STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Idaho National Guard and Mountain Home Air Force Base Gunfighters are teaming up to perform a flyover of 11 Idaho cities, including Ketchum and Hailey, to honor Idaho’s medical workers, first responders and all essential workers Friday morning.
Two 124th Fighter wing A-10 Thunderbolt IIs (Warthogs) and two F-15Es (Strike Eagles) will fly over St. Luke’s Hailey Family Clinic at 10:29 a.m. Friday, May 15. They will hit the skies above St. Luke’s Wood River two minutes later at 10:31 a.m.
The Flyover will start at St. Luke’s Family Clinic in Mountain Home at 10:13 a.m., swing up to the Wood River Valley, fly over Idaho Falls at 10:55 a.m., Pocatello at 11:04 a.m., Burley-Cassia at 11:17 and St. Luke’s Magic Valley in Twin Falls at 11:23 a.m.
They will fly over the Treasure Valley from 10 a.m. to 10:06 a.m.
Viewers are asked to maintain physical distance while looking skyward.
A PEEK AT OUR SUMMER
Hailey City Council members have had their hands full wrangling over what to do about summer events in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Riverfest is cancelled, as is the July Fourth Rodeo and PBR Rodeo, but the Fourth of July Parade is not off the table yet.
Chamber Director Mike McKenna says council members and business owners are also discussing ways to provide more outside dining, such as pop-up squares, and hosting more sidewalk sales to accommodate people who might be apprehensive about entering a store.
McKenna says a lot of second homeowners have indicated they will be coming back to Sun Valley this summer. The tourist scuttlebutt is that visitors will likely come, as well, as people want to get to small towns in the middle of nowhere and get out in nature.
“And we have all that in spades,” he said.
Utahns seem especially intent on visiting Idaho, he said. For now, however, he’s having to explain to them that they aren’t really allowed to come to Idaho just yet.
SITTING TIGHT
Blaine County recorded no new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday--the county is sitting tight at 506.
But Idaho gained 33 new cases, bringing its total to 2,293.
IDAHO GAVE
Idaho Gives is celebrating a record. Idahoans contributed more than $3.89 million to the annual campaign, which was spread over two weeks this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Money given to the campaign, which normally is held over a single day, goes to Idaho nonprofits, including many in the Wood River Valley.
PANDEMIC HAS A SILVER LINING
One of the good things to emerge out of the pandemic has been the drop in robocalls. The number of robocalls made to U.S. phones in April was down, partly because of international call centers being shut down in countries like India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
Americans received only 2.86 billion calls in April, a 30 percent drop from March and 40 percent drop from February, according to data provided to CNN Business by YouMail. The peak was 5.66 billion robocalls in October 2019.
ANTI-REOPENING PROTESTS
Anti-reopening activists struck back on Tuesday, leaving body bags on the lawns of state capitols that they felt were reopening too soon. Protesters turned out in Texas, Florida and Arizona. “A corpse is not a customer,” read a sign held by one protestor.
ONLY AROUND FOR 70 YEARS?
Chances are most of us will be infected with a coronavirus in our lifetime, even if it’s not the one currently causing so much misery. That’s because coronaviruses account for 10 to 15 percent of common colds.
Coronaviruses are actually part of a family of hundreds of viruses that infect animals such as bats and camels. Occasionally one mutates so it can infect other species—i.e., humans.
While the first coronavirus was discovered in chickens in the 1930s, the first human coronaviruses were not identified until the 1960s, according to an article in Pocket Worthy.
Only seven known coronaviruses have the ability to cause disease in humans.