In mid-March of 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 (commonly referred to as “coronavirus”) to be a pandemic. COVID-19 is a virus that had not been seen in humans before. It is spread primarily through respiratory droplets with symptoms that range from mild to severe, with around 20 percent of cases requiring hospitalization. A pandemic spreads throughout all corners of the world. This means that even rural, remote communities like Cook County, will at some point be impacted by the virus moving through our population.
Recent policy decisions, like Governor Walz’s Stay-at-Home Order and, more locally, the county’s Travel Advisory, have given us an opportunity to pause by limiting how people move into and out of our community. This pause has given us a chance to prepare ourselves and to adapt to the changing context of living and working alongside this virus. COVID-19 has become a part of life for all of us, our challenge is to manage how the virus spreads to the best of our abilities.
Within the healthcare sector of Cook County, preparedness efforts include building new clinical workflows, increasing our local hospital bed capacity, and building up our ability to test for COVID-19 in people who show symptoms of the virus. From a public health perspective, we are all working toward controlling transmission of the virus, slowing the rate at which it moves through human populations at a regional, state, and global level. We do this by finding people with COVID- 19, testing them, isolating them, providing them with medical care as needed, and encouraging their close contacts to also quarantine. Controlling transmission of the virus is a foundational step as we consider how tourism might operate to the safest extent possible in our community.
While we have prepared in the world of health, there are still limitations to our local medical system’s capacity. Our local system is designed to provide excellent acute and preventative care, transferring those who need a higher level of care to larger, urban medical hubs. If visitors to our community begin to feel ill, we welcome them to contact Sawtooth Mountain Clinic at 218-387-2330 or go to North Shore Health if they have an emergency. They will likely be advised to return to their home communities in case they do have COVID-19 and their symptoms escalate to the point where they need more intensive medical care than we are able to provide locally.
We applaud efforts by partners in the business sector to thoughtfully plan how they can most safely operate their tourism based businesses in the era of COVID-19. This guide serves as a useful starting point as businesses think through details related to cleaning, disinfecting, and encouraging social distancing among both staff and guests to their establishments. The Minnesota Department of Health, Center for Disease Control, and World Health Organization, will continue to serve as the most up-to-date sources of guidance. We recognize that the situation will continue to evolve rapidly and that we all need to be prepared to adjust course accordingly.
Within Cook County, we are all committed to the health and safety of our community and recognize the challenges inherent to operating a tourism-based economy during a pandemic. Visitors will play an important role by taking basic public health precautions to heart as they enjoy time on the North Shore.
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