CoVid Update.

In the warmer States, which are now heading into their "indoors air" season of cooling A/C with the windows shut and more people breathing re-circulated air in enclosed environs, CoVid rates are rising rapidly.  Is it because of spread, increased testing numbers, or something else?

As with so much else CoVid, we/they just don't know...

It is safer, of course, for people to simply become accustomed to covering their mouth and nose when they are in public spaces indoors with others.  Or, in closer places outside, like pumping gas adjacent to another at the filling station...

In my rare travels of late, I've observed:  Illinois and Minnesota, for the most part, are practicing mask wearing.  I go to the grocery store rarely now, but in Minnesota I would guess about 85% of customers I have seen have been masked, and all employees.  Some noses exposed, but people are trying...

(Ditto with those place markers on the floor, indicating spacing, and one-way aisles.  There is an attempt to conform, but a general tolerance, I think, when people are wrong-way in the produce aisles, say, because the fruit they want is... over there, and they would have to tack an indirect route to get there, taking extra steps.  It probably also helps that most of the Nervous Nancy's who would object to such stepping out of line are not showing their masked faces in public, preferring to pay others to shop and deliver for them.)

Wisconsin is going the way of Sweden, it seems.  Let the people mingle at the open bars and restaurants and grocery stores, and build up a herd immunity. (?)  Let's see how well that works, but again, it is summertime, and most out and about appear to be younger and in hardier physical shape than those who might still be isolating because they believe themselves more vulnerable.

Come next late fall (November and early December) and especially next winter (late December through March)  I think Minnesota and Illinois will prove better off than Wisconsin, in that children and adults are training themselves now to instinctively prepare themselves by wearing masks.

On the other hand, Wisconsin is more rural in most regions, and people tend to "hibernate" in the winter, indoors months.  So long as you are isolated with no one carrying the virus. it should be safe to stay indoors maskless, without venturing out.

No one knows, of course, which is the better course to take for themselves, as individuals.  As a whole, perhaps, we know putting on the masks in populated places is wisest overall to reduce spread. As for when an effective vaccine might become available, agains, no one knows...

Each and every one of us is responsible for protecting our own health.  Some will make choices that turn out to have better results than others.  We just don't know what the numbers of the first wave will show, and if we will have contagion better under control when the second wave hits...

Use this time to prepare, and put your health as a priority?  Strengthen your immune systems, if you can, and be ready?  Don't put too much effort into judging and changing the behavior of others maybe, but act defensively and work to protect yourself?

I do believe, how we balance the economic and health response to this virus is indeed crucial, and I hope our elected representative are working on a plan to provide long-term for the economic needs of all tiers of the nation in the coming year.  It won't be enough there to declare the virus done and defeated as of July 31, I don't think...

Getting the balance right is most important right now -- national economy and national health.  They're kind of intertwined, as you might have noticed especially in this now-no-longer-new century.