tim mahoney. mr.g here, i really appreciate you taking the time. >> you're very welcome. this is a really serious problem for our community and our state so i'm very pleased to help out, helping people get better. we hate to be number one in the country for covid spread. so we really want to help knock this thing down. >> it must have been a hard decision to make to institute this mask mandate. obviously we've seen the science, we've seen the data. i know you're a practicing surgeon yourself. you know how to understand medical information. the mask mandate makes a lot of sense in scientific terms but i imagine that politically and in terms of the logistics of dealing with that in a state where there haven't been any other mask mandates, it must have been a hard call. >> it was difficult. but we took about ten different reasons we thought were really important to look at. you cued them up earlier. hospitalizations are very important, death rates are very important. how much spread you're seeing in your

mahoney with that proclamation. so we -- we believe that it's really important, but especially in north dakota local influence really makes a difference. and tim a physician, is well well-knove in the community, and i can assure you that for people who live in fargo hearing mayor mahoney say you need to wear a mask does a lot more than you or me saying it, chris. >> oh, yeah, i wouldn't -- i wouldn't dane to tell the people of north dakota what to do, but i'm glad there are people -- local folks that are saying that. i guess my final question for you is, you know, one of the things we saw in these outbreaks that were in metro areas, they were places with fairly high hospital capacity, even if they were overwhelmed. we've seen reductions in rural hospital capacity in this country for years now. many people suggest we're kind of paying the price for that now. what is hospital capacity looking like in your state? >> yeah, so the good news is is that we are in reasonable shape as far as hospital capacity. that isn't to say that there aren't some hospitals that are being stretched somewhat, but throughout the state we do have adequate capacity. the