Bout time.
Today Philly and surrounding counties entered Pennsylvania’s “yellow phase” as part of Governor Tom Wolf’s plan to reopen the state commonwealth. We’d been stuck in red for a couple of months, essentially meaning that we can’t do jack shit outside of our houses.
The yellow phase is described as “aggressive mitigation,” with the following work and congregation restrictions:
And these are the social restrictions:
That all seems like a step forward to me, but here in Philadelphia, additional guidelines and rules have been issued, with a couple of sports-related bullets in bold:
Says the city RE: recreation –
“Playgrounds will reopen for summer camp and individual family activities for children only—not group recreational activities. Parks & Recreation’s parks, athletic fields, and trails remain open.”
For context here, the rec centers have been chained off for three months and the basketball hoops were physically unscrewed from the backboards. Meantime, you’ve got thousands of folks protesting and gathering in the wake of George Floyd’s death, with that one group dragging a hoop through the city to help ease tensions. I understand the wonky circumstances, but it’s the juxtaposition of the whole thing that looks ridiculous from afar. We’ve got massive crowds of people in the streets but we remain banned from getting up a few fucking jump shots at Cione Playground.
And a lot of this is wishful thinking, honest to God. You can’t hold these restrictions over people through the summer months because they’re already itchy and they see the surrounding counties and states getting on with life. They see guidelines being completely ignored during these protests and demonstrations, which negatively influences their adherence to the rules.
Gotta start moving this forward.