Governor Ige and Mayor Caldwell, ENOUGH with “targeted” closures and half measures. Enough with asking politely for consideration and cooperation. It’s obvious that doesn’t work.
The only way we can get our economy and our lives back is to wrestle back control of the virus. And the only way to do that is to stop depending on the “common sense” and goodwill of our citizens. Sorry, but we’ve seen how well that works.
It doesn’t.
Was it only weeks ago that scientists and health professionals en masse signed a letter from the Federation of PIRGs— Public Interest Research Groups– calling for the federal government to set the reset button, start over, and do it right. Take a look at the letter, scroll down to see the hundreds and hundreds of health professionals who signed it. That was back when the death toll from COVID-19 was “only” 117,000. Today the number stands at over 170,000 and counting.
What a tragic waste of time. What a needless sacrifice of American lives.
Here in Hawaii, we’ve gone from single-digit numbers to triple-digit in a matter of weeks. We were lulled into thinking we’d beaten it, even though many of us had the uneasy feeling we weren’t doing it right. My gut told me we weren’t testing enough, and I started sounding like a broken record. We KNEW we needed to do extensive contact tracing. We depended on the word of a governor and health officials who out-and-out lied, or at least obfuscated, about critical gaps in our response. Turns out they weren’t contact tracing enough– not nearly enough. They were dismissive and evasive about ramping up testing. We were okay, they kept insisting. We were doing it right.
We weren’t. We aren’t.
At least one local expert, infectious disease expert Tim Brown of the East-West Center, has stated publicly that “about one in every 50 people in the state is likely infected with COVID-19.” That’s because for every one case reported, he says there are likely another 10 cases that are undetected.
That is scary.
So yes, our economy is in the dumps. Yes, we’re tired of this damn virus. But the virus doesn’t care how we feel. It will wreck our lives, our jobs– and our kids’ education– as long as we let it run roughshod over us. As long as we’re too timid to squash it.
We can reopen again and again and again. But as long as we fail to get the coronavirus under control we’ll shut down again and again and again.
The virus will continue to attack old people, middle-aged people, young people, keiki. It does not discriminate.
We need to do it all. If our leaders are unwilling to totally lockdown, then at least put real teeth in enforcing the rules. Make it painful and expensive to break them.
Significantly ramp up testing and contact tracing. Test everyone and often– there are new saliva tests on the way that can help with that.
Quarantine tourists in designated hotels. Quarantine sick and exposed local people in hotels, too, if we need to.
Blitz the state with messages in print, TV, and social media about mask-wearing and physical distancing. Let people know they’re being patriotic and pono by doing so.
Cauterize the infection. Endure great pain now to save us from lingering pain later.
Shut it down. Start over. Do it right.
Thank you for putting words to the truth of how badly our state government has handled this crisis.
Time squandered. All of our efforts with the lockdown– lost.