It's All About the Numbers

Today Elkhart County passed a mandate that all residents have to wear a mask while in public.  I had been wondering when this would happen and was relieved that the state and county finally decided to take matters into their own hands.  Both Elkhart General and Goshen General Hospitals had come close to reaching full capacity in their ICU units and the amount of people testing positive in the county had continued to climb topping out at 20%.

With Elkhart County a mainstay in the Heinisch family through Doug's work, Cam's school and both Meg and Cam's friends predominantly living in that area, the out of control rise of positive COVID-19 tests had become a daily topic in our home.  It had altered what we did and where we were went.  Throughout the stress of it all, I just couldn't understand the laissez faire attitude of those living in the county.  I also could not believe the negative responses that appeared today in the news.  What did they think would happen when the numbers continued to rise?  The state's goal was to be below a 5% positivity rate and for the last week this was an impossible goal to reach since Elkhart County was 15 to 20% of Indiana's daily total.

I remembered all of the negative posts on social media when St. Joseph county enacted a mask mandate.  Several citizens stated that they would be doing all of their shopping in Elkhart County since a mask was not required.  Now six weeks later St. Joe is only at a 7.1% positive rate, compared to Elkhart's which is close to double at 14.1%.  St. Joe also has had 1200 less cases than its neighboring couny, even though their county has over 60,000 more residents than Elkhart.

I didn't even have to look at the totals between Elkhart and St. Josephy counties to understand the importance of mask wearing in slowing the spread of the Coronavirus.  In Bloomington the pandemic has been taken seriously since the beginning of the outbreak.  Masks were required at Brett's work before the stay at home order was even announced.  Both Meg and Brett have told us that social distancing, outdoor eating, closing of public pools, reducing the capacity of social gatherings, increased sanitary measurments at the bars and businesses requiring mask use has become the norm in Monroe County.  Because of that, their positive COVID-19 rate has remained at about 3% during the past four months.  In contrast Kosicusko County has seen our positive rate rise to close to 10% during the same time frame.  We also have 150 more individual COVID-19 cases even though Monroe County is almost double our size with 70,000 more residents.  It doesn't take a math scholar to look at the numbers and realize that COVID-19 could become a thing of the past, if only people would follow the guidelines.  All of us want life to return to normal, but it isn't fair that only some citizens have to follow the rules.  None of the changes that Monroe County made would alter much of our lifestyle and that would enable all of us to enjoy the benefits of living in a healthy community.