— from Joe Symons —
Please take immediate action to restrict non-resident access to SJC for a minimum of 90 days and make the resolution renewable. Every day matters. No point in closing the barn door after the horses are gone.
You were elected as leaders. This is a critical opportunity to show leadership. Make tough decisions quickly.
When I was a volunteer at OIFR, Gary Bennett, former chief, said “Big Fire, Big Water” — you can’t put out a structure fire with a garden hose. We have Big Fire here. Big Water is needed now. The fire is not going to wait while you deliberate.
We also need a SJ County mandatory requirement self isolation to help containment.
I heard someone say on TV the other night after making a bold decision for
protection:
It should feel hard to make these decisions. By the time it’s easy, it’s too late.
Let’s have our county leaders make a HARD decision!
Here’s a relevant article from the NYTimes about other remote areas.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-dilemmas-travel-social-distancing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
A message from the mayor– (relative 23 minute audio fro the leaders of Gunnison County Colorado)
https://the1a.org/segments/coronavirus-shutdown-town/?fbclid=IwAR3B9tfZzLMjB2z939HQnmQplOJNLAJ6UYm6qrvhEZbojUnuX5_ws_9oevA
Thanks, Orcas Issues, for keeping up best you can with all that is happening. Lots of us are not on Facebook. Thank you Michael Johnson for that link — listening now, and hope Orcas can manage something similar (we’ve got a good start).
The thing to remember is, we are both “remote” and not “remote” since all of our groceries and essential goods come from off-island and people need to travel off-island and come here from off-island – to a tourist “mecca” with inadequate medical facilities to take care of deadly cases. So it’s even more imperative to not only stop the tourist train but to re-think our whole economy – but that is for better times. This virus and the positive changes in the environment from us NOT traveling and consuming is likely our final wake-up-call!
Although I agree with these pull-up-the drawbridge sentiments in my gut, my head tells me differently. They are unlikely to work very well and will cause a lot of unanticipated problems. What about our food and fuel supplies, which almost all come from off island? We cannot restrict those.
So some sort of regulation of oncoming traffic should be put in place, like testing for the temperatures of those coming off the ferries and putting those who fail the test in isolation or sending them back to the mainland. Or maybe have that done before they board. Of course, that would vastly slow the landings or boardings, but so what? We don’t really need all the daily ferries now coming and going.
I was surprised that reservations for the two morning ferries last Saturday were full, which almost never happens. This must have been due to Seattle-area folks heading for their second homes before the anticipated shelter-in-place rules took effect, better than in cramped city apartments.
To continue my previous comment, some of the people coming here from the Seattle area to shelter in place will inevitably bring the coronavirus with them, as they are coming from one of the nation’s infection “hot spots.” That means we need a good testing regimen. But from discussions I’ve had with SJ County Public Health Director Frank James, the testing regimen on Orcas Island is woefully inadequate. They cannot even test those who came into close contact with the first confirmed Covid-19 patient on the island. Only health-care workers, EMTs, and people over 65 showing flu-like symptoms can get tested. This is awful.
This discussion brings to mind John Donne’s 1623 poem:
No man is an island, entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Wise words, nearly four centuries old.