We Are in This Together
We Are in This Together
To the Editor:
Given the anxiety and frustration being addressed by the County’s response to COVID-19, it’s time to assess, reassess and even thank those who have made the County’s response so effective. The single measure of effective response is lives and health. We are fortunate to have thoughtful and cautious county government, effective emergency response teams, health professionals, newspaper reports and updates, safety conscious employees, and a compassionate citizenry. We like the children’s art and pictures of caring citizens in action. Many of us shop safely for what we need. It’s nice to see the safety measures used by businesses and most customers. Residents are supporting carryout service from those businesses that cannot have clusters of seated or gathered customers. Most citizens are good at social distancing while shopping. When out, we have to assume that everyone we encounter is a carrier of the virus. Many shoppers and employees wear masks to protect others as well as themselves. Masks may become a safety fashion statement.
Wise measures are needed with COVID-19 which is “devious” and “unusual.” National pundits have said that many people die from heart attacks, strokes and car accidents, but we don’t shut down society. None of those causes of death are contagious. Pundits say that thousands die from the common flu each year, but we have a vaccine and herd immunity for that flu. COVID-19 is highly contagious and deadly. Nearly 74,000 people have died from COVID-19, since February (essentially 2 months) and that number is probably low, 20-30% perhaps. Each year on average 56,000 people die from the common flu which does not overwhelm medical services. Experts predict that the US might have well over 100,000 COVID deaths by the start of the fall flu season.
Wisdom and caution, along with careful, prudent planning are needed. We have good leadership, effective communication, and compassionate citizens. We are blessed to have officials who listen to national and state advisories and then adapt them to our circumstances. Polls suggest high approval ratings for state and local responses. A lot of commercial activity is going on in the County because we are collectively taking care of one another. In an era when immediate results and instant gratification have become the norm, patience becomes a virtue. I grew up with mom’s stories of the Spanish flu, lived through the disorienting dread of dad being in the Service during WWII, weathered the polio epidemic which lasted for more than 40 years and have navigated lots of other problems, including economic downturns and epidemics. What stories the class of 2020 will have to tell their grandchildren 50 years from now. In all of this, to be a free people who enjoy liberty, we know that it is earned by working together wisely in the collective interest. We are in this together.
Bob Heath
Carmine
Trump Does Need to Bear Responsibility
To the Editor:
I strongly disagree with Mr. Dykes’s analysis (in a letter last week) that the pandemic would have panned out similarly regardless of who was in the White House. I agree that willy-nilly inventing is not justified.
When my dad heard someone make an unbelievable, outlandish statement, he used to say, “whoever believes that - stand on your head!” Mr. Dykes hit us with a lot of diversions, some true and some questionable, but none that should distract us from the truth - a slow response from the Trump administration costs us lives and time to get on top of this disease.
First of all, comparing COVID-19 to the circumstances of the H1N1 virus in 2009 is misleading. COVID-19 is more transmissible and more lethal than H1N1. Comparing Obama’s response to Trump’s is simply another way to deflect blame away from the president. FYI- Obama declared H1N1 a public health emergency before anyone died.
The travel restrictions Trump put in place only restricted Wuhan citizens from entering the U.S. About 40,000 Americans and foreigners entered at that time from Wuhan, and Trump was calling the disease a hoax and nothing to worry about.
The willy-nilly explanation that the elimination of a unit that deals with pandemics from the National Security Council by the Trump administration in 2018 is no big deal turns out to be a really big deal. Dr. Fauci famously reported that unit was put in place to keep the U.S. prepared in the event of a pandemic and that he had a good working relationship with them.
It has recently been reported by Reuters that several months before the Coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China.
Finally, if you believe Trump was being sarcastic when he asked the doctors if the injection of UV rays and sanitizers into COVID-19 patients could be explored, “stand on your head!”
Patty Reid
La Grange
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
To the Editor:
Have you ever opened up an old freezer that had meat left in it and had been turned off for several weeks? The smell is not pleasant. That is exactly what today’s politics smells like. In Don Carpenter’s column in the Record several weeks ago I think he laid it out perfectly how today’s politics of personal destruction has become so divisive and destructive that it has torn this country apart. He laid out the history of how politicians have used factors like racism and class warfare, which divides people, to rally sections of the population to vote for them. It is very effective but horribly destructive. Policies on immigration, healthcare, education, welfare programs are all exploited by politicians as some racist in the other party doesn’t want to give it to you. After Don, who is from Schulenburg (home of the fighting Shorthorns) wrote that article, a group of five Democrats wrote that the article was racist and should have been censored. Right on cue.
I don’t see how anyone who turns on a TV, radio, or newspaper would not agree with Don. At some point the so-called progressive party is going to have to let go of tying every policy to racism if we are ever going to move this country forward. Heck we can’t even have a virus without screams of it hurting one race more than another because of racism. I would appeal to the five people who wrote that letter criticizing the Record for printing Don’s column to reflex on what your party’s message is doing to our country and let us all move on and put the politics of destruction behind us. I don’t believe you really feel your neighbors are racist but are using it as a weapon. I also believe your assessment of being politically correct as just being polite is off base. It is just another way to shut people down by degrading them. Something we do way too much of.
The only way to defeat the politics of personal destruction is to expose it just like Don’s column did. And isn’t Donald Trump’s presidency doing the same thing by exposing it at a national level. If enough people see it exposed then it will make those still engaged in it irrelevant. Then we can once again start solving problems instead of creating them.
Sam Niesner
Dubina
Ignoring a Wrong is Same as Condoning It
To the Editor:
My response to Mr. Carpenter’s article was not driven by my political affiliation, but rather by the values my politically agnostic parents taught me when it concerns racism and verbal assault.
In my 20 years serving as a school counselor, I encountered many parents, teachers and school administrators with the “sticks and stones” mentality concerning verbal bullying. The advice and skills I provided encouraged students to stand up to bullies, either for themselves or for others who were being targeted.
The message was ignoring a wrong is the same as condoning it. I’m proud to say that in those 20 years of providing skills and interventions our school had zero student suicides. I doubt the same results would have come from “grow up and ignore it.”
David McCall
Waldeck
America Not Epicenter of Covid-19 Outbreak
To the Editor:
“… America the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak…” Really, Mr. Green? The “epicenter?” Such gross and outrageous exaggerations certainly undermine the rest of your “facts.” I refer, of course, to your letter in the May 1 edition of the Record.
Look at the CDC’s New York numbers versus the rest of the country. It appears there is a lot less planning and more blame to be laid there than at Mr. Trump’s feet. Unlike your thinking on the matter, Mr. Green, I think the pandemic has proven the only “failure” of the President is not draining the swamp the minute he arrived in Washington including such overhyped “experts” as Dr. Fauci. Check out the doctor’s recommendation for a large grant to the Wuhan lab. Talk about being taken in by China …
Janice Barnett
La Grange