Don't let your guard down now

Just when we’re all feeling worn out with COVID-19 fatigue, guess what?

It’s possible we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

As Tuesday’s front page indicated rather forcefully, the virus is flexing its malicious muscles across the country. Weekend reports indicated only two states were trending in the right direction with COVID-19. The rest were seeing significant increases in cases; in several states, the increases were dramatic. Idaho, unfortunately, is one of those states.

What’s frustrating to many people is that there’s really no new remedy to ease what ails us. There's no vaccine and might not be one widely available for months. The solution is the same boring message, over and over again: Wear a mask; practice social distancing of at least six feet from other people; wash your hands frequently with soap and hot water.

Danger is at our door. As Tuesday’s paper reported, health care workers locally have contracted COVID-19. It takes little imagination to realize what kind of mess we could be in if a significant number of our key medical professionals were out sick. We have amazing health care workers, but we aren't overly endowed with great numbers of them.

While there's still some energy behind the reported messaging of safety measures as the pandemic potentially reaches even higher levels, we all know what to do. The question is, do we care enough about each other to do it? To religiously don these annoying masks? To be mindful of our proximity to others? To wash our hands and use hand sanitizer darn near every time we think of it?

We hope so. We believe so. Our community may not all agree on government's role in applying safety standards, but our community has a long track record of taking care of one another.

With flu season here and relatives soon headed this way for the holidays, let's all agree that continuing to care for each other is Job One. Even if it's boring and annoying.