WHEN Jack Wright posted a message about the closure of the beaches near his home the replies became so vitriolic he deleted it. It was the biggest response his Facebook site had ever received with more than 600 shares, 400 comments and 48,000 views.
“The language got so hate-filled I deleted the whole post. It was poison,” said Wright, a Scot now living in Cape May in New Jersey.
He said there had been a social media battle between the “pitchfork-and-torch locals who don’t want any bloody infected city folk” coming to their second homes or rental homes from North Jersey, Philadelphia or New York City. “There’s been a lot of ‘get back to New York and stop putting us in danger’,” he said. “As if the virus isn’t already here, which of course it is. We just don’t know in what kind of numbers because testing is so limited.”
READ MORE: Coronavirus: What it's like to live in lockdown in New York City
It was the fear of city visitors to the shore towns of Cape May, Wildwood, Avalon and Stone Harbor that prompted the mayors of Cape May County to close the beaches from March 31.
Wright, a magazine and restaurant owner, said that with the restaurants, stores and beaches now closed there was little reason to go there although it hadn’t deterred some people.
“They are still coming because they would rather be sheltering in an airy four-bedroom house near the beach than stuck in a two-bed apartment in the middle of Manhattan, where people are dropping like flies,” he said.
Of the 21 counties in New Jersey, Cape May County has so far had the second-lowest number of cases with 22 positive results and one death out of a population of 93,500.
Wright said that was partly because it was one of the more rural areas and partly because there was such limited access to tests.
“When I called our local hospital in the middle of March to ask if they provided testing, I was passed to three different people and they didn’t have a clue,” he said. “Finally a fourth person said anyone with symptoms could come to the hospital and a doctor would decide whether or not to swab and send off the results.”
For himself and his company, he said the effects of the pandemic were “horrible”. “The summer season is when the businesses here make the vast majority of their money,” said Wright.
“I’ve already accepted that we have lost most of the summer. I don’t see businesses and beaches being open till August. Some other people are much more optimistic but honestly I think it’s deluded.”
He added: “Running a seasonal business is tough enough. Last year, renting out our home was what kept our head above water. Now that looks like that will be gone, too.”
Although government loans are being offered, Wright said the demand is so high the site keeps crashing.
“I’m not sure what we will get out of this but hopefully it’s enough to enable us to reopen once life gets back to as normal as it can be,” he said.
“My restaurant still does takeout, which is at least keeping around half of my restaurant staff on the payroll, but the retail store is closed and we had to shut down our weekly magazine because there weren’t any advertisers left.
“We kept the gas station open because that’s a necessity, even though business is way down.
“Yesterday, I mandated that my gas station staff need to wear masks at all times (they hadn’t been). Same for the restaurant servers to take the to-go food from our restaurant to customers who park their car in our lot and wait.”
Wright’s wife, Diane Stopyra, is a writer for the University of Delaware. She was sent home two weeks ago.
“Both of us are working from home, taking the dogs out multiple times and binging on Ozark and The English Game on Netflix,” said Wright. “Because my restaurant still does takeout, it also means we can eat burgers and curries from there twice a day rather than risk going to the grocery stores too often.”
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