Encourage Vaccinations
To the Editor:
The April 5, 2021 edition of the Record reports that to date less than 31% of the people of Fayette County have received at least one of the two required doses of the presently available COVID-19 vaccines. Now that the vaccine has been made available to all adults of all ages, when will our local and state Republican Party leadership start to publicly and repeatedly encourage all of the people of Fayette County and the State of Texas to take these free vaccines and make them available at such places as the regional hub at the Washington County Fair Grounds in Brenham where the process is handled in a very safe and efficient and responsible and courteous manner by our Texas National Guard? In an open letter in the Record to our GOP Congressman Michael McCaul, I called upon him in March of last year to provide truly effective N-95 masks for every American under the National Defense Production Act which would have saved both lives and livelihoods and he, like Trump, did little or nothing to do so.
Now it has been revealed by the respected British medical journal Lancet that by comparing the lack of honest and effective and timely leadership of President Trump to the timely and courageous actions taken by the leaders of other countries, Trump and, by their cowardly silence, his Republican cohorts in the Congress are responsible for at least 40% of the deaths of our loved ones in America during this pandemic. It was Trump who inexplicably rejected Pfizer’s timely offer last year to provide millions of additional doses of the vaccine to Americans that would have saved even more lives and livelihoods in America.
Under his far more effective and honest and caring leadership of all Americans and not just for his political base, President Joe Biden with the support of his fellow Democrats in the Congress has now made available the number of doses that will enable America to rapidly reach the 70% plateau needed for herd immunity to finally control this pandemic. However, that will happen only if at least 70% of all Americans show the respect for life and patriotism needed to take the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, which are not only safe but also effective against the more lethal variants of the disease.
In fact, it has now been established that both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 100% effective at avoiding COVID-19 deaths among persons ages 5 to 16 and will be made available to that age group in the near future. It is now imperative that all of our school students and teachers be given these vaccines in order to receive a more normal on campus education this Fall, if only our local and state and school elected officials and leaders will do their jobs.
John W. Mikus
Fayetteville