Last hit on the snooze button


Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, emerged from her sulk tent today to admit that yeah, she'd better do something about this Covid surge, because the counties aren't going to do the right thing. Reopening the state six weeks ago was fun, but now the situation is more dire than it's ever been. There are more people in Oregon hospitals, and Oregon intensive care units, with Covid than ever before. Ever. And that's with more than half the adults fully vaccinated.

So starting Friday, you have to wear a face mask in indoor public places again. 

Unless you're eating or drinking.

And of course, if you're east of the big mountains and/or south of Eugene, you can keep on doing whatever you want. Nobody in those places listens to Kate Brown.

Back when there were 300 people in the hospital with the virus statewide, she shut everything down. As in, shut down.

Now there are about 700 people in the hospital with the virus statewide, and we're going with pretty-please-wear-a-mask-unless-you're-in-a-bar-or-restaurant. 

We'll probably have more than 1,000 people in the hospital with Covid by the end of August. I hope you won't need to go there for any other reason.

School's supposed to open, with full-on in-person instruction for all, in a few weeks. That isn't going to help.

But at least the governor showed up today. She'll be on camera quite a bit, I'm afraid, in the weeks just ahead.

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