There was seemingly little evidence of social distancing last week as Jefferson High School seniors, their families and community members participated in the Senior Cruise, nor later that evening at the annual Senior Night at The River restaurant.
Barb Reiter, who organized the Senior Cruise, had provided guidelines prior to the event, such as limiting the number of graduates to four per car, and asking spectators to practice social distancing.
The Senior Cruise was “a combination of trusting the process and doing it like we did it,” she said of the guidelines and the route throughout Boulder’s residential neighborhoods that allowed folks to participate from their own yard — which many chose to do.
Reiter told the students to “take care of yourselves,” but did notice lapses. She said that many of the spectators grouped together along Main Street appeared to be family members.
Reiter didn’t know what to say about the lack of social distancing except that it’s possible for Montanans to get “cocky” because the state hasn’t been hard hit by the pandemic.
“It’s a true reality,” she said of the COVID-19 crisis, “it’s a mystery to me that we can’t believe it’s happening.”
Jefferson County Public Health Department Supervisor Karen Wandel, RN, declined to comment on a photo of students sitting close together during the annual Senior Night bingo game at The River, following the Senior Cruise. She referred questions to the incident public information officer for last week, Jefferson County Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Doug Dodge.
“I don’t have any comment regarding the pictures, but we continue to encourage folks to follow the Governor’s phased reopening guidelines,” said Dodge.
The River owner Greg Hughes had expected a question to be raised about Senior Night, but declined to comment further.
As the state moves into Phase 2 of Gov. Steve Bullock’s reopening plan, social distancing — having people remain at least six feet away from each other — remains a key piece of the strategy to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
As of Monday, Montana has recorded 519 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 17 deaths.
Jefferson County has had three cases, with one being a man who contracted the illness out-of-state and had not been in Montana prior to becoming ill.
The other two cases were in March and those two individuals have since recovered.
