With due caution

Will the empire strike back? Guest writer

Recently, the Clinton School held our pre-recorded 2020 graduation ceremony. Though not the in-person celebration we had planned, we were able to honor our graduates and recognize our faculty and staff—all of whom performed admirably during these covid-19 unsettling times.

While we are now preparing to welcome students back to campus in August, covid-19 has not been stopped. In some areas the cases and deaths have slowed, while in others they have increased. Nationally and worldwide they continue to rise.

Arkansas’ totals are lower because our testing and contact-tracing numbers are low, because of rural and isolated areas, and because hundreds of thousands of our citizens have personally and professionally chosen to be safer at home and to physically distance in the presence of others.

The cases are also lower because early on Gov. Asa Hutchinson correctly and strategically suspended large congregate gatherings without closing Arkansas’ economy. Schools, colleges, places of worship, festivals, parks, and athletic events were among those that temporarily halted—saving many lives in addition to reducing statewide infections and hospitalizations.

Unfortunately, however, those group settings which needed to remain open, such as prisons and nursing homes, had significant covid-19 increases and, tragically, several lives lost. While we in Arkansas don’t have a Navy ship filled with sick young people, we do have group sites reopening.

But now that Arkansas has valid congregate health evidence, the governor is cautiously coordinating re-entries, but, if needed, is also prepared to hit the pause buttons again.

That makes sense. Notwithstanding the escalating search for a cure, there is still no vaccine.

Summer and fall will not deliver “virus go away” magic wands. Louisiana recently had 710 new cases in one day. Gallup, N.M., has been on lockdown. It reached 80-plus degrees in both places. It’s also 85 degrees in Singapore where there is a second wave.

With more openings and reopenings, the coming months will hopefully inspire increased consumer confidence. Continuing to follow health and wellness best practices along with enhanced virus testing, tracing and treatments should also help.

But with flu and no covid-19 vaccine, there is also a reasonable chance “The Empire Will Strike Back”—with congregate settings being visible and vulnerable targets. During the 1918 flu pandemic, a deadly second wave happened from September through November. A third wave followed and lasted through spring 1919.