Hey Amarillo, We’re Not Out of the Woods Yet…

There's plenty of good news here on the COVID-19 front. Amarillo, you got a lot to be proud of!!! First off, the hospitalization rate for patients is hovering just north of 10% as of this writing and we have the highest immunization rate in the state with only Kleberg County in Deep South Texas (Kingsville) on our heels. Restaurants are starting to ease restrictions across town with the capacity upgrade to 75% and for once it looks like we might be seeing the first signs of life getting back to normal here in the Texas Panhandle. I, for one, am ready! I think we all are ready to move on.

Hold on folks... let's not get too ahead of ourselves here...

COVID-19 is still a very real, very dangerous threat. The fatigue is real, but we need to hold the line. I've noticed that fewer and fewer of us are wearing our masks in public and while the city has dropped the mandate for businesses to enforce mask wearing, it hasn't dropped the personal mandate which is set by the state.

The city manager Jared Miller even sent out a statement in email earlier this week:

“The commitment our citizens have shown to wearing face masks is one of the primary reasons for the decrease in our COVID-19 hospitalization rate," the statement read in part. "It is vital that we continue to follow state executive orders that are proving successful in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in our community.”

So what's the big deal? We got to keep holding the line.... we're soooo close.... we can totally do this Amarillo! Think of it like a bad hour long soap opera, we're 53 minutes into this trainwreck and we know time's almost up.

Mask up!