We are entering the eighth month of the COVID-19 pandemic, and health experts are urging everyone to keep doing the preventative tactics to reduce the community spread.

Greene County Public Health Director Becky Wolf says the term “covid-fatigue” was first used for healthcare workers, who were not only taking care of patients with covid, but everyone else who had an illness. Wolf is seeing “covid-fatigue” stretch into the general population.

“The thing is, we have to continue doing what we need to do until we have a vaccine available. These measures are called non-pharmaceutical interventions. It means that these are the preventative measures that we need to take.”

Wolf says the preventative measures include the 3W’s: washing your hands, watching your distance to someone else, and wearing a mask. She adds that if someone is ill, they need to also stay home. 

“Those are the things that we can control right now to protect ourselves. If we didn’t do that, then we’d have even more of an extreme spread of COVID-19.”

Wolf says masks are still available for free through Greene County Public Health. Call public health at 515-386-3228 or the COVID-19 hotline through Greene County Public Health at 515-386-0564.