Page last updated on September 7, 2021 at 12:54 pm
Hi, this is mayor John Hamilton. It's a Tuesday, June 30th. We're heading into a holiday weekend and I hope that's all good for you all. I wanted to just give you a quick update on COVID and coronavirus related items. This is an important week. The governor may move to stage five, we don't know. And while indications right now are pretty good in Monroe County, Bloomington, we've seen around the state and certainly around the country, really bad explosions of this virus again, from a bar of 85 people getting sick in East Lansing, to the states of Texas and Florida, having to backslide and close bars and shut down because of the serious rise of cases. So we know the virus is still around us. It's really dangerous. We have to be very careful. And I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to continue to urge that our county health department, which is responsible for the health orders, that we take a couple of steps.
I've been talking about this for a while, and I know Indiana University is as well, that we require masking in more circumstances. In many circumstances, we know that really helps. We know that slowing and stopping the spread of disease over the next two or three months can be incredibly important to keeping a successful community, healthy community. Having our institutions, our schools, our universities, our businesses, stay open so that we can employ people is so important. So masking should be ordered in many more circumstances, and I'll be encouraging that. The second thing is we need to really be careful not to allow super spreader events. Those are events where we can have a big spread of disease very quickly among a large number of people. The biggest risk is when large numbers of people gather indoors for long periods of time.
That can happen in bars where they're close together. It can happen in social gatherings, parties, big parties. So I'm going to be continuing to urge that we look at how to control those, particularly over the next two to three months as our circumstances change. The public voices are important. Your actions are critically important. Continuing to wash your hands, socially distance wear masks. All those things are really important, but it's also important for the government to set some standards. And I'm going to be continuing to push on this, particularly with what we've seen around the country. I think it's more important than ever that we be careful, that we approach things well.
I hope that the governor will be cautious and not open too fast. I'm concerned that we're doing that, but please let your voice be heard. We need to continue to hear your view of what ought to happen on this and many other issues that are available around town, from the switch yard park new splash pad, opening, to the seven-line, to the hospital reuse to the lower cascades trail. All of these things. We welcome your input. And I just want to make sure we can continue to be a safe, and healthy, and thriving city. This will be an important week. I hope you have a good July 4th weekend. Be safe, be with family, and I'll be talking to you again next week. Thanks a lot.
