The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C., is one of the world’s great celebrations of spring. The 2020 Festival, March 20, 2020 – April 12, 2020 was to include four weeks of events featuring diverse and creative programming promoting traditional and contemporary arts and culture, natural beauty, and community spirit. After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, festival organizers announced that based on an abundance of caution they will cancel the 2020 National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade. In addition the following events were postponed: The Japan America Society’s Sakura Matsuri – Japanese Street Festival, and the Anacostia River Festival, produced by the 11th Street Bridge Park and National Park Service. In the past, the event drew more than 1.5 million visitors to D.C. each year.
To help maintain social distancing the organizers encouraged people not to go in public to walk under the gorgeous blooms. Authorities strongly discouraged people from visiting the Tidal Basin. Instead they set up rooftop bloom web cams so that people could see the blooms from home.
Despite
this virtual solution people showed up in large crowds to see the
blooms and many were not in any way practicing social distancing. The weather was unseasonably warm, with temperatures reaching into the 80s, which could’ve been a factor in drawing people outdoors.
The iconic cherry blossoms reached peak
bloom on Friday, March 20, 2020, and should stay that way for about 10 days. Saturday, March 22, 2020, brought a surge in visitors that convinced authorities to take extraordinary steps. Washington’s Metro system closed down a pair of stations nearest to the Tidal Basin in the hopes of lessening crowds. D.C.-based celebrity chef and philanthropist Jose Andres took to Twitter
Sunday morning to plead for community compliance in avoiding the Tidal
Basin. Under the hashtag #StayHomeCherryBlossomsChallenge, Andres pledged to “cook a huge Paella for thousands of Washingtonians” next year if they kept the number down.
Ultimately, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, called in the National Guard to help restrict access to DC cherry blossoms. One of her team members who worked in the office of legal counsel, has died from the virus. She set up new restrictions included prohibiting pedestrian and bicycle traffic around the National Mall. Additionally, road traffic remains closed around the Tidal Basin which
includes the Jefferson Memorial until further notice after the local
government requested the National Park Service to close the area. The very idea that the National Guard is needed to curb peoples callous indifference and stupidity is evidence that there are rough times ahead.
This points out the difficulty of enforcing social distancing in this public health emergency. People are going stir crazy and don’t see the threat of the virus to themselves or their friends and relatives until it is too late. People are quick to carve out exceptions for their own behavior. Some, encouraged by the lies of the POTUS still think the whole pandemic is a hoax.
Stay home, stay safe. Consider your own health and the health of those you love through these crazy times.