Since the pandemic began, access to The Express has been limited. Before becoming a legal Nebraska newspaper at least 400 copies must be printed each week for five years, no exceptions. Miss a week and The Express no longer exists. Consequently, we have asked our employees to follow the health department exposure guidelines.

Not only do we not want to contract the COVID-19 virus, we don’t want to spread it. As a result we have tried to limit close contact which we don’t think would be possible if our door was open to all.

Since March we have been doing business through the front window. Customers are asked to knock on the window, which a staff member then opens. Just like the old-fashioned drive-in food stores of the 1950s, orders are being taken and delivered through the sliding window. That is they were until Monday when the window froze shut.

We now have added a hair dryer to the newspaper’s essential equipment. We are having to warm the window and dry the track to prevent it from freezing closed again.