No More Delays
To the Editor:
The Record reports in its December 29, 2020 edition that active and probable Covid-19 cases have hovered around the triple digit mark all month and that is not counting the likely future increases after Christmas due to the failure by far too many to follow CDC guidelines as to holiday gatherings and masking. Texas reached an all-time high of 11,300 cases on December 28 with December hospital intensive care units in their shortest supply since the start of the pandemic.
It was gratifying to see Fayette County Emergency Director Craig Moreau giving the thumbs up to St. Mark’s surgical nurse, Laurie Quitta, for being the first to take the vaccine in Fayette County. It was very disappointing to read that he continues to frown upon others taking the vaccine despite the recommendations of our nation’s chief medical experts as well as our emergency room and ICU doctors and nurses who have observed the ravages of this contagion first hand and despite the fact that, by the time the vaccine is available to the rest of us, those first responders having to take the vaccine will be alive and well.
To date about 1 out of every 25 people in Fayette County has contracted the corona virus and the esteemed Johns Hopkins University reports at least 30 deaths from Covid-19 in Fayette County among the almost twenty-five thousand residents of our County. Does Mr. Moreau understand that those same medical experts warn that, unless and until at least 80% of every local population in our country is vaccinated for Covid-19, America will not be able to contain the pandemic thereby costing needless loss of life and livelihoods?
Does Mr. Moreau understand that such hesitancy and delay exacerbated by his own public comments will only serve to allow this virus to mutate and become even more contagious? In Great Britain, whose conservative leader like our own soon to be former President and, to a gravely disappointing degree, like our own local leaders, have wrongfully downplayed the seriousness of this pandemic thereby allowing the virus to pass from more humans to more humans giving the already highly contagious virus time to mutate into an even more contagious variant. To make matters worse, studies in Great Britain now indicate that this variant is more likely to infect greater numbers of children. In fact, needlessly delaying the immunization of at least 80% of the American people may allow this virus to mutate to the degree that the vaccines we have long waited for at great cost may become ineffective with even more death and suffering and destruction of our economy being the result. Please consider all of this, Mr. Moreau, given your public position of responsibility for the lives of the people of Fayette County.
John W. Mikus Fayetteville