There are lots on this discussion board and elsewhere that are worried the actions put into place due to this virus outbreak will be repeated in any future events that are similar. To me, this is a very valid concern. I was in favor of the quarantines and stay at home orders when cases started to increase dramatically in our country. However, there were, and still are, some areas where the illness has made very limited impacts on the population. For example, if you take the three counties that include and are just north of the Detroit metro area and subtract them from the MI total cases number of 33,966 you have 8,314 cases. My problem now is that there seems to be a "one size fits all" policy. Meaning what is good for the hotspots like Detroit metro is also good for the areas like Keweenaw County, with no reported cases, or Houghton County with 2 reported cases.
I would love to see the restrictions modified or even lifted in the areas with limited cases. However, how do you keep it to just residents of that area that are likely free from being infected and keep out persons that are coming from one of the hot spots?
An idea I have stems from the fact that since 1930, the state of Wyoming has been putting the county of issuance on the licence plates of vechiles registered in the state. If all states were to do this, it would greatly help identify folks that were locals vs. those that were from out of the area. Thus, the state could let counties decide when any restrictions are need or not. It would not be a perfect system, but when combined with enough testing kits and a faster turn-around on the results, a county could shut down at the first sign of a significant increase in cases.
Whatta ya tink?
