My Dear Kindred in Christ,

Even as our statewide numbers remain high, the situation in some of our counties has started to improve. We give thanks for the role your vigilance has played, both in keeping those numbers lower than they would otherwise have been and for bringing them back down after a spike. May the slight downward turn we have seen in recent days continue! In light of recent numbers, we have two requests to make of you.

The first is to ask your county health departments whether the numbers for large residential schools that do their own testing (universities and private boarding schools) are being included in your county's statistics. We know, for example, that statistics for tests done at the University of Notre Dame are not being included in the St. Joseph County statistics. This is worrisome, since those students do potentially infect faculty and staff (not to mention employees of businesses near the campus), even more so than, say, inmates in our state prisons potentially infect prison staff who then go out into the community. Knowing whether the county numbers reported to the state include these institutions can help us more accurately gauge the risk in your area.

The second request is that you provide us with feedback on how the various steps you are taking are working out. As we consider the effectiveness of our guidelines, it can be helpful to know what turned out better than expected or gave rise to some unforeseen good, what works just fine, what requires a work-around, and what needs to be re-thought. Because we realize that all these precautions take time and energy, and that people are impatient with the restraints, we want to make sure that what we're doing is, as far as we can tell, actually doing the work we intend for it to do.

May God grant you steadfastness, strength and courage in all you do,

Terri

The Rev. Canon Terri L. Bays, PhD.
Missioner for Transitions and Governance
Emergency Response NGO/Government Liaison

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