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Our wellbeing depends on one another

| March 29, 2020 1:00 AM

Now we enter the next chapter of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will be equally challenging to what we’ve already been through. We stay home; we shelter in place, as our governor has directed.

Unless we are essential workers or businesses as outlined in the governor’s directive issued Thursday, we must “to the maximum extent possible,” stay at home. Yes, we can still get groceries, pharmaceuticals and other essentials, but these trips out must be kept to a minimum. It doesn’t mean taking the whole family grocery shopping every other day. It doesn’t mean making play dates with your children’s friends, or using grandparents as babysitters. If we’re outdoors, we distance ourselves from others. We don’t gather on popular trails to chit-chat.

If we follow the rules, we have a fighting chance of keeping the impact of this deadly virus to a minimum.

“Such an approach will reduce the overall number of infections in the state and preserve increasingly scarce health-care resources,” Gov. Steve Bullock stated in his directive. “In consultation with public health experts, health-care providers and emergency management professionals, I have determined that to protect public health and human safety, it is essential to the health, safety, and welfare of the State of Montana during the ongoing state of emergency that, to the maximum extent possible, individuals stay at home or at their place of residence.”

Flathead Valley residents already have shown their resilience in dealing with the threat of coronavirus. Many are now working from home, including the Daily Inter Lake staff to a large degree. As we make this transition this weekend, we ask for the public’s patience as we regroup in a manner that still allows us to bring up all of the breaking news — and there has been a lot of it over the past week — related not only to this pandemic but also the other important happenings in our valley. Our news staff is on the front line of disseminating important information to our readers, and we feel the weight of that responsibility on our shoulders.

Over the next two weeks — and beyond — we also plan to bring you many more inspirational stories of how local residents have stepped up to help others through this crisis. We’ve witnessed neighbors helping neighbors like we always do in times of trial, and innovative ways of developing products and projects to get us through this ordeal.

If there is a silver lining to this unprecedented time in our lives, it is that when push comes to shove, we step up, we do the right thing, and our humanity is still very much intact.