It’s time to start planning a post COVID-19 party

It’s time to start planning a post COVID-19 party.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Hear me out.

On June 11, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear lifted pretty much the last of his COVID-19 restrictions. In other words, there are no more mask mandates, nor limited seating capacity requirements at restaurants, or other requirements or restrictions that have pretty much dictated all of our lives for the last 15 months or so.

I am not saying that COVID-19 is fully behind us.

We still have several people getting sick, but the number of weekly COVID-19 cases has declined 93 percent since January 2021 and the number of deaths each week have dropped 95 percent since January 2021, according to Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health.

Certainly not everyone is vaccinated, but about 2.1 million folks in Kentucky are out of about 4.46 million, including most of our most vulnerable folks, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Several others have already had COVID-19 and have some natural level of immunity now although scientific data shows this level of natural immunity drops over time, and that they should probably get vaccinated any way. In addition, more people are getting vaccinated every day.

My point is that it is time to start planning a post-pandemic celebration, and I think I know of a good way to do that.

When Whitley County held its bicentennial celebration in 2018, there were lots of cool events and festivities ranging from making a time capsule and holding a parade to historical encampments around the courthouse lawn and a concert. However, I’ve been very surprised that no one has tried to duplicate one of the events that took place during that time.

I’m talking about the ice cream social that was sponsored by several of our local churches. It was simple. The churches and the Forcht Bank Ice Cream Machine set up stations around the old Whitley County Courthouse one Saturday morning and early afternoon handing out free ice cream with about 250 people taking part.

It was a really fun event that both the organizers and the participants all seemed to enjoy.

I think everyone would enjoy it if we held it again this year and perhaps made it an annual thing.

A mistake that I think Whitley County and many other communities make is not working to create more partnerships with our local churches, which have a lot of good people who want to make a positive impact.

An ice cream social would be a great way for our churches to potentially meet new people.

To cap it off, we could even have a great big bonfire and mask burning celebration on the courthouse lawn.

Normally, I don’t advocate fire as a form of celebration, but I think it might be appropriate in this case.

Such a celebration would take a little while to put together, so I was thinking early August right before school starts back would be a great time to do it.