Editorial: Stopping COVID is now up to each of us
Most of us know friends or family members who, following a cancer diagnosis, have taken on that fight with the personal determination necessary to gut through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments to rid their bodies of a potentially fatal disease.
It’s a fight that can be devastating to body and spirit in the short term — one that demands personal sacrifices and indignities — but offers hope for health and return to a more normal life.
With infection rates for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 rising in some U.S. states or at best declining only slowly in Washington and other states, we now need to show similar determination to take the steps necessary — and accept a few sacrifices and mild indignities — to slow the disease’s spread in our community and protect the lives of everyone with whom we come into contact, from loved ones to passersby.
That’s especially true now as we try to confront a stubborn infection at the same time we are attempting, slowly, to reopen our economy and resume many activities.
You know what’s coming: That means we need to wear face masks or other coverings when in public, wash or sanitize hands frequently and keep at least six feet of distance between ourselves and others when out in public.
But there’s another expectation with which most of us might not be familiar, and it relates to the efforts of public health officials to test for the virus, trace the contacts of those with confirmed positive COVID tests, and then isolate from the rest of the public those who are infected or have been exposed to the virus.
We should have the mask, hygiene and distance stuff down pat by now. Many do, but a trip to the grocery or hardware store or to a local park or beach on a sunny day — and we’re happily seeing more of those now — should provide enough evidence that not enough of us are either wearing masks inside grocery stores and other retail shops or keeping the necessary distance outdoors.
And that, no doubt, played into Gov. Jay Inslee’s order earlier this week that now mandates — with a few exceptions — the wearing of masks when in public. The order, which took effect today, requires face coverings when entering businesses, allowing them to be removed once seated at a restaurant, for example.
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