In recent weeks the COVID-19 news had been positive. Numbers were declining, hospital rooms were available and the cases didn’t seem to be so serious. The pandemic had ceased to be the headline news for this newspaper and life was slowly returning to normal.

But like the eye of a hurricane, that may have been a deceptive lull. Virus cases are again on the upswing in Nebraska. For the first time in January, for the second and third weeks of April, Nebraska posted consecutive weekly increases in case numbers.

For the week ending Friday the number of Nebraska cases were up 120 percent from the number posted two weeks earlier. States in the eastern United States are now seeing case rates six times higher than Nebraska’s current rate.

The good news is the April rates are still a fraction of what they were in January.