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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Editorial…
Welcome
to
the
new
Stealthy, insidious virus stokes anxieties
abnormal
When an invisible, stealthy enemy invades,
it9s only natural to want to know if there is
danger close. Several people have contacted
The Nugget asking whether there are con-
firmed COVID-19 cases in Sisters.
The answer isn9t very satisfying to them.
While there are daily reports on confirmed
COVID-19 cases in Deschutes County, medi-
cal officials will not confirm the specific
locality of those cases. If The Nugget were
to confirm by other means the existence of
COVID-19 cases locally, we would likely
report on the fact 4 but not specifics of who
or where. People can do strange things out of
fear, and potentially stigmatizing those who
have fallen ill will help no one.
The important thing to recognize is that the
specific locality of confirmed cases is actually
not very important information. The reason
Sisters Country is shut down, along with most
of the rest of the world, is that people who
have no symptoms at all can carry the virus.
We don9t have the testing capability to iden-
tify who is or isn9t sick, or who might be.
That9s why we have to err on the side of
caution, stay home and avoid contact with
others.
We know that COVID-19 is in Deschutes
County. We can assume that the number of
confirmed cases underreports the actual num-
ber, because testing is limited. People who
likely have the virus but are suffering only
mild or moderate symptoms are recovering at
home and are generally not being tested. We
should assume that COVID-19 is present in
our local community and protect ourselves
and our neighbors accordingly 4 simply by
staying home and maintaining physical dis-
tance and hygiene protocols when required
to go out. Recent guidelines indicate that
wearing a cloth mask may provide some
benefit.
This is a time for calm, prudent precau-
tions 4 and also concerted effort to prevent
anxiety and fear from overtaking us.
Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and
phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions
not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a
response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items
are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is 10 a.m. Monday.
To the Editor:
My mom has always been a strict propo-
nent of hand washing. She should receive
some sort of presidential Medal of Honor
for her relentless efforts at cleanliness. She9s
taken some flack through the years and even
been teased about it on occasion.
Even now when I9m home from a visit at
her house my son will ask me if Granny K
made me wash my hands when I got there.
You do not under any circumstance get to
be in her kitchen, much less touch anything
without washing your hands first!
In fact, visitors are mostly banned from
her kitchen. When my sisters and I were
growing up we had to wash our hands after
everything. When we got home from school,
from church, from playing outside or from a
friend9s house, the first item of business was
hand washing. And especially after using the
bathroom or picking our nose or scratching
ourselves in the yonder regions.
My mom did not hesitate to ask our friends
to go wash either when they came over to
play. As soon as any meal was ready we had
to wash before we could sit at the table. Now
my grandkids balk at me when I tell them to
wash their hands as soon as they step through
my door. I guess we9re born lazy. But now
we9re learning all the more the importance of
hand washing. I think we9ve become a soci-
ety of quick fixes. We want to rely on medi-
cations and remedies to make us well rather
then putting out the extra effort to combat it
See LETTERS on page 18
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Monday
Sunday
Sunny
Sunny
Sunny
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
63/38
70/41
67/42
58/34
52/29
54/32
The Nugget Newspaper, LLC
Website: www.nuggetnews.com
442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759
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The Nugget Newspaper,
P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759.
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Karen Keady
Guest Columnist
A friend and colleague
pointed out that =Social
Distancing= is much more
difficult for extroverts than
introverts. Makes sense.
Sisters is a community of
huggers. We don9t do the
Euro thing of the double
cheek buss (which always
seems to be a little phony
and unmeaningful); we
hug. A lot. At first it sort
of bothered me at social
events, all of that hugging.
I joined Kiwanis in 2011
and WOW! Talk about
huggers! We9re great.
So, now here we are,
social distancing. I dislike
the term, <the new nor-
mal.= It9s more like the
new <abnormal.=
I sort of agree with
the guy who posted a let-
ter to the editor in the
April 1 edition of The
Nugget. It troubled him to
see the streets of down-
town Sisters crowded with
people. He says 75 to 100
people wandering around
on Saturday, March 28. I
don9t drive slow enough to
count but in my journal that
day I had written, <Sisters
looks like a ghost town.= I
didn9t see anywhere near
100 people, even at Sisters
Bakery where everyone
queues up for their daily
bread.
I do agree that many
folks are taking the
COVID-19 scare too
lightly. We do need to limit
contact and be mindful of
how rapidly this virus is
spread once it invades a
community.
My best friend just
returned from three weeks
in Hawaii and I long to see
her, hear her news, share
a bottle of wine, hug her.
But, I won9t. At least not
for 14 to 18 days and even
then probably keep our dis-
tance and/or wear a mask.
The CDC has now decided
that we should be wearing
masks in public. A small
barrier, but better than
nothing. As a retired nurse
I have an N95 mask and
have considered volunteer-
ing in hard hit areas but at
my age I9m probably past
my pull date on that.
This virus WILL make
its way here. Guaranteed.
People are mobile, travel-
ing from Portland, Eugene,
Seattle. We can all do our
part in keeping our fami-
lies and ourselves safe and
healthy.
I still just do not get it
about people hoarding toi-
let paper! I come from an
era of cloth diapers and
other sanitary methods of
being&clean and sanitary.
I once resorted to wrapping
a dishtowel around my
son9s bottom sort of like
a loin cloth. It was never
used as a dishtowel again,
it remained a diaper (just in
case you went <ewww!=
We have neighbors with
a pallet of toilet paper on
their porch, with a sign
saying, <Help yourself if
you have a need.= (No, you
can9t have the address.) It9s
strange how times of crisis
bring out the best in some
people and the worst in
others.
Oh, one final word on
last week9s Nugget: I really
enjoyed the commentary
by Mitchell Luftig titled,
<Emotional survival tools
for a pandemic.= It was a
serious article but I found a
bit of humor there as well
in the first paragraph. I was
reading it to my husband
and it went like this: <Our
minds are like Velcro for
negative experiences. This
started with our ancestors,
whose survival depended
upon paying close atten-
tion to the things going on
around them (was that the
snarl of a saber-toothed
tiger?).=
My husband says it was
most likely his wife snor-
ing! Now that9s funny.
So, we laugh, read The
Nugget, don9t take this pan-
demic lightly, and yet don9t
quit finding the humor in
our everyday lives.
Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius
Production Manager: Leith Easterling
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
Creative Director: Jess Draper
Community Marketing
Partner: Vicki Curlett
Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May
Owner: J. Louis Mullen
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