Wareham currently has only three active cases of covid-19, Town Hall has been reopened to the public, and schools are well positioned for remote learning in September.

Those were the upbeat highlights of Town Administrator Derek Sullivan’s Aug. 25 remarks in an online forum organized by the Cape Cod Canal Region Chamber of Commerce. The forum, titled “Ask the Managers,” invited three town administrators to provide updates about business during the pandemic.

On the flip side, Sullivan noted that many local businesses are still struggling to recover from the spring pandemic shutdown and that no one should have a “false sense of security – simply because of the speed at which covid-19 spreads.”

Sullivan reported that, since the pandemic’s start, there have been 215 confirmed cases of covid in Wareham: 71 in nursing homes, two in assisted living, and 142 among other town residents. Twenty-one of the infected people died.

Speaking alongside fellow town administrators Bud Dunham of Sandwich and Tony Schiavi of Bourne, Sullivan noted that pre-pandemic Wareham was still recovering from the Great Recession of 2008. The assessed value of single family homes in town had just recovered to what they were in 2004, he said.

Knowing how businesses are struggling, he said enforcement of mandated covid precautions generally involves health officials “reaching out” to business owners who are “pretty compliant.”

All three town administrators were enthusiastic about their towns’ efforts to facilitate mail-in voting. Holding up his cell phone to display a photograph of the drop box recently installed outside Town Hall to receive such ballots, Sullivan declared: “It’s a piece of Americana!”