Water shut-offs pose safety risks during coronavirus pandemic

Imagine this, if you will. You’re a young dad. Three children, 3, 5 and 7. They’re not in school or daycare because the schools and daycare centers in your state have been closed down because of COVID-19, a coronavirus that spreads from person to person and that has already infected more than 140,000 people and killed more than 2,800 people in the United States alone.

Your wife, meanwhile, is in the next town taking care of her mother who is seriously ill. Several months ago, your car broke down and you had to spend your last cent getting it fixed. Oh, and you just got laid off because of COVID-19 shutdown orders.

You turn on the water, and nothing comes out of the spigot. You were afraid this would happen. After all, the utility district has sent you notices that you were delinquent in paying your bill and that they would be shutting off your water. They didn’t seem interested that you had had to spend so much money to get your car repaired.

Ordinarily, this would be a major headache. But it’s different now. You panic. Everything you hear or read tells you that you need to wash your hands with running water and soap for at least 20 seconds as a way to prevent the spread of coronavirus. All of this is true for your children too. You don’t want to come down with COVID-19. And you don’t want to pass it on to them or anyone else.

This is the nightmare many people faced before health officials began realizing that cutting water off for any reason at all posed a serious community health risk. And this is the nightmare some people are still facing. With all of the talk about where the virus was spreading, how many […]

Full article: Water shut-offs pose safety risks during coronavirus pandemic