LETTER: Distancing is a sacrifice worth making for community health

To Ozaukee Press:

I’ll start by explaining how much I miss my family and friends and how badly I wish my new baby could spend time with them. However, baby boy will have to wait as our household agreed to follow CDC guidelines. That means we only leave the house when absolutely necessary. We wear masks when in contact with anyone outside of our household (at the grocery and on walks in high traffic parts of town). We decided to do this not only for the safety of our family, but for those in our community.

We based our decision to practice strict physical distancing on the data. The science behind this virus and how it impacts communities is factual and it isn’t pretty.  It’s also not political and this isn’t my opinion. It’s cold, hard facts.  

Distancing ourselves is difficult, but it could be worse, and I suspect that if we don’t do this now, the outcomes will be worse.

I am writing with the request that our community does a better job with physical distancing. I urge our community leaders (police and fire people) to act as models. I was moved to write this after seeing photos of these folks standing shoulder to shoulder without consideration of the World Health Organization and CDC guidelines (no masks and no distance between one another).

Port Washington residents, please take this opportunity to do the right thing.

Your choices could impact those around you. I challenge anyone reading this to spend quiet time reflecting on your individual choices and how they relate to the whole community.

Nicole Kloss
Port Washington