Letters: How much to stop the spread? - Ukiah Daily Journal

To the Editor:

Does our Public Health Officer have a road map to guiding the county through the COVID morass?  Does she have sign posts to guide her?  Is she even ‘following the science’?  If so, what science?

Back in February and March when we were getting horrific news from Italy, our public health officials and political leaders at the highest levels took the prudent step of shutting much of the activity in the country down in order 1) to ‘flatten the curve’ so ICUs would not be overwhelmed, and 2) have time to better understand the viral interaction with the human population.  Few disagreed with this drastic approach assuming it would only be for a few weeks.

In just a short period of time, through study of each of the individuals case deaths in Italy, Spain, and our country, we came to understand that the greatest risk of grave consequences were for those with compromised immune systems and other health issues.   Well over 99 percent of the rest of us will either have no symptoms or very mild symptoms and recover.  As always, there are a small number of exceptions, but nothing that most of us should cause us to live in fear.

The virus, like all viruses, and unlike a swarm of locusts, was never going to go away by itself.   No one should be surprised that the number of cases has gone up dramatically.  Much of this is due to increased social activity (humans are social animals by nature) and increased availability of testing.  This good news is that daily deaths in the country are way down numerically and significantly down as a fraction of confirmed cases.

If you believe our President, a vaccine may be available in a few months.  If you look at history, it can take a year or more, if ever.  Even if there is a vaccine, we know from experience that flu vaccines are not even close to 100 percent effective.  For the majority they are, for a large percentage they aren’t, and for a small percentage, there are undesirable side effects.  While it would be great to have a vaccine, the plan to end the pandemic cannot be based on something that is in the future and uncertain.

So, this brings me back to our Public Health Officer.  If you are ‘following the science’ and are aggressively contact tracing, where is the evidence that COVID has spread like wildfire at restaurants, health clubs, and places of worship?  There may be one off instances at each, but we know the proprietors have since taken significant precautionary measures to remain open.  To issue a blanket order for shutdown, there should be evidence of widespread incidents, and so far, the public has not heard of these.

We have been told that the virus has spread due to social gatherings, such as parties for birthdays, graduations, and quincinieras.  We have also seen other types of gatherings such as ‘mostly peaceful protests’ in full public view where masking and social distancing have been ignored by both the participants and political/public health leaders.  This really causes us to question the efficacy of a shutdown of businesses and churches!

While most people still buy in to 1) washing hands, 2) maintaining social distance, and 3) limited mask wearing when in and around others, like at a grocery store, there is a growing number who feel that they are being told that the way to protect the few vulnerable is to inconvenience the majority instead of having the vulnerable self-isolate while everyone else can go about their business.  So, I am asking the Public Health Officer to treat us like responsible adults instead of like children.  Explain, with real data and evidence, why certain restrictions need to remain in place or need to go back in place.  Tell us the signpost which will say the pandemic is over.

There is significant collateral damage happening in the lives of many people and their families due to the myopic focus on preventing the spread.  The commitment to following instructions is waning…especially instructions issued from afar in Sacramento and San Diego.

-D. E. Johnson, Ukiah

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