Letter: Advisory Should Be Order for Travelers to 'Self-Quarantine'
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To the editor:
Governor Charlie Baker announced on March 27 that "all travelers arriving to Massachusetts are instructed to self-quarantine for 14 days," right? Yes and no. While essential workers are exceptions, "instructed" for everyone else is legalese for "strongly recommended" or, as per info addressing incoming travelers at highway rest areas and airports, "urged." Hence — in contrast with Rhode Island, where police recently arrested three Bay State men hoping to sneak in a round of golf — in Massachusetts, everyone is technically an exception. In sum, this a "travel advisory." Not an order. Not enforceable. That's a problem.
For divorced parents with shared custody of kids it may well be a particularly vexing problem — putting their kids and them at enhanced risk. This is the case when a former spouse's significant other is out of state — let's just say, in a state with a higher incidence of COVID-19 — also has kids who go back and forth between parents, and yet the two of them (i.e. the former spouse and the significant other) can feel free to continue regular visits between each other's homes knowing full well that the advisory is just that, an advisory, not mandatory.
Of course, divorced parents with shared custody can do their level best to limit their social interactions, practice conscientious social distancing, wear face masks when shopping, and allow only those inside one's home for now who live there — with the exception of their shared-custody kids and, maybe, after due consideration, a significant other who lives a socially isolated life in-state or at least somewhere nearby that does not qualify as a coronavirus "hotspot." They can then sit back and still not relax a whole lot, if they suspect that their kids will sooner rather than later arrive not only with their belongings but also with COVID-19 in tow.
Such scenarios are presumably unfolding all over Massachusetts.
Would local police do so much as to even make a phone call to a former spouse as a friendly reminder to heed the spirit of the advisory? It's nice to think so. But in the absence of an enforceable measure, it would be hit or miss — some officers would, others wouldn't.
Can we turn this advisory into more of an order, Governor Baker?
Paul Olchvary
Williamstown, Mass.
Paul Olchvary is a Williamstown-based writer and translator and the publisher of New Europe Books.
