In Your Opinion: Franklin Hits Good, Bad COVID-19 Milestones

By Mayor Phil Kramer

On May 13th Franklin hit two milestones regarding COVID-19. Both of them 100.

The one we will all notice is sadly, very sadly, is we reached 100 deaths. One hundred people, and hundreds of family members and friends affected. One hundred lights on our makeshift memorial. And one hundred lives cut short. We will never be the same. We took so much for granted.

The other milestone is less obvious. We hit the number 100 in doubling time. Doubling time is a way epidemiologist follow infections. It is the time it takes for an infection to double the number of people it hits. The bigger the number the better. If all things were constant, then doubling times wouldn’t change. But as you slow a virus down you slow the infection rate and the doubling time gets longer. For the first two weeks it was doubling every three to five days. It was a month before it slowed to doubling every 10 days. I became very excited when it did. Now the doubling time just reached 100 days.

Hospital census is decreasing. Franklin’s new cases have been under 10 for 2 days and hopefully gone are the days when we had in the 30s, 40s or even as high as 64 cases in one day.

This is not to say this is over. There are many hard days before us. What it does mean is there is reason to hope. The Governor just decreased some of the restrictions. Please don’t take it as a license to ignore social distancing. You should still wear masks in public. You still need to wash your hands and not touch your face with unwashed hands. You still need to stay six feet apart. We do not want a setback.

This is a day of sadness but also a day of hope. We took so much for granted. Let’s do what we can to keep the progress going.

One for all.

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