Block Island, if you don’t know it, is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean about a dozen miles south of Narragansett, Rhode Island and about the same distance east of Montauk, New York. It belongs to Washington County, Rhode Island, and is a delightful piece of rural New England surrounded by ocean. My business takes me there from time to time at various times of the year, and one of those occasions was yesterday. Like most visitors to the island, I took the ferry from Galilee (Point Judith).
The island constitutes the Town of New Shoreham, and as recently as two weeks ago the town authorities were discouraging anyone to go there because of the Covid-19 threat. If you had to go, you were expected to quarantine for fourteen days, and those of us who go there for work had to apply to the town in advance for permission. If approved — and only “essential” work would be approved — we would be allowed to go only directly to our job site and back to the ferry or airport, without interacting with any of the locals, and a hefty fine would be imposed for violating those conditions.
All that changed last week, when the island reopened to visitors. Nevertheless, when I drove down to the ferry, I didn’t expect to see many people. However, the ferry was crowded to the gills, both coming and going, and a startling number of passengers either wore no mask or uncovered their faces after boarding. The ferry company made no attempt to enforce the posted rule requiring passengers to remain masked throughout the trip, and I and some other passengers ended up standing outside on the deck the whole way. But too many of them crowded into the main cabin for the hour-long passage. If even one person among them was infected, there will now be dozens of newly infected people spreading the virus all over southern New England.
New England is one of the more civilized parts of the country, where people still put their faith in science and respect the opinions of experts. Yet even here there are enough irresponsible idiots to frustrate any possibility of containing the virus. If the point of wearing a mask was to keep yourself safe from infection, and the thoughtless, stupid, or apathetic only endangered their own health by taking off their masks and crowding into a close, inadequately ventilated space, it would be bad enough. However, the point of covering your face is not to keep you healthy but to stop you spreading the virus to others, and if Americans can’t or wont do this, then that bodes very ill, it seems to me.
If you do to Block Island, get a car reservation and stay in your vehicle for the whole trip. There is also a small airline that flies there from Westerly, Rhode Island; the flight is only ten minutes instead of the hour-long ferry trip. Either of those will be better for you than walking on to the boat. But until the pandemic is over, it might be best of all to stay home.