Northern Idaho Board Vote To End Mask Mandate

We have all heard the data over and over, the estimates are that more than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The Pandemic dominates conversations in Idaho and nationwide daily. For a while it seemed as though this whole thing was so far away  from our little corner of the world that we wondered if it was a real thing. It was not too long ago that we'd get reports with less than 50 new cases being reported per day. Today we have hospitals in Idaho sending COVID-19 patients as far away as Seattle for treatment and according to abc news members of a regional health department board have just voted 4-3 to end the mask mandate. All politics aside the Coronavirus has hit us with one thing after another that we thought we would never see or hear and this might be another one of those:

Board member Walt Kirby told abc news

“I personally do not care whether anybody wears a mask or not. If they want to be dumb enough to walk around and expose themselves and others, that's fine with me,” Kirby continued. “Nobody's wearing the damned mask anyway. ... I'm sitting back and watching them catch it and die. Hopefully I'll live through it.”

Allen Banks who is also a member of the board that by the way is not required to have any medical experience, denied COVID-19 exists.

“Something's making these people sick, and I'm pretty sure that it's not coronavirus, so the question that you should be asking is, 'What's making them sick?'”

No matter where you stand on the issue I think we all need to take this opportunity to be good neighbors and human beings. Let's all make an effort to look out for one another.