Until we get a batter one

Which will be never, as Colorado is not listening, plus indifferent - This map will have to do.  New cases in the state of Washington overnight.  So when our ER says "they are asking the right questions", the list of questions will have to expand to "Have you come across or interacted with any other human in the last 14 days, or are you in fact a lone weasel living in a hole?"

I told someone on Wednesday that Estes Park would see its first case in three weeks.  Not that we wouldn't have SARS-CoV-2 circulating prior to that, just that it would take that long before the first test-confirmed case, both because it takes a while from infection to manifestation of symptoms, and because the test kits Colorado has been provided (if they have yet to be provided any, Colorado isn't saying) have to be confirmed by Atlanta, or another approved laboratory outside of Colorado.  New York has tired of waiting for the CDC to provide better primers for RT-PCR, and is designing their own.  Sadly, even though two world-class facilities are within a hour's drive, Estes Park will be stuck with the bad primers and the need for confirmation, because we are not New York, and we can't get anyone in Fort Collins (either at the state-supported CSU or the federally-supported CDC-Fort Collins branch) to man up and run the tests themselves.

So on Wednesday I said 21 days, and now we are 18 days away from our first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Estes Park.  I hope we use these next 18 days wisely.  Because our local hospital, using the Italy model, is going to be overwhelmed with one confirmed case. 

Got your extra supply of toilet paper yet?  Estes Park has plenty of pinecones for those who can't get to the store before next weekend.