}
A couple of interesting conversations this morning. One with friends, and residents here in town and another with a visitor to the area.
Friends have school-age children and now that school is in some form back in session, the daily routine of dropping off the kids at school has become an ordeal. Kids are made to wait in lines without parents while parents wait in cars and for what you might ask? They are taking temperatures of all the kids prior to allowing them into school. Taking temperatures regardless of the abundance of real-world evidence that school reopenings are harmless to children and do not boost the transmission of COVID19.
The second conversation was one of a general nature regarding news reports of a recent “outbreak” of COVID19 in the county. I presume it all depends on your perspective, and in this case, the news outlets here in the area have deemed four positive COVID19 cases as an outbreak. In a county of 15,042 residents, 4 cases are 0.026592208482915% of the county population.
In listening to the County Health Officer, each positive case is sent off to the Mayo Clinic for a confirmation test. This process of confirmation by a second party causes a delay in the entire process of potential treatment and recovery.
A study published on August 21, 2020, from biologists at Emory University and Penn State predicts that the virus will transform or convert, from its current epidemic nature to an endemic pathogen that will stay with us in a very mild form indefinitely.
So now we add the COVID19 the following -