Family Vacay. Had no idea about the sewage issue… We are staying in a hotel in North Myrtle Beach, Club Wyndham Westwinds, Hopefully that is up-tide of the sewage? I certainly welcome any suggestions. I know we want to try that pirate ship dinner show thing because I think my kids will like it, but other than that and the beach, no real plans.
If you/the kids like mini golf, Mt Atlanticus is a must play course.
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This has the testing results:
https://gis.dhec.sc.gov/beachaccess/
Tap the little swimming dude icons on the map and you’ll see. You may see runoff locations on the beach, stay away from them as much as you can. Usually it’s bad after a lot of rain.
Depending on how old your kids are, lots of cool miniature golf places. Whichever road is more inland between Business 17 and 17 has a water park and a go kart place that look pretty good just driving past, not too far from Broadway At The Beach (which is not a Broadway theatre and is something else you may want to look into).
There’s a street that has like ice cream, funnel cake, etc about a block off the ocean near the park in the middle of Myrtle Beach. I think there are some rides nearby, I would assume you can find an arcade there or something for kids.
Restaurant scene there sucks IMO, I like Hook and Barrel but each meal there seems hit or miss within my group. Abuelo’s Mexican is like replacement level East coast Mexican.
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So that has me a little nervous. We’re going there primarily for the beach… And there is a tropical storm passing through right now, so lots of rain. Should we not be going in the water? I clicked on the link and it doesn’t look great. What’s the “ok” level of bacteria to swim in?
I wouldn’t stress it unless there like headlines to stay out the water when you show up. How many 100s of thousands people swim at the beach there a year.
It doesn’t really get covered in the media in my experience. It’s a dirty little secret that would be bad for the local economy if it got a lot of attention.
For me it’s more about the ick factor than the effects of the bacteria, although I assume it can make you sick.
Edited to add: they used to show the most recent reading on that page, now it’s just an average it appears. That doesn’t fill me with joy and confidence.
If dozens of people in Myrtle Beach out of the millions visiting were dying of E. coli a year then I would be worried but in the scheme of things I’m way more worried about getting sick at the buffet than from saltwater at a USA beach. If there a red tide or something obviously completely different. I did once get some sort of conjunctivitis surfing a river mouth in Costa Rica but that was like a floating turds in water situation
It should be gone by the time you get there. I’d assume if you are in the ocean it’s not going to be a problem or if so, not for long. Freshwater on the land side could be a different story?
But not my area of expertise. Maybe check the local county website?
Due to a skin condition my hands are also currently cut up to hell lol.
Basically, a nonprofit group says it’s worse than local officials claim.
https://www.islandpacket.com/news/state/south-carolina/article277750373.html
Aw come on guys, it’s the beach! Go have fun! If you get sick it’s probably the crab legs buffets with the brawling customers.
Yikes. Blood in the water. I’d worry more about the macrobiology than the microbiology.
Lol. My kids are 8 and 5, we aren’t going in past our calves. I just don’t want to get strep building a sand castle.
Did they build another Disneyworld there?
Exciting news everyone, COVID is no longer airborne! Source: my wife’s hospital’s official stance.
Ah, well, nevertheless.
Maybe people have stopped fist-bumping and gone back to more traditional greetings that include handshaking and French kissing?
Good site for those that still want to keep track and alter behavior a bit:
You can narrow it down to a state/region. California, for example, is peaking right now. It’s been on the uptrend since mid-May.
Every single region seems to still be surging overall, though.
We aren’t altering our behavior a ton based on the data. One nice thing about living in SoCal is dining outside or next to an open window is almost always an option, and is pleasant to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine anyway. We’re mostly masking on quick errands, in medical facilities, grocery stores, etc and in airports and such, and almost never in social settings. When cases are high, we’re probably also throwing the masks on when we’re around someone who’s coming into contact with a ton of people - like in an uber. And if cases are high, we’re definitely not trying to be in a huge crowd, like say at a concert.
So far so good on that + boosters every six months. Only time we caught COVID was from my wife’s bachelorette party.
Too few people are getting boosted. Lots of FAFO going on, stupid games are being played and stupid prizes are being awarded. At this point the FO and the stupid prizes are skewing way more towards a rough cold and way less towards death, but we’re still racking up at least a few hundred COVID deaths per week nationally and sometimes a couple thousand a week. Looks like 50K+ per year still.
I had a conversation with someone who works on vaccines at Pfizer recently, and when I told her I was still getting boosted every 6 months she started nodding enthusiastically and said that’s ideal. Each new boost reduces long COVID risk, reduces severe outcome risk, and reduces your risk of catching it. I asked her about the efficacy numbers given that it’s not novel anymore, and she agreed that the lower overall efficacy numbers are to be expected - we’re no longer comparing it to a baseline of zero immune system recognition of COVID. We’re now comparing it to a baseline of ~everyone having either multiple vaccinations or multiple infections or both. So even though we probably have stronger protection now after a booster, we will see lower efficacy numbers in the data compared to years past.
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It may surprise you to learn that Myrtle Beach is, in fact, on the way to Disney World if driving from New York. Happy to report I am here now and none of us got super e-coli from dipping our feet into the ocean.
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That makes sense and is actually pretty reassuring. Now when are we getting the next updated monovalent so I can get my next shot?
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I assume for the fall, hoping to be able to get that in my arm by early November.