'Not a mask in sight': thousands flock to Yellowstone as park reopens

https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-mask-sight-thousands-flock-180123775.html

On Monday, thousands of visitors from across the country descended on Yellowstone national park, which opened for the first time since its closure in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have been cooped up for weeks,” Jacob Willis told the Guardian near a crowd of onlookers at the Old Faithful Geyser. “When the parks opened, we jumped at the opportunity to travel,” said Willis, who had arrived from Florida.

Yellowstone, America’s oldest national park, and the nearby Grand Teton national park are the most recent to have partially reopened with the support of the Trump administration.

“I hope everybody is listening,” Donald Trump announced earlier in May. “The parks are opening, and rapidly, actually.”

While many have celebrated the reopening of the revered landscapes, others have raised health concerns about large, possibly maskless, groups of out-of-state visitors arriving and potentially skirting social distancing guidelines.

“We checked the webcam at Old Faithful at about 3.30pm yesterday,” said Kristin Brengel, the senior vice-president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. “Not much physical distancing happening and not a single mask in sight.”

(excerpt)