It is time for our country, out state, county and city to go back to work. Throughout this Covid 19 pandemic our leaders have listened to the scientists and doctors and our entire economy was shut down based on “expert’s” estimates that two and a half million Americans would die if our entire country didn’t shut down.
Don’t get me wrong, any death from the Chinese Flu is one too many. But, the current count is about 60,000 with those deaths largely in the heavily concentrated population centers on the East and West Coasts.
Do you have any idea how many people are hospitalized in Wyoming with the Wuhan Flu? A hundred? Fifty? Twenty five? No, the number is twelve. 12 out of 500,000 people. And, there have been seven deaths.
In the coming weeks the number of reported cases will go up, maybe even skyrocket. Not because there is a sudden surge in cases, no, because of a sudden increase in testing.
Reservation health providers have received 6,000 test kits and they are testing as many people as they can. It doesn’t mean the illness is surging, it just means the testing has identified cases that are already among us.
I think by now that we have figured out how to live with this flu. Those of us who are the most vulnerable have figured out that we are not going to concerts anytime soon, we are careful about wearing masks and washing our hands and keeping our distance.
We’re grownup and we can decide if there’s a risk and if it’s a risk we want to take when it comes to sports events. We can decide if we want to brave the crowds in our National Parks or if we want to go to a movie or a play.
And, there’s the rub. Our Governor and state doctor and our county medical folks have the state shut down. Can somebody please tell me why 300 people can go to Walmart but not a single person can go and sit down and be served at a restaurant?
Why can food trucks set up in a vacant lot and serve food to a waiting line of people while restaurants are forbidden from serving takeout meals to their customers at tables in their parking lots?
Restaurants with drive-up windows can serve their patrons out the window and they can park and eat on nearby picnic tables. Yet, county officials won’t even accept a request for a variance for a restaurant to open prior to May 15th, and those plans have to be approved by the county officials and the state before a restaurant can open.
And, oh, yeah, there are no recommendations on what those plans should look like.
The cure is worse than the disease. Message to Governor Gordon and the doctors and scientists keeping our state from getting back to business as usual: It’s time to let us make our own decisions, time to let every business re-open right now and for people to be able to make their own decisions about getting back to living the dream.
