By Samuel Strait – Reporter at Large – February 9, 2022 In another lame but entertaining presentation to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, February 8th our Public Health Savior, Lord Aaron Stutz announced that he will be rescinding the Covid Masking Order in lock step with Sacramento. Apparently, visits to hospitals and nursing homes will no longer require a negative test prior to the visit. Must be closing in on election day. Indoor mandates for healthcare workers and K-12 schools will NOT be lifted. The K-12 masking makes about as much sense as driving down a freeway at 100 mph on the wrong side of the freeway divider. Not only has it been grudgingly acknowledged by even CNN and various other media outlets that masking is totally useless, Stutz really should keep up with the news, and he wouldn't be made to look the fool when he says in an open Board Meeting "there is scientific evidence that facial coverings protect against Covid transmission" when there isn't any. He goes on to argue health officials "wouldn't be harping on it if it wasn't effective." Naturally he isn't aware of nearly sixteen years of masking research, including some recent international papers by respected researchers that say the exact opposite. There is NO legitimate science that supports masking prevents either transmission or infection including use of an N95 mask. In fact there is reason to believe that much larger bacteria also circumvents mask wearing physicians during surgical procedures. As to the question of masking student populations, one of the least likely to become infected, transmit or encounter a serious outcome. The current number is 99.9998 percent will not become a statistic. Young people have far too many other issues that are far more likely to end tragically. The stumbling block here appears to be the California Teacher's Association. Teachers who occupy a room with students that do not transmit Covid easily. Teachers who are vaccinated and masked. The arguments proposed by the Union to provide teacher safety in the classroom are shallow indeed. When adults will soon be able to be indoors without a mask, how does this make any sense at all? How will Lord Stutz be able to justify this further masking mandate after February 15th? The ultimate capper in Stutz's presentation on K-12 Masking was the statement, "While he agreed that children's education had suffered as a result of the Pandemic, MASK WEARING HASN'T HARMED THEM." Emphasis added. It could be said what planet is this man on, but that would be too kind. This man is an idiot. His talk about numbers of infected and hospitalizations wasn't much better. When braced by questions of whether or not people at Sutter were actually dying from Covid or just simply with Covid, he prevaricated once again. Normally a doctor attending a patient would likely know the cause of death and be able to distinguish a Covid death from some other cause. For Lord Stutz, his word salad is enough. A terminal cancer patient or heart attack victim could very likely be termed a Covid death rather than the reality in Stutz's world. It seems it becomes much to complicated to determine fact from fiction. According to the Del Norte County Public Health Department 62 new cases were recorded over the weekend with the total active cases at 276. Forty three of Del Norte County's residents have succumbed to Covid-19. The most recent fatalities were in their 80's . There are currently five hospitalized Covid patients, two are unvaccinated. A single patient is in intensive care. It was not reported whether that patient was vaccinated or not. Further information has noted that new cases of Covid have noticeably declined by 25% over the past week and the surge appears to be nearing its conclusion. Will this mean that folks can return to more of a normal life? Maybe the adults, but not our school aged children….. at least until the next round of Covid surge, but maybe not until after November's elections, surge notwithstanding.