Abstract:

Communities around the world are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic by introducing various restrictions directly affecting public safety, including water safety. The opening of the bathing beach in the 2020 season was a unique challenge for both governmental authorities regulating safety issues, local governments that organize bathing sites and rescue entities carrying out tasks related to safety over the water. All parties organizing this process worked closely together to prepare the season taking into account the current developments. This publication attempts to analyze the activities related to the process of registering designated bathing areas (DBA) and its impact on the number of drownings and the functioning of emergency services. The conducted legal and organizational analysis allowed for the preparation of a new functional model that could be implemented in a pandemic situation. Nobody is able to determine how long and what restrictions will remain. Taking into account the characteristics of the pandemic period associated with rapid changes and a significant dose of uncertainty, it seems necessary that difficult decisions related to new legal regulations and the resulting procedures could be prepared for the pandemic standard, regardless of whether it is SARcov-2 or any other threat. of a similar, crisis character in the future.