At Lake of the Ozarks, officials saw economic boost while a worker feared COVID-19

[pstokely]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article243004976.html

"When Tinara Lynch got a call from her employer, Land Shark Bar and Grill restaurant at Lake of the Ozarks, she felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Lynch, who is 21, could choose not to go back to work when the restaurant reopened, in which case she would be kicked off the unemployment benefits she’d been living off of since she and her co-workers were laid off in March.

But if she went back to work as a server, she risked bringing coronavirus home to her father, who has multiple sclerosis.

“I have to choose between going to work and making an income or basically refusing to work and quitting my job and staying with him and keeping him safe,” Lynch said of her father. “I’m not in a position where I can’t make an income at all.”

Her first day back to the restaurant was Friday. The crowd size was typical for a holiday weekend as thousands of people descended on the lake."

[uponit7771]

1. Boost from what? -40% GDP? This is so stupid, a lot of people are going to die for little GDP gain

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Unfortunately there are not many jobs in mid-state MO. There are some desperate people

who are literally caught in a rock and and hard place, but I wouldn't exposed myself and bring a possible CV infection home to my sick dad who has MS. What a mess. I dread that the CV epidemic will be raging all through the Lake of the Ozarks region now. And there are very few hospitals within that region being that a lot of regional hospitals were shut down across the mid state region of MO to 'cut costs' according to the purchaser of the hospital properties (recently sold to this buyer).

[pstokely]

3. and it's seasonal employment

unemployment goes up during the Winter after Xmas in Branson

[SWBTATTReg]

4. The whole interior of the state of MO is seemingly like this (seasonal), w/ the lakes, w/ the ...

fishing at the likes of Bennett Springs, etc. (trout fishing, etc.). And what's worse about the whole thing, is that since it's all seasonal, for the most part, no benefits usually, minimum wage too.

[xmas74]

5. Yep.

When I was in high school I considered attending college at College of the Ozarks. (The price-free-was wonderful but I hated the school.) Anyway, one of the selling points was that in the summer you could live on campus if you worked in Branson and it would cost $10 a wee,payable every scheduled payday.

Summers are a boom, some late spring and early fall weekends and then the Christmas lights. January through April it's pretty dead until the weekend festivals start.