Wiederaenders: The COVID room ... enter at your own risk

This could be the "COVID room." Would you enter without any protection? (Courier stock image)

This could be the "COVID room." Would you enter without any protection? (Courier stock image)

What is important during the COVID-19 pandemic, as some places — such as Arizona — record more and more confirmed cases of infections?

That is a question for the watercooler — discussion and debate, daily as we mull over what officials and leaders are doing.

When it comes to the state, as you read in the Friday, June 12, edition of The Daily Courier, Gov. Doug Ducey sees and acknowledges that the rate of COVID-19 infections is increasing. He also wants the economy (businesses) to reopen and recover.

A reader, David, points out:

“Ducey is expecting the COVID-19 cases to increase, but he will not allow city and county officials to take actions to try to control the spread. Even though the hospitals are filling up, the governor promises there will be temporary capacity and ventilators to handle the overflow.

“What I am not hearing is his plan to keep us safe from contacting the virus in the first place. The governor indicates it is more important to open the economy even though Arizona leads the nation in new cases percentage-wise.

“I am a senior citizen with a compromised immune system. I could easily end up in a temporary ICU in an induced semi-coma with a ventilator tube down my throat and maybe dying. Governor Ducey is saying that is a price he is willing to pay.”

That is why I mentioned in my Friday Catchall column of the same day what leaders are calling “personal responsibility.”

I think they see the coronavirus as being “here.” Assume it is in your community/neighborhood. They want the public to realize this, but allow for us to make choices.

Choices like that are grave, no pun intended. My own sister — a middle school teacher — has a compromised immune system. She will have to teach from home when the schools get back in session.

Still, she has little choice. And, David may be in the same boat — a person who will have to be careful, likely for the rest of his days when it comes to masks and social distancing, etc., to combat the coronavirus.

Is it fair? Does not seem so. Are these decisions our leaders should be making? Yes and no.

While I believe we “reopened” a little too soon, if you are at-risk you are to make the choice to stay home or not. Our economies needed to get moving again too.

Yet, while I will not pretend to know all what the decision-makers are thinking, I do, however, believe had we waited another week or three AND the governor and our mayors required masks and social distancing, we’d be sitting a lot different than we are now.

The bottom line — the “no” part of this — sits with the “personal responsibility” and human nature.

If I told you there is a room you can go into to get a prize, but inside that room is something that kills somewhere between 1% and 6% (my made-up numbers) of those who enter — and, oh, here are some masks and gloves, etc. to ward off that threat — would you go inside without protection?

I think the majority of people are choosing to go into the COVID room unprotected. “Don’t tell me what to do!” they retort.

It is like dealing with a teenager. You can warn them, but they have to see for themselves — and right now they are seeing unprotected people as unaffected.

Now imagine, as an aside, the Prescott area has a multitude of public events coming up at which people will be at-risk. Should we all wear masks and such? Well, if our COVID counts are low but, let’s say, Phoenix is off the charts, and people from Phoenix will be coming here for our events — here is your “personal responsibility” — what are you prepared to do?

Inevitably, it is your choice.

Tim Wiederaenders is the senior news editor for the Prescott News Network. Follow him on Twitter @TWieds_editor. Reach him at 928-445-3333, ext. 2032, or twieds@prescottaz.com.


Donate Report a Typo Contact
Most Read