What Did Governor Burgum Have to Say at His Latest Press Conference?

Governor Doug Burgum and North Dakota Healthcare leaders want North Dakotans to get vaccinated.

Governor Doug Burgum is back to begging us to be "North Dakota Smart" and mask up, social distance, and get the vaccine. According to Inforum, along with state healthcare officials, Governor Burgum's message in today's (September 1) virtual press briefing was that hospitals face becoming short on staff and hospital beds if we North Dakotans do not start taking it seriously. The government may not be able to mandate masks, but there is nothing stopping them from the continued pressure.

The news shows that we are circling back to the situation we were in last year at about the same time.

The whole pandemic is feeling like a modern Groundhog Day. Nearly one year ago, in October of 2020, we were concerned about the number of available hospital beds and overworked/ undervalued hospital staff. While lack of availability would be a scary situation, it seems scarier that there is so much pressure to comply with pandemic protocols for a virus that has killed fewer than two percent of the people it infects.

Why do we continue to act as if the virus is lethal to anyone and everyone who cross its path?

North Dakota has been one of the states with the least restrictive policies, and the masses are not dying off like we are told could happen. Yesterday, I wrote, "At the time of this post, there are around 117,000 cases in the state and we have had just under 1,600 deaths. So, 1.4% of cases in North Dakota are fatal - we are down .7% from the rest of the world and we do not 'mask up' as other places do."