Wendy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 20, 2020 7:28 am
Our numbers keep going up, more cases and deaths reported everyday. But we are starting to open things up more. Which doesn't make much sense to me. My neighbor owns a restaurant and they were doing fine with distancing customers. They had a tent outside and 30% of the tables inside were being used. Now the weather is getting too cold to be outside, so she's afraid she will have to close her business. Our public schools are 100% remote learning, but catholic and private school are 100% in person. This whole situation is so confusing. I will wear a mask if it's required, but everyone else I know is starting to not wear them anymore. I live in a small town and it's been reported that we have over 400 positive cases. NO ONE knows who these people are. Our Mayor has been trying to figure it out to try and trace it back to maybe an event or something. The reporting agency will not give her any information. And the way people talk in a small town, it's unbelievable that we haven't heard anything. Other friends and co workers have had people test positive for Covid but had no symptoms. I don't know....this whole thing is just starting to get old. I wish there were some REAL facts being reported.
I agree that in a small town there is enough talk that if that many people were positive SOMEONE would know something! It's become such a political thing that it's hard to know what to believe. And the fact that our mayor can't get any information is very suspicious to me! Why wouldn't they give her the information? What do they have to hide?
That's one thing about Alaska that I have really been impressed by. Our governor and our state medical examiner have been very calm about the whole thing. They held press conferences every single day that were live on Facebook. They had a complete and very thorough website up just for the Covid information within a couple of weeks. There's information on residents AND travelers. When the seafood industry was starting to gear up for the summer (processors, canneries, fishing fleets) the groups and communities all got together and came up with a plan that would work for everyone and it worked for the most part.
I live in a community of about 250 people. The whole island has less than 2,000 residents and one city (the largest) has half of that population. When the first two people tested positive for the virus one was a nurse and a person we know. The rumors about her were horrible! They won't say what community anyone is from if there's less than 1,000 people so they lump areas together. Our area is the whole island with only one city listed. In the entire time we've had a total of 11 positive cases! And 4 of those were non-residents that were tested at the Ketchikan airport when they landed that were probably fishermen coming to stay at a lodge. So yes, the people would know pretty quickly if someone were positive and/or sick.
I also know of a family in Arizona who had minor symptoms. The father was tested and was positive (took TEN DAYS for the results to come back!) so the rest of the family was tested too. They were all positive. But none of them was sick for more than a couple of days! And one was a baby that was just under a year old! So it's very possible to have people who are asymptomatic I guess...
But the main thing is that the World Health Organization very quietly announced a week or two ago that their numbers were WAY off and their corrected numbers went from the hundreds of thousands to the low tens of thousands. They were counting people who had died in car accidents but tested positive at the morgues as positive cases and deaths due to Covid!!! Personally I'm quite suspicious of these high numbers. Our area gets a LOT of tourists and this year was no exception. If it were that rampant we would have had MANY more cases because the majority of our tourists are fishermen (some women) and one of the main places to fish is directly across the street from the grocery store where we shop. These people go in that store every day and buy lunch and go back out fishing. They've traveled to get here and have been on airplanes, in airports, on a ferry to get here or in a very small plane to get here so they've definitely been exposed if there's that many people out there that are infected. But yet we still have only had 11 cases. So I think the greatly reduced numbers are much more correct than they'd have us believe.
It's a dangerous disease to people like me and I'm careful but I refuse to live in fear. So I wear my mask in the grocery store and at the doctor's office. If I'm going somewhere else where I might be there more than a minute or two, I'll wear it. But when I just go in and pick up my mail out of my PO box I'm only there a few seconds and I don't go near anyone or talk to anyone. And when I'm done, I have hand sanitizer in my car. I wipe down the grocery cart very well and I wash my hands when I'm finished putting things away. I do what's reasonably necessary. Haven't eaten in a restaurant or gone to church in months. Church is because I've been so doggone sick with the asthma. But I'll go back soon. Otherwise, I'm home a lot and I don't go visit people a lot so I feel pretty safe.
Sorry I didn't mean to do a big rant!