Not-So-Hot Zone: Reston Has First Potential Brush With Coronavirus, And Of Course It Involves Golf

We here in Reston know our infectious diseases, including the one so nice they named it after our plastic fantastic planned community. Now, as the coronavirus continues its (legitimately frightening) progression around the globe, it's hardly surprising there's a potential Reston connection. But unlike Ebola, this one doesn't evolve monkeys, but (shudder) a Marylander. And, of course, golf.

You see, more than 500 members of Christ Church in Georgetown who were asked to self-quarantine after the rector and organist were diagnosed with COVID-19, have mostly complied--mostly. Give us some not-at-all-alarming blockquote, BFFs at the Washington Post:

Although most parishioners appear to be taking the self-quarantining guidelines seriously, [one Marylander] was struck by another piece of advice: Don’t panic.

On Monday, he went golfing in Reston, Va., keeping a club’s distance away from friends and riding his cart solo on the course. He planned to contact a doctor, but felt no symptoms, he said.

“This isn’t the black plague; we are not dropping like flies,” [he] said. “I guess I’ve just been around too long to think we all need to go in shelter mode.”

We're sure that's of great consolation to next lucky golfer who unwittingly rode in the same cart. "We in Reston have every right to be teed off, so to speak, at your behavior," our favorite correspondent, the Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, says of our (redacted) golfing friend. Given other news of late, we can only hope that the golf course itself doesn't fall prey to the same fate as Reston's ebola monkeyhouse, the end.