President’s message: riding the waves
'The coronavirus pandemic is like a forest fire, as long as we continue to give it fuel, it will continue to burn.'
“The coronavirus pandemic is like a forest fire, as long as we continue to give it fuel, it will continue to burn.” I read this quote in the newspaper the other day and it seems to fit what is happening around us. Health professionals have been warning from the beginning of the outbreak in the US, that we will see this virus run in waves, with numbers trending downward, only to surge back and make fools of those that are predicting the pandemic is over.
Along with a leveling of cases comes optimism that things are returning to normal. Being passionate about getting people back to work is commendable and deserving of praise, but without some forethought and frankly common sense, your actions could be feeding the fire you are trying to put out. By rushing to restore normalcy without a good plan and an understanding from the community that this is merely a timeout and not spring break, there may have been more harm than good in lessening restrictions.
California recently slammed on the brakes and threw the economy in reverse with the order to shut down bars, wineries, museums, movie theaters and inside restaurant dining across a large portion of the state, with other counties on a watch list due to troubling increases in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Now with Lake County moving to 96 cases, you can imagine there will be a close eye on how we handle this new wave.
Businesses that could remain open had inched along to ride this crisis, adapting to the challenge, and making incremental adjustments to better serve the community and, above all, keep their doors open. With the recent increase in cases of the Covid 19 virus, their glimmer of hope is now in danger of returning to the dark days and nights of the pandemic’s beginning.
Is there hope for all of this to go away and our businesses to recover before it’s too late and our economy sinks into a deep depression? Of course there’s hope for that to happen and for Lake County and the rest of the state to begin to approach a bit of economic normalcy, but not if we keep making the same mistakes and don’t correct the actions that have recently stalled our recovery.
One last thing, please stop getting Covid 19 information from social media. A lot of the so called “wisdom” you read is from that same person you used to hear snoring in the back of your high school biology class. No one has ever found a cure for anything on Facebook. Use it to say hello to your Grandma but spending time reading speculation on so called cures and conspiracies, is precious time in your life you will never get back. Speaking of face masks, when out in public, wear them if you are able. It’s not asking a whole lot of you.
I sincerely hope this new wave of cases is a wake up call for everyone to be better and do the right thing in contributing to a steady and swift decline in coronavirus cases in our county. Be a model county for how it should be done, and when it’s all over, I’ll see you at O’Meara’s and the beer is on me.