About Safety

Wisconsin is losing 

What will it take for us to be safe?

Contrary to President Trump’s claims that the coronavirus is under control, we are seeing increasing numbers of both positive tests and hospitalizations, especially in the states that opened up their economies early.

As the cases continue to increase in 29 states, including Wisconsin, some other states chose the wiser course of following the almost universal recommendations from the experts in infectious diseases to require all who venture into public spaces to wear a face covering.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order on June 18, requiring a mask in public indoor spaces, including while shopping, riding public transportation or seeking medical care. The order also requires masks in outdoor public spaces where social distancing is not an option. He recently increased the mask requirement to include everyone in public.

On April 17, Connecticut mandated masks for all people over the age of 2 in a public space where social distancing is not possible, including public transportation, taxies and ride shares. Employees at essential businesses must wear masks while at work. Customers over the age of 2 are also required to mask up.

Delaware’s governor issued an order in April requiring people to wear masks while in public including inside stores and on public transportation.

As of May 16, the District of Columbia ordered the use of masks when conducting essential business or travel when social distancing is not possible. They are required in grocery stores, pharmacies, take out restaurants and on public transportation.

As of April 20, Hawaii has ordered both customers and employees of essential businesses to mask up.

Illinois Governor Pritzker ordered everyone stepping outside of their house to wear a mask on May 1.

As of May 11, Kentucky Governor Beshear ordered all state residents to wear a mask in public and gave businesses the ability to turn away unmasked customers.

Maine’s Governor Mills issued an order as of May 1 requiring masks for anyone over 2 in indoor public spaces like markets, stores, pharmacies and doctor’s offices.

On April 15th, Maryland’s governor ordered masks in both indoor and outdoor spaces where social distancing is not possible. Employees and customers of essential businesses over the age of nine must wear a mask.

On May 6, Massachusetts Governor Baker required masks for everyone in all public indoor and outdoor spaces where social distancing is not possible.

Michigan requires all residents to wear masks in all public settings. Business are allowed to refuse entry to those refusing to wear a mask.

Nevada required anyone in a public space to wear a mask as of Friday. This includes public transportation, public work environments or shopping.

New Jersey started requiring customers and employees to wear masks at essential businesses as of April 8. Businesses must supply them to employees and deny entry to anyone refusing to wear one.

As of May 16, New Mexico required adults to wear masks in all public settings except while eating, drinking or for medical reasons.

New York’s Governor Cuomo issued an order requiring masks in public for everyone

on April 17.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Health issued an order effective April 19 requiring employees and customers at essential businesses to wear masks. Customers who refuse must be denied entry.

Rhode Island issued an order effective May 8 requiring all residents over 2 to wear a mask in public settings, indoors or out.

On Tuesday, Washington’s Governor Inslee issued an order for all residents to wear masks starting Friday while in public spaces.

All of these orders are backed by solid public health science showing that the use of masks helps significantly reduce transmission of the airborne particles responsible for the spread of the deadly virus.

With significant spikes in infections and hospitalizations in Texas, Arizona, California, Florida and several other states, governors in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut just imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for all those traveling to their states from known virus hotspots. The European Union is seriously considering banning international travel from the United States to their member nations because of our increasing numbers.

Wisconsin continues to see increases in the numbers of people who test positive for the virus and in hospitalizations of seriously ill people who have contracted the virus. Wednesday and Thursday of this week saw the largest increases since the pandemic began.

Governor Evers and his health department tried to contain the virus’ spread through reasonable regulations and orders, but found his hands tied by the conservative majority of the state Supreme Court who sided with the “local control” leaders of the state Legislature and struck down his orders.

We now are experiencing a public in denial about the serious public health threats this virus is bringing into our communities. Masks are not common for most folks I see in public, except in some businesses. Only a few are requiring customers to mask up before entry.

I fear it will only be a matter of a short time before we become the next Texas, Arizona or Florida whose hospitals are almost over capacity with critically ill virus infected people. Until an effective vaccine is developed and shows results, I’m staying at home as much as I possibly can.

End Racism

Racial Justice Starts at Home

Learn from History

In 1965 and again in 1967, American cities erupted in flames from rioting by Black and Brown Americans. The response was a brutal crackdown by police and the National Guard. Many died as a result. Those were not the first times that peoples of color took to the streets to protest because their voices were not being heard and they were not the last. 

In 1968, then President Lyndon Johnson appointed a blue-ribbon commission headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to figure out why the unrest took place and what could be done to keep them from taking place in the future. The Kerner Commission went into the racial ghettos and interviewed thousands impacted by the violence. 

The Commission’s report issued at the end of the study blamed institutional and systemic racism, poverty and inadequate housing, unemployment and underfunded schools in communities of color, inadequate police training, a flawed justice system, discriminatory credit practices and voter suppression as the major causative factors of the unrest and violence. The Kerner Commission report was followed by an in-depth article published by Newsweek that reached many of the same conclusions. Both the Commission and Newsweek proposed massive government programs to address the racial inequities and discriminatory practices they found. Nobody listened.

President Johnson wanted outside agitators blamed for the unrest and a report that did not address racism. He ignored the findings and the recommendations and Richard Nixon was elected President later that year after running on a “law and order” campaign. Sound familiar?

Now we are faced with similar, but less violent, protests by people of color and their allies demanding an end to police violence against them and of the institutional racism that still permeates American society. More and more white Americans are joining these calls and taking to the streets to demand change.

Institutional changes in how police agencies interact with people of color or those deemed outside the mainstream of society are coming. As more people of color reach leadership positions in law enforcement, they bring a different vision of how the rank and file needs to behave. These changes will be slow to emerge as institutional changes take place slowly. 

More important to the wave of change is how we Caucasian Americans look inward to discover and root our own biases against those who look different than we do. This introspection will be critical to the long-term success of the movement to end racism. It is not enough for the military and NASCAR to ban the Confederate battle flag, for the military to remove Confederate names from military installations or for Confederate statutes and memorials to be removed. We white people all need to stop reacting negatively, even subtly, to people who appear to be different from us.

Humans are not born to see race or to hate those with different skin tones. We are taught by those like us to make distinctions based on this perceived difference and impose the assumptions of inferiority that follow.

White adults need to look inward, recognize these learned behaviors and figure out how to put them aside and adopt a new way of perceiving and reacting to fellow humans who look different to white people.

For those who can’t figure out how, here are some resources that might help.

https://egbertowillies.com/2020/06/11/here-is-how-i-overcame-my-own-prejudice-white-people-must-do-this-and/?fbclid=IwAR2cpeOvXOkDJpaSwV7sWnTgNGhkYmqVNaLUmfHOA-xSxBFmEZziLekAymU

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/parenting/kids-books-racism-protest.html

http://www.resourcesharingproject.org/anti-racism-resource-collection

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/06/871023438/this-list-of-books-films-and-podcasts-about-racism-is-a-start-not-a-panacea

https://www.racialequitytools.org/act/strategies/training-and-popular-education

https://fortune.com/2020/06/05/antiracist-books-donations-black-owned-businesses-resources/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/talking-to-kids-about-racism.html

https://medium.com/wake-up-call/a-detailed-list-of-anti-racism-resources-a34b259a3eea

The Underground Railroad by Olson Whitehead

So you want to talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in an American City (Milwaukee) by Matthew Desmond

It is up to each and every one of us to change what is in our heads and hearts about people of color and seek out ways to live together peacefully. 

Racial justice starts at home.

Masks Weaponized

Wearing a face mask is not a weapon

Not wearing one is

My wife and I are in our late 70s with health conditions making us high-risk to have a bad, if not fatal, reaction should we catch the COVID-19 virus. We have been self-isolating since early March and wearing masks and gloves if we had to leave home. We had groceries delivered, stopped seeing friends and family, stopped going to the Y, only did curbside or take out from our favorite restaurants and waited to see what would happen.

We felt reasonably comfortable with Governor Evers’ stay-at-home orders and his Badger Bounce Back plan to reopen. Then the conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of the GOP legislative leadership who sued challenging Evers’ orders. Not having a plan of their own, the GOP leadership refused to work with Evers to craft new rules to help keep us safe. They just told Wisconsin counties and municipalities that you are on your own when it came to public safety during the pandemic even as the numbers of dead and infected continued to rise. It is no surprise that Washington County is now seeing a significant increase of positive COVID tests and deaths.

The predictable result is the wild, wild Midwest where there are no uniform rules, just suggestions that come from the Centers from Disease Control and other experts on how we should act in public passed on through suggestions from local leaders to follow some of them or just those you like or find convenient.

Recently, we have started to venture out of our home to see how the new normal looks and to try and measure how safe we feel being around our neighbors. I have to say, it is really scary out there. We still wear our masks when we go places. The businesses we have gone into in Kewaskum and West Bend have adopted some stay safe practices, but they are far from uniform. Here’s a sample of what we’ve experienced.

 Our Kewaskum Piggly Wiggly grocery store is the best of the bunch. They have Plexiglas barriers between customer and cashier, 6-foot distances marked on the floor in lanes leading to the checkouts, and all staff are masked. The store offers same- or next-day curbside pickup of online orders and limited delivery.

Some West Bend grocery stores present a different picture. One offers all of the same precautions and adds sanitizing carts after each use. Another has some of the same precautions, but staff masks are spotty and often worn below the nose.

One local hardware store is a hot mess. They have barriers between cashier and customer, but the lane up to checkout is right in the middle of the path customers must use to enter the store. There are 6-foot marks on the floor around the checkout. None of the staff wears masks.

The most significant problem we experienced in all of these businesses was with other customers. Many more came in without any face coverings than those with masks. Physical distancing, except in check-out lanes, was pretty much nonexistent. There were no limits on the numbers allowed inside. Unmasked staff came right up to unmasked customers and carried on conversations before moving on to help others.

While we have not had a personal experience with mask shaming, some of our friends have been challenged in public places for wearing face coverings. The choice to ridicule or shame someone for wearing a mask boggles my mind.

We wear masks because the sound science tells us that it is the best way, short of staying home, to prevent the spread of the virus by an asymptomatic or infected carrier. Even though I have taken more-than-reasonable precautions to keep myself safe, I may be a carrier who shows no symptoms. My mask helps you by keeping the droplets in my breath from reaching you should we interact. Why on earth would any rational or sane person take issue with efforts I make to keep them safe?

It appears that mask shaming is part of our larger political divide where those who care about others and the safety of our family and neighbors are thought to be inferior because we subscribe to a work for the greater good philosophy. Our rugged individualistic neighbors are feeling invincible because our president tells them they are on the right path and are better than us. After all, he refuses to wear a mask, so why should they?

Those who refuse to mask up, fearing a governmental obliteration of their liberties, put not only themselves at risk, but their elderly family members and friends as well. Even if they don’t get sick, they are more likely to become a virus carrier by not wearing one.

As we top 100,000 dead nationwide from the virus, it is time to listen to those who actually know what they are talking about because they have studied the science and learned from experience and history.

Stop weaponizing masks and put one on in public while keeping your distance. It may just save a life.

Barr Must Go

US Justice Dept. is a political weapon
William Barr must resign

While most of us were consumed or distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of Justice took a nearly unprecedented action that signals the end of the rule of law, the bedrock of our democracy. 

It is rare when the government asks the court to dismiss a criminal case. When it does happen, it is usually at the beginning stages of a case when new and exonerating evidence comes to light. In almost 40 years of federal criminal law practice in federal courts, I have never heard of the government asking to dismiss a case after the defendant has pled guilty to the offense charged and admitted to the court, under oath, that he committed the offense charged knowing that it was a crime at the time. 

That is exactly what happened in the case of a Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Trump. Flynn was charged with lying to FBI agents who interviewed him about his contacts with Russians during then candidate Trump’s 2016 campaign to become President of the United States. The agents were investigating whether Russia was involved in activities aimed at influencing the outcome of the presidential election which is a crime under federal law. 

In order to constitute a crime, Flynn’s lies about contacts with Russians about the election had to be “material” to that investigation. Flynn was known to have financial and other ties to Russia and other foreign governments at the time. During his FBI interview, Flynn denied having telephone conversations with a Russian diplomat during the campaign. Flynn not only had those conversations, but in the conversations, Flynn asked the Russians not to react too strongly to the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration. The Russians knew Flynn had those conversations, making him subject to later blackmail should he be needed to advance Russian interests. His lies were clearly “material” to the agents’ investigation.

Trump’s second hand-picked Attorney General, William Barr, directed the case against Flynn be dismissed based upon a non-sensical claim that Flynn’s statements to the FBI were not “material” to their investigation. Barr believed the Flynn interview never should have taken place because the FBI was prepared to close the Russia investigation when the Flynn telephone contacts with the Russian ambassador became known.

Barr’s position is a perversion of the law and the process. Flynn twice swore under oath that he lied to the FBI agents about the conversations with the Russian ambassador when he pled guilty. His lawyers acknowledged that he committed the acts required for the offense before he pled guilty. Flynn agreed that he knew his lies were important when he made them.  Both Vice-President Pence and President Trump believed Flynn’s lies were important. They both said so and Trump fired Flynn for lying to Pence.

Since the government’s request that the case against Flynn be dismissed, there has been outrage from former career justice department prosecutors about the blatant politicization of this case in order to protect a presidential crony. Legal scholars have weighed in on how Attorney General Barr is turning the Justice Department into a weapon to be used against Trump’s enemies and a shield to protect Trump’s friends. Former Watergate prosecutors have urged the judge in Flynn’s case to deny the government’s request to dismiss the case and proceed to sentence Flynn. 

Under the Rules of Federal Criminal Procedure, the presiding judge has the power to grant or deny the government’s request to dismiss and gets to make the final determination whether the dismissal would be “in the interest of justice.” Usually when the prosecution and defense appear in court, both sides of the issues are fully aired and discussed. Here, those adversaries are united. Both want Flynn to walk out of court a free man. 

Judge Sullivan has taken the unusual step of appointing an independent lawyer to present arguments on the government’s request. He chose a retired federal judge and former federal prosecutor to provide the rest of the story by presenting evidence and legal arguments. He has also been asked to advise the court whether Flynn should be charged further with perjury for lying to the court when he admitted to commission of the crime when he pled guilty. It appears that Flynn cannot avoid that one given his current argument that he did not commit that crime after admitting under oath that he did in two earlier court hearings.

Whether Flynn walks free or goes to prison, the damage to the reputation of the United States Department of Justice that is tasked with seeking justice will take a huge hit. William Barr should heed the call of over 2,000 former federal career prosecutors and resign from his post before the damage from his politicization of the Department becomes permanent.

No time for partisan privilege

No time for privileged partisanship

Virus threatens us all, regardless of where partisan lines lie

Once again, we see the partisan divide rear its nasty head. This time it is about how we should confront the pandemic, but the underlying arguments are the same as they have always been. They boil down to local versus broader geographical control and white privilege.

Starting at the local level, moving on up to counties and then states and then countries, we hear leaders say they are best equipped to deal with the crisis, especially when it comes to allowing businesses to reopen.

I understand the arguments from individuals wanting to go back to work in order to feed themselves and their families. I understand the need of small-business owners to do the same. When I see the “reopen now” protesters’ signs and listen to them, their arguments seem to center not on their individual need to make a living, but on their desire for others to provide services to them such as a haircut or the ability to go shopping as they please. When I dig into large business arguments, I see the need for corporate profit. What we have is a worldwide problem. In our global community with its global economy and ease of international travel, what happens in one place will eventually have an impact every place. It is not as simple as closing national borders; we are too dependent on foreign supply chains for that to be a reality. That leaves us with the need for national leadership to address the problems within our national borders. Unfortunately, our president and his team have not been up to the task.

President Trump has used the pandemic to create his reelection campaign events. Where he could have enlisted the aid of scientists who understand the problem and are the best equipped to solve it, he delivered inconsistent and even conflicting messages that were sometimes life-threatening. Where he could have coordinated a national response to the shortages of personal protective gear for health care workers and first responders, he seized orders for the gear placed by states for a federal stockpile his son-in-law thought was for the federal government to have, not the states. When he could have implemented plans to reopen the economy that protected workers in essential and other endeavors, he left it to employers to look out for the welfare of their employees.

With the failure of our national leadership, each state has been left to its leaders elected to manage the crisis within their respective borders. In states with single-party control in at least two branches of government, responses have been comparatively effective to the extent that those plans have relied upon the advice of scientists and health care providers. Governors Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Larry Hogan, RMd., have all shown what effective and responsible leadership looks like and brought some measure of control to the spread of the virus in their states. States with responsible leaders are forming regional alliances in the West, Northeast and Midwest to coordinate uniform responses to help contain the spread of the virus.

In those states where governors and legislatures have been led by business interests and not science and health care, the virus continues to spread.

Within states like Wisconsin with divided government and a strong partisan divide, the problem becomes much clearer. We have a state where the virus is just about everywhere, but the numbers of people infected and the numbers of deaths are far greater in urban communities of color and places where hourly wage earners work shoulder to shoulder, like meat processors.

Those who live outside of these hotspots have not seen the impacts up close and personal, except on the news or if a friend or relative got sick. In this space of privilege, leaders feel comfortable opposing state-level controls and demanding local or regional control efforts more closely tailored to the needs and desires of their constituent populations.

Here in Kewaskum, our village president rails against outside control because our numbers are zero. He conveniently ignores Highway 45 that leads directly from urban Milwaukee through our village and those who will commute to the city if and when it reopens for business. We have county leaders who have penned their own blueprint for reopening and joined the lawsuit against Governor Evers’ statewide orders aimed at containing the spread. Their arguments are similar, noting our county’s numbers of those infected and those who have died are low so we should be allowed to move faster than other places to reopen for business. They, too, ignore the reality that what happens in Milwaukee or Kenosha or Jefferson or Brown or Dane County will eventually impact us here.

This is not a time for local, much less individual, control of the response to the virus. We are all in this together and unless we all work together to contain the spread, the virus will spread to all our communities, infecting and killing even those privileged to live in what are now relatively safe places.

Listen to the Virus

Listen to the Virus
It will dictate our future

Once again, we are at a life-threatening crossroads. After fits and starts in the battle to contain COVID-19, we finally saw state and federal governments agree to a plan to slow the spread of this deadly virus through aggressive treatment of those who become ill from it, school and business closings, restrictions on large public gatherings and enforced physical distancing requirements. There is little doubt that the rate of infection increases has gone down, hospitalizations are starting to level off and the death rate among those infected is slowing down. 

These measures, popularly called STAY AT HOME orders, are working and lives are being saved as a result.  

As with all pandemics, the measures needed to beat them come with a staggering economic cost. More Americans are out of work now than we saw during the Great Depression. Businesses are closed and many will never reopen. Savings have been depleted. Investments have taken a substantial hit. People are clamoring for help. Food banks cannot keep up with the demand. Stimulus checks and unemployment benefits will help some and cannot come soon enough. 

Besides the economic toll, government services and quality of life programs are being curtailed. Some see individual liberties being curtailed. Protests by some of those aggrieved by the orders closing parks and businesses are springing up here and around the country.

We must choose how we will move forward. Do we continue the stay at home orders, keep non-essential businesses shuttered, keep schools closed and require physical distancing to protect lives? Do we heed the calls to re-open the economy, put Americans back to work and risk more deaths?

It is at this cross-roads where our political divide rears up once more. 

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump retreated from his earlier proclamation that he would be the one to decide when to re-open the country. Instead, he finally listened to his scientific advisors and legal team and recognized that the nation’s governors should be making the decisions about when to re-open their individual state economies based upon the conditions presented. He offered a reasoned plan for all to follow on how such decisions should be made. 

First, we need to look at the rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths. Are they going up, down or staying level? As long as the rates continue to rise or stay high, economies should stay closed and physical distancing enforced. 

Second, with declining rates of infection, hospitalization and death, we need to ramp up our ability to test people to see if they are infected. Without testing, we will be operating blindfolded and if infection rates start going back up, we will not know it until it shows up in increased hospitalizations. Then, it will be too late. 

Third, with any economic re-opening and lessened restrictions on physical distancing, the chances of a new wave of infection and death will go up substantially. We must rebuild or hospital capacity to be able to handle any new wave. That means more hospital beds, more protective equipment for healthcare workers and first responders and more ventilators and other life sustaining medical equipment.

Fourth, we need to develop and test the efficacy of a vaccine to inoculate the public from contracting the virus in the first place. This will, by most scientific measures, take the better part of a year. 

Under the President’s guidelines, governors can slowly re-open their state’s economies as they are able to meet each of the listed benchmarks in turn. Some states have been hit harder by the pandemic than others and will be slower to reopen than those with fewer infected citizens. 

Governor Evers also spoke about these issues on Thursday. He too recognized that a slow, measured response to the virus threat was needed to protect Wisconsin citizens as much as possible. Evers will not be throwing a switch to re-open Wisconsin, but will use a dial to lessen restrictions as the benchmarks are reached. It will take time. 

For starters, Gov. Evers extended his stay at home order until just after Memorial Day, May 26. The need for the extension is manifest and is in keeping with President Trump’s guidelines. He will allow some businesses to reopen under physical distancing guidelines and offering limited services.

Unfortunately, the republican leaders in our legislature do not see fit to follow their President and Governor. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Majority Leader Robin Vos both signaled Thursday that they would pull out the stops to pass measures to end Evers’ orders. They seem hell bent on putting Wisconsin back to work and letting the lives of the vulnerable in the balance fall where they may. This is at least consistent with their efforts to force people to vote in the last election during the pandemic, making many choose between their right to vote and the risk of contracting a deadly disease. We know how that turned out.

Now is the time for restraint and listening to the scientists. As Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Trump’s advisor on infectious diseases, said recently, “the virus will tell us when to re-open the country.” We ignore it’s call at our peril.

Look for the Helpers

Look for the Helpers
Kindnes goes a long way

My wife and I are in our middle to late 70s and have health issues, putting us in the high-risk category for contracting and dying from the Covid-19 virus. We have been staying and working from home since the middle of March to avoid exposure. This has necessitated interesting changes to our routines. 

We have always been social people who love to be in contact with our friends and family. I even strike up conversations with strangers in places like the grocery store, just to increase sociability. The government has urged “social distancing” to flatten the curve of exposure to the virus. We found that to be a misnomer. We use “physical distancing” instead, keeping at least six feet between us and others when we do go out. 

We have learned to keep up contact with our friends and family using technology. We love making and receiving phone calls. We use Facetime and other video conferencing platforms for virtual dinners and happy hours. Meetings for work are now audio or audiovisual and work just fine. Seeing the grandkids laugh and hearing them sing or play their instruments on a computer screen or iPhone is not as good as it would be in-person, but suffices in these uncertain times.

Shopping has also been interesting. I usually shop for the groceries for us. I miss the time spent cruising the aisles looking for new culinary experiences and speaking with others doing the same. When we first shuttered in, I used the pick-up services at Pick N Save and Sendiks. They worked very well initially, but the time between placing the order and being able to pick it up has now increased to over a week. Luckily, our local Piggly Wiggly has a wonderful volunteer, out of work at a local public school, who will shop for us and deliver the food to our garage on the same or next day after I email her my order. She has been a great help and I try to just call on her service once a week so she has time for other orders for those like us who have self-quarantined. 

I have also ordered more things on-line, mostly through Amazon. Hand sanitizer ingredients and coffee pods in bulk are now shipped directly to a bin on our front porch. So are books for the avid reader next to me on the couch. 

We are mailing more as well. We’re getting drawings and other refrigerator art from the grandkids. Videos of past concerts also come by mail. Letters from friends checking in come as well. We used the mail to send postcards to potential voters as part of the new campaign methods of voter contact have emerged. 

Dining out was always a treat for us and we loved to patronize our favorite local pubs and eateries. Now we do take out or curbside pick-up from these local businesses to try and help them weather the storm and take a break from cooking and dishes. 

My work as a guardian for the elderly, most with dementia, has been curtailed significantly. I would normally visit my wards in the facilities where they live to check in on them, review medical records and speak with caregivers. With the pandemic, all assisted living and nursing facilities have banned outside visitors, except for medically necessary ones, so I cannot visit in-person. That means family cannot visit their loved ones either. I have switched to email and phone contact with facility staff to keep up with the condition of my wards and have picked up more contact with their family members as I relay changes in visiting rules and health conditions. 

Through all of these changes, we have found that the people involved are going above and beyond to take care and be kind. Civility is on the increase as folks realize that we are all in this mess together and it will take each of us maintaining our “physical distance” for the contagion curve to flatten. 

I, and many others, are grateful for the helpers who have stepped up to help us survive. Let’s work to continue the kindness once this pandemic passes.