Letters to the editor for May 17, 2020
We still need to stay home
The people of Florida are operating in the dark while trying to leave shelter-in-place restrictions. We have no clue where current positive cases of COVID-19 are or the number of people who have died.
It doesn't matter if people are residents or non-residents (snowbirds), the information should be furnished by Gov. DeSantis' Health Department of those who tested positive and have died — as soon as available. Medical examiners' reports from every county also must be made available.
We now have reports there were as many as 171 cases of COVID-19 in Florida, one as early as Jan. 1 — two months before the coronavirus was officially reported in Florida. These cases were finally reported in March and the beginning of April.
Without extensive testing for new positive cases for the virus, then tracing the people who were in contact with them, we have no idea of the risks we are taking now opening up businesses to customers.
DeSantis has taken cautious steps to begin opening up businesses, certainly a prudent first step. A lot more is needed; face masks and hand sanitizer for employees and customers should be available. Protective materials should be stockpiled for health care workers in anticipation of a possible increase in hospitalizations.
Until Florida has a larger increase in testing — not just promises but complete and accurate reporting of new cases and resulting deaths with county-by-county reported cases of COVID-19, giving people information they can trust, we should be very cautious leaving sheltering in place.
Kathy Weaver, Clermont
Return to normal
In 1957, the Asian flu pandemic struck America. At the time, the U.S. population was half of what it is today. That year, 116,000 deaths were attributed to the Asian Flu. With a population that has doubled since 1957, we have 80,000 COVID-19 deaths and maybe even double that this year.
Obviously the threat of death from COVID-19 is a much smaller percentage of the population than the 1957 Asian flu. The devastation the Asian flu pandemic caused the U.S. in 1957 didn't elicit the same knee-jerk reactions as today's COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientists are one-trick ponies. All they consider is the science. They don't take into consideration the whole picture. The reactions to this pandemic were based on knee-jerk science-based models. All these inaccurate models have done is damage our economy and put us into a very precarious social and economic position that we will have a hard time recovering from.
Closing businesses and ordering people to stay at home has proved one thing: the American public — who insist they are free people — are no more free than the Japanese Americans the government rounded up and put into prison camps during World War II. It's a sad day when a Texas salon owner stands up against a tyrannical governing class exercising her God-given rights and is thrown into jail.
The government orders (suggestions) are not law, but law enforcement officials and politicians are acting as if they are. It's time the government ends these draconian measures and let things return to normal.
Richard Riker, Mount Dora