Photo: sergeychayko/123rf

By Frank Martin

Daredevils tourists who even forget to take care of their own health have gone from being a minor concern for some destinations around the world to becoming a public threat.

Such rebellious vacationers capable of jumping into a pool from their upper rooms or taking a bath in the sea on a day of great storm, could now choose, for example, not to wear a mask on their face to avoid contagion with Covid-19 or spread it.

The new breed of “daredevils” are already a great risk during the cautious tourist openings around the world in the middle of the pandemic.

A CNN report recently told the story of an American student who was imprisoned for two months in the Cayman Islands.

The young woman decided that instead of being in quarantine for two weeks in her hotel as required by law, she left two days after initiating confinement to attend a water ski tournament in which her boyfriend competed.

Another recent incident was caused by a British model and her boyfriend as they served quarantines at their four-star hotel in Barbados for five days awaiting a second PCR test, as required for travelers from high-risk countries.

When the second test of one of the two came back positive, they decided not to face the new quarantine but ran to the airport to return home.

These stories seem to be repeating as countries whose economies depend on tourism initiate very careful reopening that requires very positive and attentive customer action.

Tourist destinations around the world are applying the most studied measures possible so as not to disturb the tourist’s vacation.

But at the same time they are applying fines and sanctions, including some judicial ones.

A quarantine violation in today’s global pandemic conditions is certainly not comparable to jumping into a hotel pool from the third floor.

The risk of epidemy spread by a person infected with Covid-19 due to irresponsible behavior can be exponential and is comparable to a crime, according to an analyst consulted by TTC.

The specialist, a Medicine doctor dedicated to the tourism sector on a Caribbean island, considered that such behavior can put at risk not only groups of people but also paralyze a tourist town, or an entire nation.

“Whenever people are presented with an extremely scary scenario, previous research has shown that they tune out,” clinical psychologist Bhavna Jani-Negandhi, who believes that health warnings must be at an “optimal level, told CNN people notice”.

A standard fully accepted by experts for these times of pandemic is that the level of regulations must be severe and adequate to protect the local population.

You can’t beat around the bush, one of them noticed.

The measures that have already been taken prohibit arrivals to tourist destinations of people from countries highly affected by Covid-19.

Once in the countries they visit, travelers must observe an essential disciplined conduct. That also applies to the people they meet.

“Before the global pandemic, tourists could boast of being careless and indifferent. Now this is not possible because of the terrible coronavirus whose defeat may take time,” explained one of them.