Letter to the editor about Covid is not done with us…

Letter about Covid is not done with us…

To the Editor,

I was pleased to see a letter in your November 1 edition about attention to COVID-19 precautions. I don’t believe most people in Fillmore County realize that COVID-19 is currently more prevalent in Fillmore county than most any other place in Minnesota, including Rochester and Twin Cities. As of today (November 2) the New York Times says Fillmore County has eight times more cases per hundred thousand people than New York City! We may be sick of hearing about the virus but the virus is not sick of us.

When I go out locally I rarely see a mask, but in Rochester or Minneapolis mask-wearing is commonplace. Their COVID numbers are much lower than ours. Isn’t there a conclusion to be drawn from that? I’ve heard people say that COVID doesn’t make people that sick. Sometimes. Other times, healthy people unexpectedly die and who wants to risk  “long COVID”? More than half the people who get COVID-19, even mild cases, develop long-lasting symptoms such as loss of taste and smell, chronic fatigue, heart and lung disease, nerve damage, foggy brain, depression, rashes, hair loss, and more. Some of these effects may last the rest of your life! (ScienceDaily.com “How Many People Develop Long COVID” based on Penn State research, 10/13/21, and NewYorker.com “Struggle to Define Long COVID,” 9/27/21). 

Like the letter writer from last week, people our age with underlying conditions who are more likely to die from COVID-19 certainly are frightened. To be safe in this world we need to do our research, ask for information in our local paper, for transparency from our schools, clinics and care centers and err on the side of caution until Fillmore County is again, one of the safer communities in which to live.

Ann Lyons

Harmony, Minn.