Mr. Governor, stop saying “pretty please” to Wyo. and put a stay-at-home order in place NOW

BY D. REED ECKHARDT

Memo to: Gov. Mark Gordon

From: D. Reed Eckhardt, resident and voter in Wyoming

Date: March 26,2020

Governor Gordon, I am writing to tell you that the time for “pretty please” government is long past in regards to the spread of COVID-19 in our great state. The total number of cases increased by 20 just overnight, and there is no reason to think the spread will not continue and the number will not continue to rise exponentially

Your news conference Wednesday was a disappointment on a number of fronts.

For example, that the state Health Department has yet to do a single model on how the spread of the

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon speaks to the media.

virus will impact Wyoming is shocking. Your experts need to be on top of their game, and they have had weeks, if not months, to prepare. If you can’t show Wyomingites where they are headed and how the curve can be flattened by social distancing, you never will convince them that they need to change their behavior.

But bigger than that was you unfounded belief that you can ask politely for Wyoming residents to observe social distancing in a serious way. Asking is not going to get the job done. You and I both know that many Wyomingites still consider this virus to be a hoax and of little impact. Consider just this one quote from a recent Los Angeles Times story about Wyoming’s virus reaction:

“I don’t understand what a big deal it is,” said Cara Valdez in an interview in Casper. “I believe there may be a cold thing going around. It just doesn’t need to be as big a deal as it is.”(https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-19/coronavirus-wyoming-covid-19-casper-idaho) 

Unfortunately, there is every indication that Ms. Valdez represents the thinking of too many Wyoming residents.

Similarly, the data indicate Wyomingites are not taking adequate action to distance themselves from one another.

A tech start-up, Unicast, has been using big data, tracking location information from smartphones, to check on how much traveling residents are doing. The thinking is that travel should be declining if distancing is being observed. Wyoming’s grade: an F. This despite your urging and polite requests that they look out for one another. 

Overall, Unacast rates the United States a B, for a 32 percent decline in average distance traveled. Wyoming is showing just a 6 percent decline. You might argue that Wyomingites have to travel more because we live so far apart, but even more populous Laramie and Natrona counties are showing just 15 percent declines. The bottom line is that residents are not taking the spread of COVID-19 seriously and are out visiting friends and neighbors and attending gatherings.

Governor, certainly those of us who are concerned about elderly friends and family appreciate your efforts up to this point. Closing bars and restaurants and other non-essential businesses were important first steps. 

But they are not enough, and you won’t be able to say enough “pretty pleases” to get this state’s residents to comply. Wyomingites’ independent streak, as well as their obeisance to media that continue minimize the effects to this pandemic, are causing them to ignore the seriousness of this event, and your moderate, polite approach is only encouraging them to do so.

Unfortunately, I am having to view Wyoming from afar as I tend to my 88-year-old mother in northern New Mexico. But I feel safer here, where Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has issued a stay-at-home order and shut down non-essential businesses. 

Her tone in doing so was blunt and straightforward, and she minced no words after she saw less restrictive orders being ignored. She was not interested in being polite and sparing people’s feelings or even fretting about residents’ reactions or possible re-election; she was more interested in making certain that New Mexico residents heard her and responded correctly in order to keep each other safe and the pressures off the health care system.

And now just 10 miles south of you, in Colorado, a similar order went into place this morning.

Governor, please step up and show the leadership that is needed to keep Wyoming residents, including my wife, who is still in Cheyenne, safe.

And please don’t tell me that Wyoming is “different” or special. It is no different than New Mexico in terms of its rural nature with wide swaths of government land between communities and its reliance on the mineral industry. Perhaps the political climate is different – Wyoming is the reddest of red states and New Mexico is blue – but this virus does not know political party or liberal vs. conservative. It kills indiscriminately, and the more you wait on Wyoming to respond to your “pretty please,” the more you are putting lives in danger. Just one outbreak in a nursing home because you are ignored by your own voters and you will have cost potentially dozens of lives.

Mr. Governor, you and I have met a few times, and I respect your seriousness in doing you job as well as your common sense. Surely you know what the right thing to do here is: Put a stay-at-home order in place, prepare law enforcement to enforce it and prepare for pushback. This is no time to consider what it all will mean for the economy, your political future or anything else that you may be factoring in as you delay.

Mr. Governor, step up and lead. Without immediate, firm action, dozens of more COVID-19 cases will erupt and, yes, deaths will occur. 

Do it. Do it now.

D. Reed Eckhardt is the former executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune- Eagle.