This past weekend saw tourists returning to Eureka Springs staying at hotels, shopping and dining. It was the most commercial activity seen since the beginning of the coronavirus shutdowns.
While some people were excited to see the town opening back up, others were concerned about the number of visitors who were neither practicing social distancing nor wearing masks, as recommended by health officials to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
“Driving through town makes me leery of what is going on because of the fact this weekend I saw only one family that actually had masks on, the parents and all the kids,” Pat Lujan said. “The rest were wandering in and out of shops not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. It concerns me.”
Lujan, who has tourist lodging cottage Out on Main on North Main, said he wants tourists to know that we want to feel safe around them.
“From what I saw this weekend, I don’t feel safe,” Lujan said. “The North Main parking lot had a lot of visitors from Missouri and Oklahoma where their numbers of cases of Covid are going up. It makes me wonder what effect that will have on us. We’ve done so well here. We have taken care of each other. Now we have decided to open the town back up, I’m worried where we will end up. How many of us will get sick? Once it starts, it just keeps going. It is a scary thing.”
Lujan was working in his yard on North Main when one person was walking too close, and Lujan asked him to stand back. The visitor said: “What is your problem?”
“That problem is people who think it is a conspiracy and a joke, and that it is going to go away by some miracle,” Lujan said. “My God, thousands of people have died and you think it is a conspiracy?”
There is pushback about masks, and that isn’t confined to tourists. Some locals complain that masks are not comfortable, and don’t really protect you. Some even claim they are dangerous.
“Wearing masks increases the warmth and moisture of the throat and nasal passages supporting any virus and causes us to rebreathe any virus that came through the mask and was exhaled,” one resident wrote in an email. “Also, masks reduce oxygen intake and increase reabsorption of exhaled carbon dioxide.”
Polls have shown only an estimated 55 percent of Americans are wearing face masks when leaving home.
There has been conflicting advice on that with some news reports saying the Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the country, has said face masks aren’t necessary for healthy people. However, Fauci said he was taken out of context in that report and that six-foot social distancing and wearing masks are the most important things Americans can do to stop the disease for spreading. Fauci said it protects the wearers and those who come in contact with them.
A study for the National Institute of Health said both surgical masks and homemade masks studied protected against transmission of a virus by reducing exposure during all types of activities. And a review of the literature from the Singapore Medical Journal said aside from handwashing, the use of facemasks is the most valuable thing you can do to prevent droplet transmission from infectious diseases.
“For example, the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 masks in blocking the transmission of SARS are 68% and 91%, respectively,” the study said. “Facemasks, when fitted properly, effectively disrupt the forward momentum of particles expelled from a cough or sneeze, preventing disease transmission. Even if the facemasks are ill-fitting, they are still able to interrupt the particles and airborne viruses sufficiently, such that these pathogens do not reach the breathing zones of people.”
One local physician said many of the early tourists don’t seem to care about social distancing and they think the whole thing is a hoax. “People who are more concerned are staying locked down longer. Those wanting to get out now are not as cautious,” he said.
Currently people dining in restaurants in Arkansas are required to wear face masks until served. While many visitors to town this past weekend weren’t wearing masks on the street, one restaurant owner said his customers had them in their pockets and put them on when entering the restaurant.
Sergio Aguinaga, owner of Amigos Cantina downtown, said he had no problem this past weekend with customers wearing masks.
“I have yellow tape on my entrance and several signs down on the sidewalk they can read before come up the stairs,” Aguinaga said. “It seems everyone has one in their pocket. They put them on to come on. They eat and then put them back on when ready to leave. It is still a little bit hard because we want to be safe and we want them to be safe. But it looks like they are respecting our guidelines. We are happy to be slowly getting back to normal.”
Margie Tovey, front office manager of the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks, home of Myrtie Mae’s, said they didn’t open this past weekend in order to do extra sanitizing to make sure it is safe for their employees and customers. The new target date to reopen is Friday, May 22.
Tovey said she noticed that tourists are mostly not wearing masks, but to be in compliance with state directives, they have masks on hand to give out to customers.