Doctor: Coronavirus pandemic should halt Hilton Head vacations for 15 days | Opinion
They say it can’t be done.
But why not close Hilton Head Island to visitors for two weeks to meet the president’s coronavirus guidelines for America, “15 Days to Close the Spread”?
One of President Donald Trump’s guidelines is to “avoid discretionary travel.”
That would presumably include a vacation trip.
Dr. Jerri Barden Perkins of Sea Pines thinks a 15-day break would be a reasonable way to protect a community with limited medical resources, but plenty of the elderly.
“Are we more concerned about our financial interests in the next 15 days than our own people,” she asked in an interview on Wednesday.
“For the next 15 days, our priority ought to be our health.
“Our finances will come back, but the sooner we get our health under control and the coronavirus under control, the sooner we will get our finances under control.”
Perkins speaks as a physician trained in infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health. She also was involved in the AIDS crisis while a medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in the anti-infective drugs division.
She was among the early researchers on AIDS, and recommended the first AIDS-related therapy for FDA approval.
Her late husband, Dr. John Calvin “Cal” Perkins, also was an infectious disease specialist.
And so it was that Perkins, who stays busy with medical-based Iyengar yoga classes, set out to write a letter earlier this week to her family.
She listed personal precautions they should take as the COVID-19 coronavirus that surfaced in China late last year became a pandemic.
Her recommendations on social distancing, etc., closely mirror those we’ve now heard many times from federal and state leaders.
But it was as an islander who first discovered her island “paradise” in the 1980s that Perkins had another message for her hometown.
She said it would be crucial to repeat the guidelines to the island’s guests, short-term renters and all residents.
But it would be better to take time out from visitors for 15 days, she said.
“Give us some time, give us 15 days to get more information for our loved ones and community to get through this.
“Now is not the time, in my opinion, to be here for a vacation. We need to take a two-week break to see where we are.”
Welcome visitors to come back when it makes more sense, she said.
“Above all else, I’m a scientist,” Perkins said. “We need data. We don’t have much yet. We don’t know enough. This evolves day to day.”
Her observation is that most people she sees around town are doing what they have been asked to do.
The Town of Hilton Head Island says it cannot close the bridge to weed people out.
In many cases, the marketplace is doing it for them. The Disney Resort was temporarily closed this week. Here and statewide, hotel occupancy rates are down drastically. Short-term rental companies have taken many cancellations.
Still, health must come first, said Perkins.
“The world is not going to end in 15 days,” she said, “but it may well if we don’t do what we have to do now.”
