Bel Air Fourth Of July Festivities In Flux Due To Coronavirus

BEL AIR, MD — The Bel Air Fourth of July festivities remain up in the air, according to the head of the Bel Air Independence Day Committee. Due to the new coronavirus pandemic, town traditions such as the parade, games, pancake breakfast and fireworks have been called into question.

"No solid determination has been made yet about what we’re going to be doing or not doing," Don Stewart, president of the Bel Air Independence Day Committee, told the town's leaders Tuesday.

"We’re still trying to find out what the status will be," Stewart said, saying he was watching federal and state guidance.

Last Friday, Gov. Larry Hogan introduced a three-phase plan for reopening the state, which is under a stay-at-home order, but said Maryland was not yet ready to initiate phase one, since deaths and hospitalizations would need to trend down over a two-week period. Currently, 20,849 people have tested positive; 1,645 are hospitalized; and 985 have died from the virus in Maryland as of Wednesday, April 29, according to state health officials.

"Stage three of the process allows large gatherings to form," Stewart said on Tuesday's teleconference with the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners.

"Parades, I hate to say it, are infamous for spreading pandemics— the flu in 1918, tale of two cities," he said.

In 1918 when a particularly deadly flu spread across the country, Philadelphia hosted a parade, and a study that compared the virus there with its spread in St. Louis showed the mortality rate was much higher in Philadelphia.

"An awful lot more people died in that town," Stewart said. "This time we had Mardi Gras, and that killed a lot of people."

In late February — a month after the United States confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus, but before mass gatherings were being canceled — New Orleans hosted its Mardi Gras celebration. Due to the influx of visitors, Louisiana had a temporarily high population density, and it also had more incidences of the virus than other states in the South, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in an April 17 study on morbidity and mortality, in which experts said they thought population density may play a role in the incidence of the virus.

"The last thing we want to do is cause a major problem, and cause this thing to spread," Stewart said of the new coronavirus in Bel Air, where there are currently 59 cases of the virus in the 21014 ZIP code as of Wednesday. "But we want to make [a decision] based on statewide mandates ... because we can't just rely on conjecture."

Stewart said he was also looking beyond the 2020 festivities.

"There's every indication that this thing's going to go throughout the year, well into the fall and maybe all the way to the end of the year," Stewart said of the pandemic. "I'm even worried about next Fourth of July," if there is not a vaccine.

"It's very difficult to make hard decisions on this without real strong guidance," said Stewart, who has been the president of the Bel Air Independence Day Committee for 20 years.

Each year Stewart said the committee spends $6,000 on event insurance, which is due by the end of May.

Given the time line, he said he should have more information about the status of the event by mid-May.

Fireworks 'Always Possible,' Organizer Says

The Bel Air Independence Day Committee already put money down toward one part of the festivities for this summer.

"We hired a fireworks company, and we made a deposit," Stewart said. This step was required at least six months before the Fourth of July so the company could purchase and store the fireworks, he explained.

"We talked about could we reschedule it to the fall as far as fireworks go," Stewart said. "I hate to be jerking people around and you know trying to rethink when can we do it and can we just shift it when social distancing rules are relaxed," Stewart said. "But then on the flip side of that, I'm not entirely sure that would happen."

Current social distancing guidelines in Maryland prohibit gatherings of more than 10 people. Federal guidance calls for staying at least 6 feet apart from one another to prevent the spread of the virus, which is primarily spread through respiratory droplets. Wearing a face covering is required in retail stores and on public transit in Maryland.

Bel Air Mayor Amy Chmielewski asked if there was a way to incorporate some of the social distancing guidelines so the town could still recognize the holiday.

"Has there been any thought of doing anything a little differently than we have in the past, so at least we could celebrate in some fashion?" Chmielewski said. "Just looking outside the box."

Chmielewski suggested people could pick up their Fourth of July pancake breakfast at Bel Air High School and take it home, or the town could set off fireworks and film them to make the show more accessible, versus gathering at Rockfield Park.

The mayor said this would give everyone "a little bit to look forward to even if it isn't the entire [gamut of] festivities that are unique to our town."

As far as the pancake breakfast, Stewart reported that is in the hands of the Bel Air High School Athletic Booster Club.

"They’ll be making that call," he said. "They don't take direction from me."

Regarding fireworks, Stewart said: "Doing fireworks, that’s always possible."

He continued: "We’d still have to have Churchville Road closed down," for fireworks. "We'd have to limit attendance there at Rockfield Manor. Usually we have hundreds of people that sit down ... We'd have to not allow that, but then people can still see it from a mile or so around town. They can just step outside their house and actually watch and listen to it."

Said Stewart: "In my mind, that would be about the only thing that could make sense that we actually could do, other than this whole thing going away in a big puff of smoke before you know it."

The Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners will meet with Stewart again in mid-May for an update.