Jackson County asks people to 'do the right thing' to stop COVID-19

Dr. Jim Shames addressed rising case numbers in Jackson County even as schools prepare for the 2020-21 academic year.

Year.

I also asked him what he thinks about how local districts are handling the situation.

It is, it is a really complex decision making and, you know, we have to protect the children.

We have to protect their families.

We have to protect teachers, uh, and how we do that.

Um, you know, each, each district is balancing all their options.

Yeah.

I, i, i, you know, we were running out of time and there's a lot of moving parts here.

Uh, we're we're willing and able and interested to provide information to the school district, but ultimately they've got, they've got some hard decisions to make.

With these growing number of cases we saw record high, basically friday, saturday, sunday, nine more today.

Are you worried?

What is the people who do the people you talk to?

Do they talk about how worried they are moving forward with the corona virus here in jackson county?

Yeah, we're worried because what it means is that the, the amount of, of disease in our community is much more than it was.

So we have more spread that we can't.

Identify the source of which means we have continued community spread all.

So it means that people have gotten way with stuff.

You know, like the kid that goes to the cookie jar and there's never any punishment when all of a sudden, you know, now, uh, there, there are consequences to behaviors that people assumed were going to be safe before, you know, getting together with people indoors that are not part of your safe bubble.

Not wearing masks, not being, you know, spread apart.

Uh, those are risky behaviors and, and more and more and more people are, are transmitting the disease to others.

I would just like to remind everybody that outdoors is way safer than indoors creating a situation where there's lots of air circulation.

And if you add on to that social distancing and mask wearing hand-washing.

People can be safe.

We can, we can do this safely.

Do you think jackson county is taking the corona virus seriously in the new mask mandate?

Seriously, clearly some people are and clearly some people are not.

Um, i would say that for those that aren't taking it seriously, i would like them to think about their loved ones.

People who are vulnerable who've made.

You know, may not, may not share their robust ability to fight off infection and to do the right thing and protect, protect their fellow citizens.

If we saw a case count, like we saw friday, saturday, and sunday, in your opinion, where do we go from here as a county?

We have no, we have no magic bullet here, you know?

Um, we've just, we've just got to, to solve this problem ourselves, you know, back in 1918, when we had a pandemic, a worldwide and they make like this, uh, citizens were asked to wear masks, you know, people held schools out of doors.

We did a lot of things differently and we did it on a community wide basis and some communities that came together and did those things well at a much lower mortality rate than communities that didn't, i'm afraid that we're going to see things similarly now.

Um, so i can be worried and concerned, but, but ultimately this is going to fall into the hands of each individual citizens.

My last question to you tonight, what is your message to the people of jackson county?

Um, the science behind this viral infection is real, uh, people who analyze the data who are experts have no ulterior motive, but to try and protect the public.

I feel like i'm one of those people and i'm saying, please wear a mask, please respect the social distancing.

Please wash your hands and do it, uh, for yourself and do it for your loved ones and