Cheryl's Clay Play Ceramic Art Studio

COVID-19 refugees from out of town continue to converge on Joshua Tree National Park. Understandably being cooped up in the city is maddeningly unappealing duri...ng stressful and uncertain times. However, visitors continue to flock to Joshua Tree in droves despite the orders by California Governor, Gavin Newsom, to stay in place. We are just a few hours from Los Angeles making it a destination with easy access for nearly 20 million people. However, the more we learn about the severity and the rate of spread of COVID-19, the more dire we realized the situation is and we made the difficult but critical decision to suspend our operations and lay off our staff for the remainder of the season on Tuesday, March 17. We are worried for the financial repercussions for our community, but we are much more worried about the impacts to our largely low income and dangerously medically underserved community. The potential for an unchecked spread of COVID-19 through the small gateway towns of Joshua Tree National Park (and many other rural places, is very real. When we look at the numbers of medical facilities and practitioners in our area, it is absolutely chilling. We must reduce the numbers of people flocking to Joshua Tree immediately. If the COVID-19 virus moves quickly through this community, our medical resources will not be able to handle it. The only hospital to serve the high desert’s some 75,000 inhabitants has approximately 20 beds with just 4 ICU beds (0.0053% of the population). We have 11 ambulances. There are 5 hospitals in the greater Palm Springs area (1 hour drive from Joshua Tree) serving ~600,000 people, with a huge population of retirees where the median age is 54. According to available data, the total number of hospital beds in the Palm Springs area is 1039. The total number of Intensive Care Unit beds in the area is just 81. That means that we have enough ICU beds to serve 0.0135% of the population in our area. If just 10,000 people are sick at once here, we have medical infrastructure for just 10% of them, well under the rate of serious cases requiring hospitalization that have been reported so far during the Pandemic. These numbers get even worse when you consider the numbers of out of town visitors in the area and the temptation of people to escape from crowded cities to access healthy spaces and social distance. There were 30,000 visitors in the park on Saturday, March 14. Today with the park closed, hundreds of cars were parked alone Park Boulevard while thwarted would-be park goers fanned through the residential neighborhoods adjacent to the park bringing huge stress and anxiety to the residents.This does not achieve social distancing and puts both visitors and our community at tremendous risk. The most likely way that this disease will enter our area is by people traveling here from more populous areas where Coronavirus already is. We have our first confirmed case in Yucca Valley as of 3/21/2020. We cannot in good conscience encourage people to travel here and interact in our community. Our grocery stores are barren and our medical resources cannot handle what is coming. We recognize that time is of the essence in this situation. We know that we need to do our part to slow the rate of transmission, help keep people safer and healthier for longer, and reduce the amount of movement into the community. Please help us save lives by staying home. We are not equipped to deal with this influx of people trying to access the park. It is dangerous for our community and is in blatant disregard of the orders from our governor. Please, suck it up and do the right thing. Stringently self-isolate for a while and give our medical system a chance to get ahead of this disease. Please help flatten the curve and please don’t be the one who brings COVID-19 into our community. #staythefuckhome #youradventurecanwait #hunkerdown #Covid_19 #flattenthecurve #slowthespread

Last weeks was a blanket

Last weeks was top of the paint brush

Last weeks was plastic fall decor berries, leaves and stems

Students from Hesperia return to finish their projects at Cheryls Ceramics in Lucerne Valley ! 760 799-0030