurants and lodging that we operate in the parks, we have taken actions to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus based on the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including: Expanding sanitizing protocols and bolstering cleaning services throughout our operations; placing hand sanitizer stations at locations for use by guests and employees; posting notifications for our employees on the importance of handwashing; and advising associates who feel sick to remain at home."
Calls to the three other major park concessionaires -- Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Aramark, and Forever Resorts -- were not immediatley returned Friday afternoon.
National Park Service officials, who were said to be in close communications with concessionaires and other park partners, could not immediately say Friday evening whether the concessionaires would refund lodgings reservations canceled at the last minute by visitors increasingly concerned about falling ill in the parks.
At Indiana Dunes in Indiana, staff issued a release stating that, "(T)o protect public health and slow the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, the National Park Service is cancelling this weekend’s Maple Sugar Time Festival at Indiana Dunes National Park’s Chellberg Farm. The park’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education has also been closed and all ranger-led public and school programs are cancelled until at least March 23."
"These actions have been taken based on the best available medical advice to limit gatherings of large numbers of people and to promote social distancing," the statement continued. "At this time, the park’s trails and beaches remain open to the public."
In a statement circulating around the park system, the agency said it was "actively monitoring developments related to the COVID-19 novel coronavirus and is consulting with relevant federal, state and local authorities, including the CDC, to get the most up to date information needed to protect the health of our visitors, volunteers and employees."
But Park Service employees and volunteers who come face-to-face with visitors in crowded parks were voicing concerns over their safety.
"Great Smoky Mountains National Park hosted 12.5 million visitors last year from all over the world. There are four visitor centers that each have about 8,500 people each day come through. If this is not a high risk for the virus, I don't know what is," Andy W said in a comment on the Traveler. "I have served the park as a volunteer for five years and I for one will not venture into a park visitor center until the danger has passed."
Another reader, Kathy, wrote that, "I work in a park with cultural resources. People, staff and visitors, are shoulder to shoulder in confined spaces. No changes to historic building tours?"
Andrew S., who didn't indicate which park he works at, said visiting the parks should be discouraged, "especially since visitors don't always practice basic hygiene, even prior to COVID. And now, our concessioner seems to be running low on soap and towels. Even though I've always been meticulous about hygiene doesn't mean that those around me including fellow NPS and visitors will. And there have instances in the past where people have invaded my personal zone, coming definitely closer than the recommended six foot blast radius. Just saying."
Janie West, who indicated she works at Grand Canyon National Park, responded to those who argued that national parks should stay open during the epidemic. She wrote that, "Obviously you are not up here working in close contact and collecting their money, dishes, linens and putting yourself at risk. We have thousands coming through the gates and with bad weather everyone is inside. We were able to make it through a government shutdown for weeks but due to greed we can't take a couple weeks to protect our Grand Canyon community and staff?"
The bulk of the comments posted on the Traveler, though, came from readers who wanted the parks to stay open.
"I agree with keeping the parks open," wrote Victoria in a comment that mirrored many others. "What better way to stay healthy and positive than being out in the fresh air and getting exercise? It keeps up the endorphins. Proven to be good for your health, mentally and physically."
"Leave them open!!! This is a rare opportunity for American Families to get out in the fresh air with their families, visit our beautiful treasured national parks and avoid foreign traveler competition," wrote Jojo Willey. "Schools are now closed and flights are cheap. I was thinking of renting a couple of RVs and taking the whole family. This is the best time for well Americans to enjoy these resources!"
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Comments
Please stay open. As a full time RVer, and a veteran family, we would be without a place to park our RV without the wonderful state and national park service offering overnight camping. (Private parks can add up over a few weeks. We couldn't afford to stay in our farm when I lost my job so we are making the best of a bad situation. Please let us continue to explore and enjoy the outdoors and have a place to park where we are not a nuisance! :( Thank you for your consideration.
There are many places you can park your RV for free until this blows over. Freecampsites.net is a good resource if the parks do close. Please think of the park service employees as well. As long as the parks remain open, visitorship will swell as people look for something to do, this puts them at great risk as their job is interacting with said public.
Thank you for voicing that. My husband works at a park and we are concerned. People were calling non stop to ask if they were going to he open. Why put our family at risk so others can have fun on their time off.
Remember that although this is a very highly contagious disease, the mortality from the coronavirus is very low. The only exception is people over the age of 80 or people who have a serious underlying cardio pulmonary disease, or pepilepsy that are immune compromised. These are very unlikely to be national Park visitors. Even if a visitor, who is usually a younger person and in good health catches This infection, other than minor cold symptoms, more than 80% recover easily. Keep the parks open.
Thank you!
OK by you if park staff who deal with thousands of vistors increase their risk? And then spread it to park visitors and so on?
As an RVer who recently made a huge decision to take the winter off, homeschool the kids and see the NP's(free access because we have a 4th trader), I can think of no better place to be! If we were just able to access the parks/trails, not the public spaces.... the views, fresh air and exercise would be ideal during this time, especially where kids are out of school! The services our NP's offer just in their existence should be enough. I just saw a link for kids to get their ranger badges online too! Stopping 'everything' is sad and hopefully un-neccessary. Protecting employees and preventing infection is priority, but there has to be a way to stay open to some degree without the risks?!?! Pleeeeeeeeeeease
FYI: Texas State Parks are remaining OPEN. I received this via email:
Texas State Parks Visitors,
We appreciate your loyalty and trust. With the uncertain and evolving health situation in the U.S., our highest priority is the health and well-being of our visitors, volunteers and employees.
Texas State Parks are open, and our staff is ready to welcome you for the day or for overnight stays. Outdoor spaces are well suited to increased social distance, but we still must remain diligent in taking steps to make your visit as safe and enjoyable as possible.
Here’s how you can help:
Print your day-use and camping permits before your visit to a state park. You can even print permits for reservations made through the call center. This will help reduce or eliminate time spent in the park office to check in. Simply log in to your account and select “Pre-Registration & Site Permits” for camping reservations, or “Print Tickets & Daily Entrance” for day use. Then follow instructions on the page. Please note that it takes up to 24 hours for new camping reservations to be available for at-home printing.
Pack extra soap or hand sanitizer. Park restrooms have soap or hand sanitizer. However, due to increased use or at remote locations, soap or sanitizer may not always be available.
If you have been sick in the last two weeks, please stay at home for your health and the safety of others.
Additional information on best practices for keeping you and your family safe can be found online at the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Here’s what we are doing:
If you feel cancelling your stay is the safest choice, we will waive cancellation fees for visits in March. To cancel without fees, contact our Customer Service Center at (512) 389-8900 or email customer service.
We are implementing additional cleaning procedures, such as cleaning restrooms and other public areas more often.
We are monitoring the situation. We promise to remain diligent and intentional in protecting you and making your visit a great experience.
Please visit our website for more information and our latest updates.
This isn't a national vacation it's a international/national emergency. Social distancing and staying home means just that. For everyones safety including park employee stay home. Your thought process is selfish and displays a real lack of judgment and concern about this viral pandemic.
Stay on BLM land!
You seem to think this is a "Hurrah, I'm off work vacation time for everyone!!" It is amazing that you seem to have no sense of the importance of a pandemic and what that means.
Certainly the National Parks should be closed. Why force all those people to work in high risk situations just so you can be selfish and focus on using your RV!! If people want free air,
cities, counties and neighborhoods have plenty of parks, walking and biking trails that people like you are never using. Time to use them if you want fresh air!
I agree I could only book 2 nights in a national forest in Kentucky and it sounds like I may have trouble finding affordable places to stay. So with the ability to be outdoors and away from people in our parks is very important. I do agree with closing some of the tighter more interactive spaces
Having been just at the Grand Canyon recently ...last week. The restaurants were crowded and the hotels were full from people ALL over the Globe. It was more crowded and busy than any airport and certainly more people in closer quarters and exhanging money, handling gifts touching everything etc. If you are closing schools and you are closing the boarders you have to close the parks too.
Travel from other countries have been stopped so shouldn't these areas be safer?
This is a good point. I worked for the NPS as a seasonal ranger back in 2008-2009 and we received more visitors in Utah from Europe than Utahns. Of course, being outdoors is beneficial but being closely packed in visitor centers or other park quarters does present a concern.
Perhaps outdoor activities at parks should stay open. Visitor centers with bookstores and eating places should close. People may come from areas of high infection and handle merchandise as well as interact with staff. Safety must come before profit!
Easy for you to say after you've had a nice stay and returned home. Many of us have non-refundable reservations and tickets purchased. I say close the cafeterias, visitor centers and the like where people congregate. This is actually a great opportunity for Americans to see their national parks and monuments without the hoards of overseas visitors. If you've ever tried to make camping reservations at Yosemite, Zion, Glacier or Arches you'll know what I mean. 20,000 to 30,000 Americans die each year of the common flu. Should we also close the parks for flu season? There's also snakes, bears and Giardiasis. Let's not get caught up in the hysteria. Life goes on, albeit with some risk. If you can't handle that, stay home. National parks are about adventure and discover, not safety and convenience.
I was there last week. I didn't see the crowds. We felt like we had the entire canyon to ourselves a few times on our hike. Keep the Canyon Open Please!
Yes! Thank you. As someone who works in a National Park Visitor Center I couldn't agree more. I would prefer to practice social distancing, which many epidemiologists are recommending but can't because we're keeping the Visitor Centers open. It is impossible to stay 6 feet from the visitors which is the distance recommended by the CDC. I feel like my health and safety are being compromised.
you say that because you got to go, and are not waiting to go with hundreds of dollars invested in a family trip
Agree that safety should come before leisure, close the parks!
If restaurants are crowded, close the restaurants. Keep the trails and roads open.
Then close the hotels restaurants and other concessions if crowds are the problem... The parks are much more than over-priced hotels/restaurants. Leave the parks open!
I don’t think that anything should close it is best that people breathe fresh air. This is getting a little out of hand. the last how many years we have had different other virus and nothing shut down then. So why now? We should not have to live in a bubble and in fear. Let people live their lives and enjoy the country.my family is ready to see the Grand Canyon in the next week. So please leave it open and let people enjoy the Beauty.
The restaurants and lobbies are full of people as well as the buses. We were packed in tightly to ride to the look out point. The table we sat at in the restaurant had barely been cleaned when we sat down. Busier and more people in the shops than at the airports. This virus was imported from the wet markets of China where almost all other viruses of late have arisen- humans are not doing well with it...we do not have the immune response. Point being we need to contain the spread right now to avoid the most severe consequences. Watch the Australian 60 minute's on the China wet market on Youtube. This is no joke
People are dying. Fewer people will die with responsible action. Nobody cares about your family vacation.
people die in car accidents, cancer, et centera. So what’s your point. Quit living in fear. This virus is extremely overblown. Over 16,000 Americans died due to Swine Flu, and thousands more die regularly due to the regular flu. This is media hype. I give the media and China gold stars for successfuloh shutting down our country due to fear
I think the fear is why it is spreading so rapidly and how deadly it can be with no vaccine! This virus is different than any other virus we have had adound thr world
As it has been said-- people work in the park serving you. They are at risk (and their children) with worldwide visitorship, flying in to Las Vegas from, literally, all over the world, and coming straight to the National Park. No filter. And these aren't the "John Muir's" you imagine but throngs of people who need everything at all times of day, drawing staff in for their needs, including everything from blankets to towels to whatever, who bring every little lost item they pick up on a trail or sidewalk to a hotel front desk with germs on it from god knows who. Tour companies dump ALL of their bus passengers to the lobbies for god knows what adding up to hundreds of people a day--you have no idea who you're meeting. Relax. The canyon will be there.
The last few viruses haven't been this spreadable or deadly. People is close contact spread this virus without realising. Think of the health of park employees, they deal with the public, take their money, empty their trash. How is it fair to them?
I agree! We hiked the Grand Canyon last week and it was absolutely astonishing and there were no crowds. Go down Kaibab and up BrIgby Angel. Stop at Phantom Ranch and grab a snack. Enjoy!
I agree that trails should stay open. However, we should be considering the health and safety of the staff and volunteers who are in close contact with international visitors. It is irresponsible to keep places like Visitor Centers open at this time because it puts staff and visitors at unesseary risk. Renowned epidemiologists are recommending social distancing as a way to limit the negative impacts of the virus. There are several articles written about this, I suggest you read at least one of them. Thank you.
Yes you are right. It is the news media causing all this trouble
Maybe the parks should stay open since so many are hunkering down. But you are not paying attention if you think this virus is nothing different. See what happened in Italy? They didn't get ahead of the curve quickly enough. Social distancing is THE key to stopping exponential cases and deaths. This in NOT paranoia and "Living in a bubble." it's real and now. Every medical expert knows this is going to get worse. Il has shut down all restaurants. Sad for workers, but smart for all. I'm thinking we should keep nat'l parks open because we should be able to distance ourselves from others there (stay out of gift shops; use only credit cards and wipe down afterward).
Please read real news.
everyone has a job that has to deal with encounters with customers wether it’s a tourist attraction or not the national parks spread far and wide and don’t have you elbow to elbow touching each other so stop freaking out. They should not close because of these reasons
Some parks have wide open spaces. Many, mine included, do not. Many have very crowded spaces and we are placing people close together, often physically touching. Many of them are coughing and are sick already. The high density parks are putting the American people, the employees and volunteers at great risk. Close the high density parks immediately.
Some National Parks do have areas where people are forced to be in close contact with others. Not everyone has a job that is in close contact with others so I don't even know what your point is. However, for those that do, their health is important and should be respected. Please consider the health of the staff because their lives matter. Thank you.
Hitch Vikings - BLM allows camping up to 2 weeks per location!! Perfect chance to stay away from the crowds & the viruses!! People are using school closings as excuse to travel all over. My community near parks has 2 stores, small hospital & lots of seniors that are high risk. Forest Service also has lots of great opportunity for people that want to be outside
My husband works at a park where people can swim. I think that swimming should be closed due to safety reasons. We all know what many people do in the water that should be done in a bathroom. Plus, why should he put the safety if his family are risk because others want to have fun?
Please keep the National Parks open and do not panic. As this virus goes through the bell curve and the cases increase significantly over the next 3 months, the prudent approach is to have a fast, reliable, Inferared digital thermometer at every single Visitors Center. This inexpensive infrared thermometer (under $40) works iwithout ever needing to come into close contact with each person as they arrive to the Visitor's Center. By using this as the primary low cost screening protocol we can eliminate from all Visitor's Centers and gatherings those individuals who are having a fever and therefore "active" to spread the virus. China has implemented this protocol and their cases are diminishing on the back end of the bell curve. It is the primary tool to identify and send to quarantine those people who have a fever and are capable of spreading this virus without impairing the remainder of the population to enjoy the National Parks and our well staffed Visitor's Center. On the Amazon website several such items are featured "Prime" and in stock and every Visitors Center and National Monument could have one with same day delivery! Such a simple and low cost approach can help keep our Visitor's Centers open throughout this crisis without panic and closing our National Parks prematurely.
Why not just close visitor centers & other places were people concentrate but keep the rest of the stuff open. Lots of parks do that during winter anyway. Probably will be much reduced demand for next month or two anyway. Most folks likely to be local just needed to get out of the house - they wouldn't likely stop by the visitor center anyway.
Last time parks closed facilities but allowed people to use the park without oversight they nearly destroyed some areas. Bad idea!
I'm not sure the parks have the authority to quarantine individuals, that's be more of a state and local health department function, don't you think?
And who is going to pay for it? The parks don't have an unlimited amount of money and there are rules and procedures with ordering items. We can't just go onto amazon and buy stuff at the drop of a hat pin.
A person can be contagious for weeks before showing any signs such as a fever so your idea is ludicrous if you actually want to stop the spread of this.
You can be contagious before you register a temperature. National Parks, especially Visitor Centers can be very crowded. As bad as going to a grocery store. Park Rangers and volunteers deserve to be protected as well. Let's stop being so selfish!
Great point regarding the fever.Unfortunately influenza and the common cold and other viral and bacterial infections can also give you a temperature. I can't imagine the national Park service screening visitors by their temperature. I agree keep the parks open. Even if a visitor catches this disease, the chances of survival are 97+ percent. We are in a freefall panic right now and we have to collect out wits. If you're above the age of 80 or have some type of immunocompromise condition or you have underlying cardiac or pulmonary disease, you should avoid going anywhere including the national parks. Absent that, the national Park visitors are likely children and young adults mostly under the age of 80. The coronavirus pandemic in that group would result in a very small numbers of deaths. Many Americans will get infected by this virus and yet survive. There's nothing we can do about that right now. I say keep the parks open. Our focus should not be in avoiding everyone getting the disease ,it should be in preventing the disease in the most vulnerable of our population . If you are 25 yrs old and develop a fever and have the other published rusk fzz as factors , then self isolate , get a test done and wait for results . Avoid large crowds, hand wash etc and don't visit grampa in the nursing home. ie, use the brain god gave you
yes the digital thermometer concept is good. But what about the fact you cannot drive anywhere near our visitor center here in Yosemite??? I live and work here. We have 0 confirmed cases at this moment, but 4 in quarantine. also the only medical facility within a one hour drive, is CLOSED on weekends. And how to screen people who come to the park after the visitor center closes at 5PM? The don't lock the entrance gates at night, nor are they staffed after 5PM either.
If only it were this easy. Unfortunately, a person can have the virus, and be able to transmit it, weeks before they ever show symptoms or a fever. In fact, especially with children, they may "never" show symptoms, but still be able to spread the virus.
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