Five Points – What Happens Next?

by Wendell Lenhart
R-T Publisher
Having endured the complete upheaval in their routines from the COVID-19 pandemic, most people have now settled into their new routines because of the stay-at-home directive from the governor’s office and the mayor’s office.
Whatever we are doing, social distancing, no crowds of more than 10 people, etc., seems to be working because there are very few infections in this part of north Missouri and so far, no cases in Grundy, Mercer or Sullivan counties.
As of today, the stay-at-home order continues through next Friday, April 24. It remains to be seen if it will be extended or altered.
Having to live the “new normal” for most of March and all of April, it’s natural for people to wonder what the next step will be. When will it be okay for people to have a little bit more freedom in moving about? Even if that is not forthcoming, I’m afraid people, as time goes by, will not continue to heed the order because they are tired of being forced out of the things they enjoy doing and they don’t know if anyone in the immediate area is getting sick or dying.
That is probably the wrong thing to do because if a second wave of infections crop up after we think we have this under control, it will cause more panic behavior and more difficult economic conditions for us all.
The information I have read agrees on a couple of things that need to happen in order for us to move forward into recovery.
• Better testing. There has to be a way to identify those people who truly have the virus so they can be isolated from those who haven’t. It would also help if there was a way to identity those persons who may have had the virus and developed antibodies and resistance to their exposure.
• Development of an antiviral drug that would keep people from dying until a vaccine can be developed, which could be this time next year.
I have read that there are nearly 70 drugs in some form of development. To speed up these new drugs, the Food and Drug Administration could allow regulators to review the test data at the same time developers do, instead of after the trials. Bill Gates’ foundation is planning to pick the seven most promising drugs and build a factory to produce each one. It will waste billions of dollars, but he says it will be worth it to expedite whichever drug ends up working the best.
It’s going to be an interesting next couple of months.
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A little quarantine humor.
A young child asks his father: “Dad, did you have to stay at home during COVID 1 through 18, too?”