By Myrna Trauntvein
TN Correspondent
What should be done about the Mona Pioneer Day celebration scheduled for July 25? For now, Mona will take a wait-and-see position. COVID-19 has put a damper on many celebrations around the state even though a few have yet to make an announcement as to what they will do. “They have canceled the Days of ‘47 celebration in Salt Lake City,” said Bill Mills, mayor. “I am a bit gun shy.” He said that Mona had thousands of people come to the community for the celebration every year and, if larger communities canceled their festivities, then that might mean even more people would come to Mona for the fireworks display. “Those people are not all from here or from sister cities,” said Mike Stringer, city council member. “We always have people from all over, even outside the state.” Mills said that the social distancing meeting number had been raised from 10 to 20 but that social distancing requirements were still to be met. People are to wear masks and stay six-feet apart. Mass gatherings had not yet been approved. Of course May and June might bring further loosening but would mass gatherings be allowed? Mills said that Governor Gary Herbert recently unveiled a three-stage plan for rebuilding Utah’s economy from ravages of the coronavirus emergency while sticking, for now, to strict social distancing meant protect the health of state residents. The strategy—available at http://coronavirus.utah.gov—would be in effect for between six and a half and nine months. It combines expanded testing and efforts to lower transmission rates with strategies to guide the economy through urgent, stabilized and recovering stages of the crisis. “We all know what happened at Sand Hollow in Washington County this past week,” said Mills. “That happened at other state parks.” Park rangers at Sand Hollow announced they will no longer be allowing overnight camping at the beach. Now, the three-mile stretch of sand will allow day-use crowds to spread out and keep their social distance, adding that this restriction will likely last for at least a month or two. “At lot of people will hold tight,” said Amy Stanley, council member. “I think we should wait and see until June.” Stanley is the council member over the annual celebration. “We could extend and have the fireworks and other parts of the pioneer celebration in October along with our fall celebration,” she said. She said there were too many unknowns to make a firm decision at this time and the city could wait another month and see what was going to happen. It’s too early to know for sure whether the new coronavirus is seasonal. To really know that, we’d have to watch how cases change in one place across the year. “Usually, viruses do not like heat,” said Stanley. There is some evidence coronavirus cases have particularly clustered around cooler, drier regions. But, as a group of researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine pointed out, the virus has now spread to every World Health Organization region, “effectively spanning all climatic zones, from cold and dry to hot and humid regions. “There are seven cases in Juab County,” said Mills. While Central Utah as a whole has 23 cases, one hospitalization and zero deaths, Nephi is located close to Utah County where there 957 cases, 44 hospitalizations and seven deaths as of April 30. Utah has 4,672 cases of coronavirus as of Thursday, April 30th. So far 1,939 people have recovered from the virus, according to the Utah Department of Health. Mills said that Nate Selin, executive director of Central Utah Public Health Department, was keeping the cities updated. “We need, as officials, to be careful,” said Mills. |
