To the editor,
I write this letter sitting in my home. All events that I might have attended have been cancelled, even church services. The governor has closed schools across the Commonwealth for at least two weeks. We are in a national and international health crisis. Like many of you who are reading this, I am in the most vulnerable group – older and less healthy. I am fortunate to be retired so I don’t have to go out to work, like so many others including other seniors who are vulnerable.
I am very unhappy with how the administration and the federal government have responded to help keep us safe. They turned down test kits from the World Health Organization so we now don’t have enough kits to test our population as rapidly as we need to test. The CDC has been told not to publish coronavirus statistics, including deaths AND positive tests. Earlier presidents chose to fight the pandemics abroad (Ebola) before they got to America. Not this one and it has turned out to be a very short-sighted decision.
The president is actively trying to minimize the crisis and is not preparing the country to respond adequately. This decision places all of us in a great deal of danger. Why is the president so focused on minimizing this crisis? Because he wants to keep the stock market high and his hotels and resorts open for business. He is sacrificing the health and wellness of our citizens so he can “keep the numbers low.”
He is so shortsighted and incompetent that he thinks that misleading the public on this will solve the crisis instead of spreading the virus. He has rid himself of expert opinions and those brave enough to stand up and disagree with him so he’s left with his “gut” or a “hunch” to guide his policy on this. In this case and others, his “gut” is not a substitute for the actual scientific knowledge and a professional medical response.
Instead he has left to all of us individually and to the states to respond to this crisis on our own for the most part. It is inadequate. The federal government has a constitutional duty to respond to this with our resources (taxes that we all have paid). Trump has finally released those funds eight weeks into the contagion. Finally, Congress has shown some bipartisanship and will pass a virus relief bill and maybe the president will sign it. Hopefully, its not too little and too late.
Trump himself may not survive until November since he is shaking hands daily with infected people. He says he has been tested and the test is negative, but can we believe him after so much deception in his earlier reports. Sometimes I fear he will try to use this contagion as a ruse to cancel the November elections.
When we have elections, if you vote for Trump in the next election, you are a fool. You are placing all of us in real danger of sickness or death, or of having another crisis that he will not be competent to handle or tell the truth about to the American public . This represents very well the danger of putting a “business man”, and an incompetent one at that, in the white house who is only interested in profit and appearance, rather than the welfare of the American people.
If you don’t believe this is a crisis, I suggest you book a cruise or fly abroad for a vacation this spring. I hear there are some real bargains out there right now.
Joanna Hickman
Louisa Va
Editors Note: This letter appeared in the Central Virginian and appears here with permission of the author