Shelter in Place – Part II

June 17, 2020
3 min read
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Recently, I trounced on a County Sheriff who was defying his state’s orders and was not going to keep his county’s beaches closed (this was prior to Memorial Day – so a few weeks back). I had a cousin who lived in the county who tried to defend this because after all: 1) the county was relatively rural, 2) it was sparsely populated, 3) there were probably not going to be large gatherings on the beaches, and 4) she gave me down to 4 decimal places (I think she was proud of her math here) the number of Covid-19 cases were so small in her county. My response was that: 1) Covid-19 could happen anywhere, and 2) maybe the low rates of infection in her county was a direct result of Shelter in Place. She replied but I did not get a chance to read it because I no longer could see any of her posts. She had unfriended me. So much for conversations and ability to disagree.

Now we come a few weeks later to the State of Oregon. Oregon was, on paper, taking a relatively conservative approach to reopening the states services in phases. At present all counties are at Phase I, which allows for limited service with appointments and limited occupancy. The first counties that applied for and achieved Phase I were the rural counties as they had to demonstrate low levels of infection, testing criteria, hospital facilities, and emergency capacity. You get the picture.

Guess what. Oregon is jumping to top of the list in percentage of new Covid-19 cases nationwide in just the last few days. And number one is Union County who just reported 218 cases in two days – yes, two days. This with a county population of less than 23,000. Yep, rural counties are safe.

Now if you look into the story, you will see that it seems that the cause of the big outbreak may be because of some stupid dumb idiots disregarding social distancing (which is still in place) and packing a church service. But what would you expect? They are rural and they are safe – right. And it does not explain the recent uptick in several other rural counties in Oregon who entered Phase I at the same time: Lincoln, Linn, and others.

Yep, we need to stop Shelter in Place. Why? Because we need to thin the herd a little bit more. Right? Unless it is you, or someone you love, or someone you know, or someone you like, or someone you care about, or someone ….

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