To the editor:

My world is filled with wonderful friends who feel a desire to help during this Covid Crisis. It is hard to feel like there is nothing you can do. You need to know that the most important thing to do right now is to stay home to avoid contact with other people.

Donating homemade baked goods to facilities not only causes you to leave your home to deliver them, but also could harbor the virus on the food or the container and deliver the virus to our essential services when we are working 24/7 to keep it out as much as possible. Send electronic gift cards if you want, but stay home. Remember that donations of money to food banks for those now unemployed are more important than feeding those of us who are still working.

Sending cards and drawings to cheer the elderly may make sense in other times, but again this is a way to introduce COVID-19 to my dear nursing home friends or the health care workers on whom they depend. The virus is dangerous and deadly. Call on the phone or send messages electronically and stay at home. Also it is time we all stop licking envelopes if you are using mail services.

Sewing medical gowns and masks is fine if you can do it at home using materials that you have and keep them there until you have arranged a place to take them. Donations for proper masks and gowns are also acceptable.

It is hard for people who feel a need to help to understand that the most important thing they can do is stay home. Support your brothers and sisters who have lost jobs. Donate and send cards electronically.

As a nurse practitioner working to save lives, I know you are wanting to achieve the same goal. This virus is a different enemy and there are different rules in play.

We had our first positive case in Webster County recently. Pray for all of us who are working, but remember that the most important tool we have is keeping people at home to prevent the spread of COVID- 19.

Darlene Turner

Fort Dodge