Tallying the new normal

This is our twelfth week since Gov. Jay Inslee started shutting down Washington’s economy, ordering us to Stay Home to Stay Safe. We are not nearly as shutdown as we were when March ended. We are not all safe, either: Last week 50 COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Skagit County. Two weeks ago, public health staff told the Country’s Board of Health that the rise in cases precluded applying to the state to move to Phase 3. The increasing number of cases and the rate of increase, metrics of “community spread” make advancing to Phase 3 by December mostly a dream.

Reduced social interaction and strait jacketing economic activity are not the governor’s or government’s fault. The virus dictates public health policy and public health measures. The virus’ spread is your neighbor’s fault, or his cousin or his neighbor. In other words, we are the people in the community transmitting the virus, increasing the spread.

That means our public health decisions and responsible actions are the path to slowing the community spread.

Consider all we have missed and lost this year. Businesses, their owners, staffs, products and services, and places in our hearts, are gone. Today’s page 3 story lists those businesses.

This is the year of NO:

We went without the Daffodil and Tulip Festivals.

The Kiwanis and Rotary clubs did not sell daffodils or tulips.

There was no Impromptu Parade.

No Easter egg hunt in Pioneer Park.

No community shared First Salmon Ceremony and Blessing of the Fleet.

No Gilkey Square Sunday Concert Series.

No in-person high school graduation.

No MoNA auction.

No Novel Affair library fundraiser.

No July 4th parade, picnic, community concert and Town fireworks.

No in-person council or school board meetings.

The rest of 2020?

No Pioneer Picnic.

No Classic Car Show.

No in-person La Conner Rotary auction.

No Art’s Alive.

No Santa and Rotary Pancake Breakfast.

No Santa Christmas tree lighting.

No lighted boat parade.

No Tiny Trees library fundraiser.

This is the actual, on-the-ground, 2020 normal. This is the world our decisions and actions are creating.

As of July 6 there were 19 coronavirus cases in the La Conner zip code, at most, and as few as 10. Perhaps two of the county’s 15 deaths are local. Countywide, we are at a pace to top 600 confirmed cases next week. That is up 25% from the 449 June 5, the day the County moved into Phase 2.

And 2021? We, in Washington and nationwide are still riding the first wave, the ongoing surge from the year’s start. We have not beaten it back, are not close to getting on top of it.

We have an ongoing diet of mask wearing, social distancing, limited travel and minimal weekly interactions for the foreseeable future.

That 1918 flu pandemic? It was the 1918-1920 three-year influenza pandemic.

I protect you, you protect me. Mutual aid is ongoing, the order of the day. We have nothing else to do but to support each other.