As mentioned in Part One, Archuleta County Commissioner Steve Wadley has been invited to participate in San Juan Basin Public Health’s October 30 press conference, to help present — presumably — the conditions in Pagosa Springs as COVID cases appear to be climbing ominously in 42 states. A November 3 article posted on the Becker Hospital Review website ranks US states by percentage of coronavirus tests that are coming back ‘positive’.
It appears that 50.6% of the tests conducted in South Dakota are coming back positive. Other states with dramatic infection rates include Iowa (37.4% positive). Kansas (36.0% positive) and Idaho (33.4% positive). Colorado ranks 27th on the Becker list, with 7.7% of tests coming back positive.
Commissioner Wadley did not show up for the press conference… but we know he’s still alive and kicking, because he participated three days later in the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners’ meeting, where he complained about the apparent unwillingness of working class individuals to apply for job openings during the pandemic. Specifically, he indicated he’s having a hard time finding employees for his downtown restaurant, The Rose, even though his business “pays very well, considering…”
We did, however, get a chance to hear from the chair of the La Plata Board of County Commissioners, Gwen Lachelt, who noted:
“I really wish we weren’t having to do this urgent press conference today. This pandemic has been a long haul, and sadly, it looks like we’re in for a really long haul…
“As elected officials, our job is to protect public health, safety, welfare, and the environment. And we can’t do that without every single one of us stepping up to do all we can, in the next few weeks, to protect our own health, our families, and to avoid a run on our healthcare system. We simply can’t afford to overwhelm our hospitals and caregivers, and we certainly don’t want to have to go into another shutdown.
“This pandemic has affected every single one of us, and it’s taken a toll on all of us, but it’s so important not to give up.”
Another presenter at the press conference was Durango Mayor Dean Brookie:
“I’m not as medically oriented as some of the previous presenters, but watching our community, in the City of Durango, we’re clearly entering a new phase of this pandemic, and it’s alarming in our own community — not at the same scale as many other communities throughout the state, but as we witness our restaurants, a number of them having COVID outbreaks, our construction sites, in fact our own fire department is severely impacted at this point in time.
“When we start to see impacts in critical services like fire protection, and emergency services, that’s when we start to understand how important our behavior is, towards keeping our freedoms — if we want to call them freedoms — I just like to think of them as ‘life’ in Durango. And especially when we’re getting ready to welcome a new crop of visitors, with the winter season…”
A bit later in the conference, Mayor Brookie offered some additional comments that may have resonated with the Durango participants, but which left me a bit confused. Momentarily.
“I wanted to point out that, in Durango specifically, we have between 60-70% compliance with our mask ordinance, across the board. That is within the realm of ‘success’. And we need to continue with that… We do have a couple of bad actors. And that’s been in the press, and they’ve used it as a political platform… using one of our street corners to make a political statement. My personal advice is to not give them any more free press than they already deserve. I know I got a call from the New York Times; that’s not the kind of advertisement we want to give to our community, or to any particular business.
“I’m looking forward to Tuesday [Election Day], so we can put aside the political aspects of this entire pandemic, and move forward and really focus our resources — that being money and personnel… to educate the community…
“I’m not really that concerned about one bad actor, on the corner of College and Main, and as Gwen would say, ‘How much yogurt do you need in the middle of winter?’ And maybe we won’t have this problem next spring…”
I haven’t been to Durango since the pandemic began, so I was unfamiliar with the yogurt shoppe at the corner of College and Main that — according to the Durango Herald — was offering a 10% discount to customers if they came in to order without wearing a mask. Employees at the shoppe reportedly do not wear masks while serving customers.
To judge by photos in the Herald article, the business owner is supportive of every Republican candidate that appeared on Durango’s November 3 ballot… and apparently not supportive of Mayor Brookie’s leadership style.
From the Herald article:
SJBPH has also requested assistance from the state Attorney General’s Office and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to discuss possible enforcement actions on the yogurt shop.
“This is more serious than violating PHO (public health orders) through ignorance or lack of managerial control,” San Juan Basin Public Health wrote in a statement to The Durango Herald. “And SJBPH is looking at all legal options available to stop Top That from willfully creating a risk to public health.”
SJBPH Executive Director Liane Jollon wrapped up the press conference with these comments:
“This is really a system. What we’ve talked about is that [COVID] hospitalizations across the state were at 200 for the last 8 weeks. They’re now at, I think, over 600, with the potential to go to 900 within a week to ten days.
“So all the pieces have to work together. Part of the reason we’re having this ‘call to action’ here, locally, is that local capacity won’t decide everything that will happen to us. If we do a really good job containing the virus, and we contain it where we are now, and the rest of the state is not able to contain the virus, we’re all going to run out of resources, whether they are hospital beds, testing supplies, PPE, ventilators…
“And we’ve seen that happen. One of the reasons northern Colorado hospitals have filled up is because Wyoming has had a really hard time containing the virus, and patients came down. We’re seeing this happen all over, where states have to work together to treat patients, and within the state, we have to work together.
“So the resources we have are going to be limited in a multitude of ways. And the most important thing we need to be doing as a community is containing the virus, for ourselves…”