Letters: KC readers discuss COVID-19 worry, mask needs and Trump’s great works
Calm it down
Please cease with the incessant coronavirus headlines throughout the day. Yes, COVID-19 infections and deaths will increase in Kansas and Missouri as more testing reveals more infections and patients who have contracted the viral infection die. We are aware.
However, each new case or death does not warrant the number of “breaking news” stories you devote to this single subject. Information is important to increase public awareness and safety. But please, enough with the screaming Chicken Little headlines.
Over time, your readers will tune out and become increasingly deaf to this unrelenting deluge of panicked journalism.
- Tim J. Snyder, Prairie Village
Great leadership
Democrats have criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus. However, while Democrats in Congress were running their impeachment sham in January, Trump was instituting a ban on most foreign nationals who had traveled within the previous 14 days to China, where the virus started. Medical experts say that action might have saved many lives. Democrats, though, have charged Trump with being xenophobic and racist.
Trump has marshaled a massive effort to fight what he calls the invisible enemy, bringing together top experts in the medical and many other fields. He is working day and night doing everything seemingly humanly possible to protect the American people, and no doubt seeks divine intervention as well. If there are shortcomings, he deals with them and keeps moving forward.
Congressional Democrats, though, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are shamefully playing politics with the crisis. They even tried to get pork barrel spending into the relief bill.
Is Trump on the right track? I am not an expert, but I do know he is a relentless problem solver. It would help, though, if the Democrats pitched in instead of seeing it as a political opportunity.
- Mark S. Robertson, Independence
Math with masks
As a retired nurse, I am offended by the president questioning whether protective masks are “going out the back door” of New York hospitals. (March 30, KansasCity.com, “Navy hospital ship arrives in NYC to back up health systems”)
Breathing dampens a mask. Dampness lets in viruses. So health care providers switch to new masks.
Stress plus exertion elevate breathing, causing dampness. The usage of masks increases, perhaps exponentially.
- Barbara Reese, Overland Park
Additional hazard
I just read about Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s decision that gun stores are an essential business and should be allowed to stay open selling guns and ammunition to Kansans. (March 30, 1A, “Gun shops, churches exempt from Kansas stay-at-home order”) I’m a supporter of the governor, but it’s hard to explain how disappointed I was to read of her decision.
Closing businesses to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 is necessary, and gun stores should be included among those. As a Kansan with more than 40 years of law enforcement and related experience, I’ve seen how times of disaster and worry add stress to the lives of everyone — especially those who have violent tendencies.
This is definitely a time in U.S. history when arming citizens is not an essential business. I urge the governor to reconsider her decision and not cave to pressure.
- Terry Campbell, Basehor, Kansas
Fooling around
April Fools’ Day is upon us. Government should pass legislation making that a national holiday.
We still have no national directives, so every state and city are doing their own thing. The coronavirus loves that plan.
We have an ongoing lack of ventilators and protective masks, as health care workers needlessly risk their own well-being. Contradictory information flows from the White House as medical experts say one thing and the president says something else. We have $2.2 trillion going where? We’re not really sure, but if everything works perfectly, you’re still looking at a very short-term fix. Then what?
Just off the top of my head, what if we nationalized factories to switch to making virus-resistant masks and gloves in mass quantities? What if the president went on national TV and said: “We have a plan. We’re going to distribute those masks and gloves to the majority of citizens across the U.S., and for the next 30 days you’re not to go out in public without them on. And there will be troops and national guardsmen in the major cities to enforce that directive. The trade-off for compliance is you still can work most jobs and schools need not close.”
April fools!
- Kelli Rawley, Overland Park