For the past six years, nothing has prevented this little newspaper from publishing. Yes, we took time off over the Christmas holidays and voluntarily skipped publishing for a week, but that was about it.
And now, a tiny little organism is about to change all that.
This week’s Chatham Voice will be the last print version of our paper until the COVID-19 crisis passes.
While the media is essential for the dissemination of information to you, the public, at this time, and given the current health circumstances, we are temporarily suspending the print version of our news outlet.
It’s the right thing to do.
We have adults and children going door-to-door delivering our paper to you, our faithful readers. We want to remove that potential exposure through the mailbox or at drop locations in outlying communities of anyone to the virus.
Please stop by our website regularly for news updates and stories about COVID-19 realities in Chatham-Kent, as well as how life goes on. And please check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
By following self-isolation and self-distancing, we will all benefit. If we break the chain in even once COVID-19 instance, we’ve made the right decision here at The Voice, and it’s something we will never even know.
But that’s fine with us. Better safe than sorry.
In regard to COVID-19, again, don’t gather in numbers. Instead, stay isolated with your family. If you need to go out for something, send just one person, and be sure to hand sanitize and hand wash at every opportunity, coming and going.
Life goes on. In the short term, spend it close to your immediate loved ones. For others, stay in touch via online or telephone options.
We all crave human contact and are generally all creatures of habit. For now, you will need to change your habits in a collective effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
People’s lives are at stake here. Surely we can all be more selfless in the short term?
And now we can see how far technology can take us.
For people at home, the Internet will be heavily taxed, with streaming entertainment, for video games, social media, and information gathering.
We at The Voice are no strangers to technology, and will make even more use of it to continue to get important information to you in as timely a manner as possible.
Before you know it, the printed edition of our paper will return, bringing you coverage of all that is going on in our municipality. And in time, the bugs we’ll be discussing will be the flying or crawling type rather than the infectious forms.
