But even if colleges have canceled Spring Break, many of their students have had other ideas. In the last week, hundreds of students from schools in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida have DIY-ed the holiday, flocking to the beaches and bars along Florida’s 30A highway, just as they’ve done in years past, posting their exploits on social media. And this, epidemiologists say, could set the country’s fight against coronavirus back months.

“The kids are still coming,” said Bill York, owner of Foghorn’s Liquors, a bar in Panama City Beach. “They’re teenagers, come on. They’re out here to eat, drink, be merry, and get laid. It’s what they do…

“It’s potentially a very large problem,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt University, told The Daily Beast of rogue Spring Breakers.

“Young people, they’re getting together, they’re close with each other, they’re not wearing masks,” he added, before echoing York’s point, albeit more delicately. “Yes, on the beach you can spread apart, but then there are the bars, the hotels, the romances.”