Fairfax County Parks Authority
Martin Luther King, Jr. pool in Fairfax County.
The sunny days and warm weather recently have many Alexandria residents looking forward to pool season. Alexandria and Southeast Fairfax County have dozens of city, county and private pools that frequently become a base for social life and gatherings.
This year might be different — or at least delayed by a few weeks.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s emergency order that limits gatherings to no more than 10 people and very strongly encourages people to stay home through June 10 is hitting the pause button on local pool’s spring cleanups.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in March, “The COVID-19 virus has not been detected in drinking water. Conventional water treatment methods that use filtration and disinfection, such as those in most municipal drinking water systems, should remove or inactivate the virus that causes COVID-19.”
As for pools, it is likely — but not absolutely certain — that chlorine in our swimming pools will kill coronavirus. But, the virus could be transmitted by anyone who coughs or sneezes anywhere near the pool, so physical distancing is still a must.
“You have to assume that people are infected,” Roberta Lavin, a professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing, told U.S. Masters Swimming. “Anything they touch would be contaminated. It would be hard to get in and out of the pool without touching anything or interacting with another person.”
Dowden Terrace Recreation Center in Alexandria reported to its members that the organization hopes to open its pool by mid-June. The travel ban from Europe is making it more difficult to hire lifeguards for the summer, and the swim team spring clinics have been canceled.
“I think we all will need the comfort and joy of Dowden Terrace Pool as soon as we can get it,” wrote DT Board President Michael Wilkins in a letter to members.
Nearby Parklawn Pool hopes to open before its annual beer and wine social on June 13.
Stratford Recreation Association in Southeast Fairfax County, like other pools, is looking at a variety of scenarios from being able to open on time — if the current physical distancing measures flatten the curve of the spread of coronavirus — to opening sometime in June or July, or not opening at all this year.
More information will be available in the coming weeks from the Virginia Dept. of Health and Alexandria and Fairfax County officials.
