“They’re just doing whatever they want,” said Aaron Gusler, a surf rescue technician — meaning lifeguard — for the Ocean City Beach Patrol.

“People come up here with a vacation mind-set,” he said. Mr. Gusler is from Harrisonburg, Va., where he feels the pandemic has been impossible to ignore. But in Ocean City, “It’s weird. It’s like it’s not even happening.”

Lifeguards patrol the water, not the big clusters of sunbathers on the beach, where groups of as many as 42 people gathered on the sand early Friday.

“They told us to stay as far away from them as you can, and do your job,” he said. The beach patrol gave its employees N95 masks, but Mr. Gusler did not have his on. He said he didn’t want to smear the blue-toned zinc oxide sunscreen coating his nose.

“I’m sure it’ll spike again around here,” he said of the virus. “I’m just glad I have a job, man.”