Swimming pools and Covid19

I'm typing this on my tablet, so I can't copy the link, but the Huffington post has an article on things to consider if you plan to use your pool or go to community pools, and ways you can reduce the risk of tramsmission. I know there have been some discussions on what to do about the HOA pool, but some of the information may be helpful for people who have their own pools.

The article title is "can coronary spread in water or swimming pools: here's what we know". Hope it's useful!

Supplies - I meant coronavirus. Even typing with one finger can be challenging on a tablet

Sheila,
I watched a Webinar done by our last PMC on Friday that I thought had some decent suggestions for HOA pools. In Texas we are currently restricted to 25% capacity. They recommended every homeowner signing a waiver saying that they are entering at their own risk and they understand that surfaces are not cleaned after every use. The other thing they suggest is to hire Pool monitors to make sure rules are followed and capacity is kept in check. Another suggestion is to make pools limited to Residents Only till restrictions are lifted. This sounds like a great idea but how do you challenge who is a member of anyone's Family without risking lawsuits for discrimination.

In Texas they said that we need to get these emergency rules recorded with the County.

Those are great suggestions. You may have a point on the residents-only rule, because people will howl if they have family members who come to visit and everyone can't head over to the pool. That said, I don't see how they'd get away with screaming discrimination, but then again people sue over a ham sandwich for not having enough mayonnaise.

How about limiting each household to one guest? Eveyone needs a pass to get in and the guest passes would be a different color than the resident pass. A guest must be accompanied by the homeowner or someone who lives in that household. The capacity rule takes priority - when you reach 25%, that's it - neither guess nor resident will be admitted. I wish there was a way to put a time limit on the guests - come and play for, say 2 hours, and then you gotta jet. Eithe

By the way, on those pool monitors - when my community had a pool, we had a devil of a time with getting good ones. Before I moved here, teenagers were hired, but there were too many issues with them showing up late or not at all. The next group had problems with keeping people in line and sometimes the police had to be called. We ended up hiring an off duty cop and gave him the authority to toss everyone out and close the pool if things got too rowdy. It worked.

Rowdiness is another reason we finally said the hell with it and got rid of the pool. Every year people talk about drama in their communities over pools and I think "thank God we don't have that problem anymore!"

We have some restrictions ready though we cannot open our pool & jacuzzi spa yet. Our pool does not get lot of use, so we probably will just limit it to 10 people at one time.
No pool toys.
Residents only

The spa gets more use, especially at night, and to maintain social distance only 2 can use it at a time. We may institute a 15 minute maximum if anyone is waiting. Face covering must be worn in spa if non-household members. (As an elevator high rise, we have an Emergency Rule that all persons must wear masks in our exterior & interior common areas.)

We may remove most or all poolside furniture to discourage gatherings.

I like the idea of a sign that includes the pool area is only sanitized once (maybe twice) a day.

We do have camera monitors in the pool area and a 24/7 security staff who can help with enforcement. We just added an addendum to their contract that they take temps of contractors entering our drive/pedestrian gate at the kiosk as we just permitted remodel work in units to resume a week ago