Spring breakers have been contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.
BREAKING: Austin and Travis County officials announce 28 young people returning from a spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, have tested positive for #coronavirus
«According to officials, about 70 people in their 20s got on a chartered plane for a spring break trip about a week and a half ago,» he wrote in a follow-up tweet. «Although they were not under a travel advisory at the time, people are still asked to limit travel to essential needs.»
Officials said that four of the 28 cases were asymptomatic and all confirmed patients are self-isolating, he added.
The news comes a week after six students at the University of Tampa tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Insider’s Connor Perrett.
Spring break has become a big problem during the coronavirus pandemic
Spring breakers, who are Gen Z, have been criticized for ignoring warnings amid the coronavirus pandemic. They’ve been seen crowding beaches in both Florida and Texas and partying it up on booze cruises in The Bahamas, regardless of social distancing rules. The Cabo trip is just the latest spring break bonanza.
Jawontae Rodgers, a 21-year-old who spring breaked in Panama City Beach, told Valerie Crowder of local outlet WFSU he didn’t think the virus was a «big deal.»
«I’m not saying I can’t die from it,» he said. «I just don’t want to stop living my life because you only have one. YOLO: You only live once.»
Josie Asleson, a 20-year-old college sophomore who was in South Padre, Texas, for spring break in mid-March previously told Business Insider, «I just don’t want to get anyone sick because we’ve all been doing everything we shouldn’t.»
But spring breakers aren’t the only ones receiving backlash. States, too, have been in the hot seat for not enforcing enough measures to keep the problem at bay. The governors of both Florida and Texas haven’t issued a statewide shutdown of public beaches, instead leaving the decision in the hands of local governments.
Young people aren’t at high risk for the virus but can asymptomatically carry it, unknowingly infecting others. As the Cabo case shows, spring breakers not only run the risk of infecting those in their choice vacation spot, but of infecting themselves, bringing it back to where they traveled from, and infecting those who live there.
Spring break is just contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.
