BoH: Free At Last
Board Votes 2 to 1
to End Mask Mandate and Open All Businesses

by George Gramlich,
News and Commentary
Well, this one had some high drama with one board member still clinging to the mask sheeple/fear doctrine so beloved by liberal types. But freedom won in the end.
The Custer County Public Board of Health’s (BoH) meeting started at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. All three Board Members were there: Chair Bill Canda and Members Tom Flower and Kevin Day. County Attorney Clint Smith was hovering in the background while Board of Health honcho Dr. Clifford Brown and Office of Emergency Management (OEM) chief Adrian Washington were in the peanut gallery.
Reggie Foster, our new Public Information Officer, was introduced.
Brown was first up with his latest report. We have no positives in the last seven days and our “positivity rate” for the last two weeks was .9%. There have been 2,414 PCR tests since this nightmare began last year. 1,673 corona vaccine doses have been give by the BoH. There will be 200 more given Friday. 10% of Custer County’s population have now had at least one shot. Brown noted there were “a lot” of people not getting the shot. 68.4% of folks over 70 have gotten the shot. Brown says the overall hospitalization rate for this thing has dropped dramatically in Colorado and elsewhere. He says we are at Polis’s Green level on the magic color wheel but the county is actually doing a lot better than that. We are getting about 100 doses a week from the covid statists in Denver.
Brown segued to this year’s flu stats which magically have dropped beyond any reasonable explanation from 3,547 hospitalizations (to date) last year to, get this, 24 this year. (There is a snake in the woodpile here somewhere.)
The good doctor then said people 60 or over and all people in contact with kids, etc. will be up next. He hopes that in two or three weeks we will be getting a larger, steady supply of the mythical curative potion.
Brown then makes his move. (Flower twitches. He knows what is coming.) The  doctor says we should really be Blue or actually off the color wheel entirely. (he calls it the “normal” state) as our “metrics” are “normal”. (True.) He says the state now informs if your “metrics” are normal you can get off the wheel if you work with the ‘overlords’ in Denver a bit. He says it is worthless trying to ask them to move us from Green to Blue (the best color in the coloring wheel) as the state told him it was virtually impossible to do, due to politics. (Think this: I am not sure anybody is at Blue now in the state although a few counties have ignored this color thing the whole time. If the state allows lil’ ol’ Custer County there will be a clamoring all over with the other counties and Polis does not want this to happen now. Only our lord and master, King Polis, is allowed to decide our fate.) Brown says if we go to “normal” all these insane state covid mandates/orders will not need to be followed here in Happy Valley. (Each business can make their own call on masks, etc.) He then gets a little academic and asks, somewhat rhetorically, what is the definition of “normality”. (As most of us know, with regards to Custer County, there is no wrong answer.)
There then was some minor outrage theatre as Brown says he was just told there were six professional hockey players from the dreaded Pueblo swamp that came to a house in Happy Valley to isolate themselves for two weeks as they all had tested positive down there in the swamp. And nobody told anybody in Custer County about it. Surprisingly, there was a short musketeer outrage play acting, but not too bad. The hockey guys quarantine is up March 10th. (If you see any young guys with hockey sticks in town, folks, run for the hills. Those sticks can spread the rona like crazy. Fauci said so.)
Prepped by Brown’s suggestion previously that Custer can finally be free of these insane covid lockdown rules that have crippled our businesses and lives the last year by simply following what the state is now saying (if your metrics are “normal” you can be normal people again), Canda starts his sales pitch.
Canda says our low stats show that we have been good little peasants without the local BoH “hammering” us with rules and harassment. People are being responsible. He says in actuality we have been at the Blue level since January and he thinks WE CAN LIFT THE COVID RESTRICTIONS NOW. (There, he said it.)
For the record: Somewhere around this time, The Flowers states as he is warming up for his delivery, that he was elected as a “moderate conservative”. (I leave to our very perceptive readers to parse that comment.)
Flower, of course, asks Brown why don’t we just ask King Polis if we can go from Green to Blue. Brown answers that the state told him that it was virtually “impossible” to do this and brings up again the other option. He (and Attorney Smith) say the state now allows for this, declaring that Custer has normal metrics, and therefore, we can jump off the color wheel.
Day concurs. The state’s new order came out February 23rd and Weld County used it. Brown says he doesn’t think Weld was “punished” by the lib control freaks in Denver. Day then gets folksy and says down in Wetmore, we all kind of just went about our business there and basically ignored all the rules about masks and getting together. So, moving to normal is OK with me. (Go Kevin and Wetmore.)
Addressing Flower (who is clearly not a happy musketeer at this point in the drama), Brown says there is a “new normal” now (that is, how people in Custer are working through this with some people masking up and some not). “Our citizens” do not want to go back to the “old practices”. Flowers says he would assume the businesses would get rid of their covid mask signs if we did this horrible thing.
Day says he doesn’t wear a mask unless it is absolutely required, that he won’t go into businesses that require a mask as it is tough on me as my glasses fog up when he has a mask on. (Glory be, somebody is telling a true negative corona mask story.)
Canda continues with his sales pitch. Flowers now knows he is going to be outvoted on this. (Some wilting is observed.) Canda moves to lift all restrictions and open ALL of our businesses. 100%. The whole ball of wax. Flowers says this goes way beyond opening the businesses. Day then makes a very sensible comment that if things start to get hot again they can reinstitute some rules. Flowers, pouting, says that we don’t have the guts to put us back on the dial again. (Wrong. Canda and Day are showing strong, common sense leadership. If problems show up, they will address it.)
Washington, for some unknown reason, mentions that Texas lifted the mask garbage recently but they had six items that they wanted the public to do. Washington was just about to unveil the sacred six when Flower stops him cold with the statement that there will be an ungodly influx of the dreaded Texas heathen rabble coming here soon as the weather is getting better and spring break is coming up. (Directly implying that this apostate horde will carry this black death virus with them from down there and kill us all. God save us. Fear, fear, fear.)
Back to the motion to lift all restrictions. Flower says he will vote but with a “qualification”. He asks are we lifting all restrictions? Canda: yes. Flowers: I think it is too soon and too early. For the record, I know what is going to happen. (Freedom and liberty?). We need to err on the side of caution (does he mean fear and love of controlling people’s lives?). The Flowers votes no.
Day: yea
Canda: yea.
Freedom, liberty and personal responsibility win the day. Albeit, by only 2 to 1.
Canda says we are being responsible and the health of the county is more than covid. The economy is important.
There is then some talk about if things go bad what is going to happen and what is the definition of going bad. Brown says if we get to a 3.5% positivity rate, we should start thinking about doing something. This number was a mistake on Brown’s part as Flowers correctly says, based on the whole county, that would be 165 people being positive. Flowers says he won’t have any part of that. Brown back tracks and says if we start to get something like 3 or 4 positive tests a week it would be time for a look-see.
This triggers a classic mini Clown Town episode about what would be the trigger to start clamping down again. On and on, round and round the mulberry bush. Nothing got agreed to as usual.
Finally, Canda ended the merry go round and adjourned the meeting.