Now Open
So here we are, a full three days into the reopening of Iowa…at least in 77 of our state’s 99 counties…and the world has not come to an end literally or figuratively.
Yet some are trying to make us think so. Witness the reporting from last Monday, the day the governor indicated that the counties with the fewest cases would start to reopen. The headlines criticized the governor, noting that on the very day we had more cases than ever before in a 24-hour period, she was reopening the state. While that was technically true, it was quite misleading. The large number of cases came from very few counties, not the ones being reopened.
Yesterday, the state noted that 77 percent of the cases that day came from the 22 counties still shut down. Yet one of our coverage partners issued a mobile app news alert and posted a story on line flipping that…saying about a quarter of the new cases came from the counties that were reopened. I think they were trying to make a point, suggesting it was wrong to reopen those counties. But the fact is that only a quarter of the new cases came from three quarters of the counties. Sounds like it actually rebuts the point I think they were trying to subtly make.
We’re far from out of the woods on this, and certainly when a quarter of the state’s counties are fully shut down…making up far more than that in percentage of population…it’s still a major issue. But I still don’t buy the one-size-fits-all approach, closing counties with fewer than three cases, for example.
There is one common thread to all this, though…all those who are saying we need a full shutdown from the Missouri to the Mississippi…those folks are elected officials, party folks, …all of whom haven’t missed a paycheck yet. Wonder if they’d have a different view if they were the ones without income, or who saw their once-thriving businesses dry up and blow away.
