A healthy debate on the health of our community

Poor Jay Inslee. Washington’s governor has his hands full with a solid portion of the state’s population, up to one-third, wanting to get back to the business of earning a living. The job loss in the last two months has been unprecedented, record breaking, huge.

The explosive quickness of stopping the old normal, triggered by Inslee’s March 23 emergency order to stay home, sheltering in place except for food shopping essentials, has put all of us on an emotional roller coaster. With constantly climbing positive COVID-19 virus numbers: over 6,000 confirmed cases in March and another 8,600 in April, Inslee shut the state down, kind of, stopping almost all consumer discretionary shopping and recreational activity and altering everyone’s education, from kindergarten through college. There are now over 15,500 cases and 850 deaths in Washington when you read this.

Essential businesses and workers were defined, 14 pages of categories initially. A list that long is easy to poke holes in.

The governor definitely has an agenda: the physical health of the state’s population. Some are accusing him of favoring some sectors of the economy and being “against” other sectors. Is the governor against barbers or residential construction workers, recreational fishing or landscapers? Is he heavy handed? Has he made mistakes? Has he, his staff and the best minds in public health, academia and industry been working on a near nonstop basis since January to make sense of a catastrophe on a scope and scale unseen in our lifetime? Think and reflect on your answers.

Who has not made a major mistake that affects other people since January 31?

What is the path forward? The third of the population feeling pressured to earn income, or go fishing, need to continue to advocate their cause, but their plans must be as deep with health data as the governor’s. Whether it is camping, cutting hair, mowing grass, building or painting a house, eating out, shopping or festival going, the get back to work and ramp up the economy advocates must provide plans that offer the safe opening of commerce.

Whether it is Seeds on the east side of La Conner or Calico Cupboard in the south corner of First Street, no one wants a happy family gathering on August 1 to turn into a cluster of confirmed cases August 15. Nor do Alan Darcy, owner of Two Moons Gallery, Chis Jennings at her yarn shop or Mayor Ramon Hayes at his jewelry store want to make a big sale at the end of the summer only to test positive themselves in October. That is not fear mongering. That is the caution a public health crisis requires.

Can businesses afford to wait or balance slow reopenings against low initial revenues and high fixed costs? Will some businesses open and shut down and close? Will others not open at all? The next year, two years, is going to be uncertain to our physical and financial health. Economic pain is certain. There are going to be more and more job and business losses.

Well into the future there are going to be confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more deaths. The equation the governor and state officials are struggling to balance is the long term physical health of over seven million people in a society where going to work at some point means buying something from someone, often in a social setting.

Some are certain the governor is too cautious with their health, even tyrannical in his imposition of rules on their lives. But their certainty cannot intrude on another’s caution. Everyone has a right to criticize. Everyone has even more responsibility to not breathe uncovered or get closer than six feet to their barber, their dry cleaner, their grocery clerk, their waiter, their neighbor.

It is a tough balancing act that every one of us has to manage.