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Draw a line in the sand - for safety

Draw A Line In The Sand To Keep Our Beaches Safe And Open

Chris Mancini, executive director of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, shows how to do some social distancing on the beach this weekend.

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its a great idea. but just like at the grocery store, if its convenient for someone to walk through the circle to get to where they want to go, they will gleefuly ignore it! And if you ask them to mind the 6 feet rule, they will look at you disgusted and argue with you. #currentlife

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COME_ON -- I know there's been no math lessons for a couple of months -- but Euclid and Pythagoras are crying in their Ouzo

Let's assume that we need to continue with the fiction of 2m or 6ft social distancing outside -- that is of course fiction!

However -- back to the circles -- If you start drawing circles with 2m or 6ft radii -- you end-up with the centers of the circles being not 2m but 4m apart -- double the Social Distance and not reducing the beach capacity to not 1/2 but approaching 1/4 of the capacity @ the true social distancing*1

Here's the revised process -- To maintain "Social Distancing" each person on the beach should draw a circle about themselves which is 1m in radius -- that process results in the people at the centers of the circles being 2m apart -- maximizing the beach access for the most people and still maintaining social distancing

Now back to why the "Social Distance" on the beach is much less than 2m. The beach provides the optimum environment for people and the most lethal environment for the SARS-COV-2 virus.

The beach has lots of:

  1. Ventilation -- sea and land breezes
    1. Fresh air abounds
    2. Warm, Moist air abounds -- at least on a "Beach Day"
    3. both of these are bad for the virus
  2. UV Radiation both
    1. Direct from the Sun -- aka put on your sunscreen -- virus doesn't have such available
    2. Reflected Radiation from the bits of glass [aka] Sand which makes up the beach
    3. Both are Virus Killers
  3. an inhospitable surface for the virus if it lands amongst the sand grains -- heat, humidity and down by the instantaneous tide-line constant sea water washing action

If Save the Harbor/Save the Bay is supposed to be about Science and the Marine Environment -- let's at least not propagate mythology, fear and silly misinformation

*1 Note for Math Extra Credit
Effect of the shape of the beach on the capacity at 1x and 2x social distancing

  1. Under the best case scenario of a beach which is long and thin -- the capacity will decrease by at least 50%.
  2. However, for a beach which is closer to a square -- the capacity will decrease to be nearly 25% of what true social distancing would permit

the actual capacity depends on the beach geometry, including the effects of lifeguard chairs, walkways, slope of the beach between the hightide and lowtide lines, etc.

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When your teachers/profs told you "don't over think it".

Yeah. That.

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stand in circle the entire time you're at the beach but if you lie down, your head is now within a couple feet of the edge of the circle and potentially within the 6 ft zone of someone else. I would like to see moats dug around each person.

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No one really needs to maintain anything other than normal civil behavior distancing when you are out on the beach

Sunlight and Sea Breezes will take care of the Virus unless you are kissing distance from the next person

I wont guarantee that of the Millions of People worldwide who have gotten infected -- that no one person has ever been infected while outdoors in the sunshine and breezes Sea Side.

However, I will wager that many more people have been injured by Jellyfish on the beach, or in the water, than have gotten the COVID-19 disease while on the beach [as long as they maintain normal civil distances].

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