The Covid-19 pandemic was such a strange time. Everyone was required to wear masks on planes. Hotels paid Clorox, Lysol and other companies for branding how clean they were. Everyone claimed that cutbacks to food service and housekeeping was about safety protocols.
I was grateful to live in the suburbs of a very blue city in a red state, giving me the option to stay as far away from people as I wanted to without being required to.
The time we spent at home in April 2020 (‘two weeks to stop the spread’) really warped a sense of time. I thought it was probably a good idea to wear high quality masks indoors in crowded space, but never understood people who wore low quality masks alone in their car or outdoors running.
I’m glad we’re past all of that. Some people didn’t think handshakes would ever return, but thankfully elbow bumps didn’t become a thing.
If you’re somehow waxing nostalgic for those times there’s one hotel you can visit. The Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona is a throwback… to 2021. This hotel requires guests to be current on Covid-19 vaccinations.
Covid in 2024-5: In loving memory of the five dear ones we lost to Covid-19, we ask that our guests be current on vaccinations. We are willing to make exceptions here and there as long as a guest is healthy and respects our wish not have the virus in our airspace. We follow the science around Covid and we hope that you do too if you plan to stay with us.
This isn’t just an old note, like the stickers you still see in some hotels saying that vaccinated guests don’t have to mask or occupancy limits on elevators, with markings on the ground showing where you should stand distanced from other guests. This is marked as “2024-5.”
They say they “follow the science around Covid” but that doesn’t seem quite right.
- In early 2021 the vaccines were generally sterilizing. And maybe nasal boosters would restore that. But their effectiveness has waned substantially and they don’t stop infection and transmission even if they’re protective. This seems more like mood affiliation than science.
- I’m ok with the mood affiliation, it’s meaningful to the hotel owners (“in loving memory of..”) but we should call it that.
I was a strong proponent of vaccines, certainly for adults. They aren’t as effective as they once were. We don’t really update them like we could, and effectiveness has waned to the level of protection I wrote over four years ago that I expected them to have in the first place. Just how good they were in the first half of 2021 was a surprise, and underappreciated.
The hotel says they’ll make an exception for ‘healthy’ people. Are they following the science on that? A body mass index of 20-24? Cancer-free? Show your CDC vaccine card, or come take this MRI. The science included asymptomatic spread – a guest might be healthy but still carrying and spreading the virus. Like I said, this hotel brings us all back to a time when we did silly things and thought silly things. Some people miss the spring 2020 and into 2021, I guess.
Perhaps there is fear of the hordes of illnesses being brought into Arizona by Brandon and Camel-a hordes of illegal aliens ? Ya think ?
Good for them for caring about their employees. During the worst of COVID, there were too many in the hospitality industry who said to have meetings with no care for employees of airlines, hotels, convention center staff. The Summer COVID surge has been real including people I know, travel writers. Those of us living with long COVID wish it in no one. (Despite being multi vaxed, spouse brought home from work in early 2023.) Eric Topol is one of the scientists (Med professionals) citing caution. Wastewater levels – bec there’s no mandatory reporting (even tho the DNC did) – show still greater COVID than most know. Consideration of others is never dated.
@Alert, they aren’t MAGAmaniacs, but people who lost friends/family/coworkers and can’t get past that. Most people don’t carry around vaccine cards now, and I’m guessing they don’t actually check. The vaccines did their job in bringing the pandemic to the end, and one still has more protection with the boosters than without, but today’s numbers of hospitalizations and deaths just don’t justify disruptive practices and requirements.
Last time I checked, hotels are considered public accommodation businesses. Discriminating against customers who aren’t vaccinated or aren’t “healthy” seems problematic. But I’ll confess that I’m not a lawyer.
Looking at this hotel’s website, the owners are obviously very woke-left even though their community and county is bright-red. For example, they openly say they refuse to serve meat like bacon at breakfast. It’s almost as if they’re purposely sticking the middle-finger up at their neighbors and the broader community. Do they not understand they’re in the hospitality business?
Let them be they will be bankrupt shortly Extremism is a sign of lack of education and morals
See a truck with multiple flags and political signs you know they are not playing with a full deck
Let them be they will be bankrupt shortly Extremism is a sign of lack of education and morals
See a truck with multiple flags and political signs you know they are not playing with a full deck.
The new vaccines released in late August are to prevent the current strains of infection.
Get used to it, COVID shots are going to be annual, just like flu shots are. Each year trying to anticipate the most common strains that will attack people in the coming seasons.
I get my flu shots, do you?
@DaveS and FNT … I don’t disagree with your opinions . However , what is wrong with being concerned about health ? I never Needed the vaccines in Hawaii , but I was required to take them . I never Needed to be concerned about diet , but Bacon is one of the very worst for the heart . If this property is concerned about health , I say more credit to them .
Why is this site so annoying to navigate? The articles don’t open fully in feedly. On the occasion that I click through after that annoyance, then a pop up video advertisement starts playing that I have to close, and after all of that I then have to scroll past multiple other advertisements. It appears as if designed by someone that doesn’t want any readers that value their time.
I’m more concerned about the absence of meat at meals. Could I take a bagged meal with bacon or pork sausage back to my room? How about a pepperoni pizza? I have up to date vaccinations and plan on getting a booster in a month plus my flu vaccination. With so many people being remembered, I would be sure to wear a N95 mask in any common area there due to the odds. However the likelihood on me staying there is about nil even though the prices seem reasonable.
See a truck with multiple flags and political signs you know they are not playing with a full deck
@DaveS the pandemic is NOT over. People still die from Covid or get long term problems. Biden did declare the emergency over but that is a legal and political distinction.
@Gary Leff please don’t ruin your fine reputation and nice website by falsely writing that vaccines are as effective as they used to be. The current 2024-25 covid vaccine against KP variants just came out last week and they work.
@everybody
Stop shaming people who wear masks. If you are trying to land a hot date, I can see not making. I mask with a N95 mask often. When shopping in a crowded supermarket, I am looking for food, not anonymous hot s3x
(Corrected copy)
@DaveS the pandemic is NOT over. People still die from Covid or get long term problems. The prez did declare the emergency over but that is a legal and political distinction.
@Gary Leff please don’t ruin your fine reputation and nice website by falsely writing that vaccines are not as effective as they used to be. The current 2024-25 covid vaccine against KP variants just came out last week and they work.
@everybody Stop shaming people who wear masks. If you are trying to land a hot date, I can see not making. I mask with a N95 mask often. When shopping in a crowded supermarket, I am looking for food, not anonymous hot s÷x
@derek – absolutely vaccines ‘work’ but they aren’t as effective and sterilizing compared to how they performed against the ancestral Wuhan strain and original mutations. That’s why, as I observe above, it’s important to be fast tracking nasal boosters. We seem to have forgotten the lessons of Operation Warp Speed which wasn’t just seed funding.
Been vaccinated, had covid eight months before contracting it again late this spring. Now, for over 100 days, I still can’t smell or taste anything. It is debilitating; water, gasoline, vodka are all the same to me. I would not wish this on anyone. I stopped eating because everything is like chewing paper. ( on a functional food replacement). It’s a free country and we live with our own choices. Good luck.
Gary, I agree with the comment about the ads. Lately, the embedded ads and videos are a problem, especially on mobile devices. It’s fine right now on my laptop. I can close them. But on the iPhone Safari browser, not so much.
If a hotel asks me for a vax/bioweapon card I’d them to f off.
“In early 2021 the vaccines were generally sterilizing.” No, they weren’t and the evidence proves it.
“I was a strong proponent of vaccines, certainly for adults.” Because you were a fool and fell for the scam.
It’s amazing that at this point, over four years later, there are still people who haven’t figured out the fraud. For Gary, it’s the fact that he’s too weak and timid to admit he was wrong. Some will ask, “Why is it so important to continue pointing out these obvious facts? Because we need to avoid a repeat of the soul-crushing, freedom-destroying rules and edicts leveled during the aforementioned “scamdemic”. Never forget what they did to us.
“I was grateful to live in the suburbs of a very blue city in a red state, giving me the option to stay as far away from people as I wanted to without being required to.”
So in other words, let those who have more common sense protect those who are frightened to their core and want to rely on fright and their “Feelings”.
Coward.
@Derek wearing a N95 mask in a grocery store? Really? To each his own but you are way overboard in my take.
@ James N. I agree, MSM hyperbole but short on the facts. But then I get my information from reading reliable sources not watching “if it bleeds it leads” MSM. I suspect the Simpson Hotel lobby has CNN blaring 24/7. Pfizer has moved on to RSV . . . but their ads do not tell customers that over-the-counter fever and pain medication (Tylenol, Motrin Advil) is the treatment for adults.
My career was in the Airline Industry and I worked at an extremely busy
Airport in a major City. Thru every fly, and virus epidemic each year we instructed everyone to take proper precautions since there was no telling what the dense crowd in the lobby and snaking through the hallways were carrying. They came sneezing and coughing up to the counters and we handled their bags with gloves on, used sanitizers and washed our hands frequently. I do not recall anyone getting sick.
Along came COVID and the only people I personally know who are no longer with us because of that virus are those who were vaccinated. I know of no one personally not vaccinated who fell victim. For the most part they were mandatory vaccinations.
I know of a few people who survived the virus who were high risk, but had very wise PCP who advised them what to do for home care and sent them medication.
Personally, I have not had so much as a cold in well over 20 years. I passed on the shots and never got sick. My family members forced to get the shot, however, not so lucky. A couple of them have had more than two bout, and the latest one, fully vaxed recently had his worst one yet.
So no thank you, I can and do take good care of myself and if I were to get any kind of illness, I have enough sense to avoid contact with friends and family, and especially strangers.
The best are the flight attendants (mostly black women) wearing masks and gloves and some even wash their gloved hands. Masks and magic gloves have made people deranged and given them a false sense of security when, in reality, something like gloves in a service job have to be chanmged frequently.
Stop with the misinformation about the Covid vaccine saving lives. If you have any real proof of that please reference it. Masks didn’t work then and they don’t work now either. Plenty of proof for that. Just consider that anything the size of a virus particle will pass through a mask. And, of course lest we forget social distancing of 6 feet apart- a Fauci fantasy. He made it up without any proof. The hotel’s management is operating in a woke alternate reality that defies rational thought.
Gary, you are personally talking (and publishing) rubbish on this topic. You should have kept well out of it, but hey, that bird has flown!
It was ALL a scam. The truth is out. The ‘science’ was junk and the feds knew it from day one. 6 feet separation? (made up, and Fauci admitted it); masks? (total b.s. unless you were wearing a respirator). And still the sheep put their masks on and virtue signal like well behaved little drones. Stalin, Mao, and Biden are very happy that their subjects are being obedient little children.
What exactly is the point of writing about a B&B with 3 rooms in a town of 700 people because they ask that their guests are current on vaccinations and even state that they are willing to make exceptions?
I’m sure there are plenty of other hotels of that size that have far more absurd policies and I look forward to the coming deluge of posts about all of them