Working Together to Stay Safe During This Unprecedented Health Crisis
I think we can safely say this is a challenge like no other in our lifetime. We are living through history each day.
I want to start my message by saying how immensely proud I am of our community, each one of you, for protecting each other by staying home. I have asked a lot of you to completely change your daily lives, and you have delivered by putting others above yourselves.
It is a real sacrifice. It is painful. And as I have said before, it is the opposite of who we are as social beings.
But our efforts to stay home are slowing the virus, and right now it’s the only tool we have. Without the sacrifices that we have each made over the past 7 weeks, there would have been so many more cases, many more deaths, more crowded hospitals and greater suffering. That is why we must continue our social distancing practices.
Yet even with our efforts, the virus has taken a significant toll. 66 residents have died from official data of the Middlesex County Department of Health. Those are the current official numbers, but I think time will show with more testing – and confirmations, the real number is sadly much higher.
Fifty residents, or 76% of the COVID-19 deaths in our community are in private long-term care communities. As a Township, we have given much of our PPE supplies to these facilities to help fight the Coronavirus. I have contacted Governor Murphy and the Commissioner of Health to provide additional assistance, and I agree the National Guard must be dispatched across the State to help in this specific crisis.
Last week, we surpassed 500 confirmed cases, but with the likelihood of so many undocumented cases, that too is likely well short of the true count.
We all expect our elected leaders to provide guidance, honesty and leadership in times of crisis like this.
As much as I want to tell you we are through the woods or when this will end – the answer is we just do not know the course of this virus. Much of it depends on our actions. It could be a while, so we must be guided by two central pillars to make it through this.
First, we all must listen to scientists and medical professionals to help guide the way forward. We are undoubtedly the greatest country in the world, and we can rebuild our lives, our businesses, and our community, but our health must come first.
Second, we must act as community. This virus binds us together like never before. We hold each other’s fate in our hands.
We are all suffering, but today, like no time in the past, we must love each other, be kind to each other.
We must lift each other up – and unite as a community and a nation. Kindness and helping others have never been more important.
It is working as a united community that makes us great. I want to thank the doctors, nurses and medical workers that put their lives at risk. Many of those are our family, neighbors and friends.
I want to thank all the essential workers who are protecting us. Our Township EMS workers, grocery store workers, pharmacists, police and firefighters, postal workers, restaurant employees, and all those who are keeping us going.
You deserve our praise. And I want to thank each of us who are helping our neighbors during these difficult times. The thousands of kind acts that happen each day that go unnoticed.
As always, if you need something essential – the Township stands ready to help in any way we can.
My Council Colleagues and I will be continuing to work hard each and every day to help get us through this pandemic.
In closing. We are in this together. If we stick together, follow the science and love each other, I know we can make it through this Monroe Strong!
Because WE ARE MONROE!
I will be praying for everyone in our community. Thank you.
