Dave Ebbert characterized our local situation in his letter to the editor last week: “What a crazy world we live in.” There was certainly evidence in that same issue.

Rebecca Patton wrote that the American Institute for Economic Research produced a study that determined all manner of awful things will happen to children “forced” to mask-up to protect themselves, their family members and schoolmates from coronavirus. Nevermind that the American Institute for Economic Research is not medical research, although they like to throw around conspiracy theories about AIDS/HIV and various other medical matters.

I was particularly struck by Ms. Patton’s quotation of Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me liberty or give me death.” When in recent weeks death is quite literally the result for a few infected children, as well as teachers, that seems a rather stark decision for adults to make on their behalf, particularly when requiring to wear a mask for awhile is hardly a question of “liberty.”

Also in that same issue, Commissioner Todd Nash, apparently seeing himself as the hero in a Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour fiction novel, is quoted telling the governor that we “frontier counties” should be exempted from the recent mask mandate because of how well we’re doing. Nevermind that the very same article indicated that several Eastern Oregon counties, including Wallowa County, have the highest concentration of rates of growth of the virus in the entire state, along with a few Southern Oregon counties and one in Central Oregon.

According to the Oregon Health Authority, this county has had 95 cases of COVID-19 between Aug. 1 and Aug. 20, which is far higher than anything seen here in the previous 17 months since the first mandate on March 23, 2020. A few locals have died from coronavirus, and our health care resources are being severely stretched in recent weeks due to the spike in cases requiring hospitalization.

To quote Dave Ebbert again, “What a crazy world!”

Dan and Jan Blair

Joseph