Letters: KC readers discuss COVID-19 vaccines, Limbaugh’s legacy and Kansas teachers
How to get back
We are beginning the slow but exciting process of rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to protect us from the deadly pandemic. The introduction of these vaccines will eventually protect our overwhelmed hospitals and gradually lead us to a return to relative normalcy.
Having a vaccination with a 95% effective rate for healthy people is remarkable. But that number doesn’t account for the vast number of people who either can’t get the vaccine for medical reasons (those with severely compromised immune systems, allergic reactions, undergoing certain cancer treatments) or can’t expect significant protection from the vaccine (those who have various immune deficiencies).
I am a nurse practitioner who has worked every day of this pandemic. I am a daughter, a wife and a mother. I have seen the devastation this virus has caused and the burdens it has brought to our community.
Some have begged for a cure and some have begged for their rights, but everyone is begging to get back to their normal lives. There is no way to get back to normal unless we take care of one another by getting vaccinated ourselves, and that is not without personal sacrifice and risk.
Please, when it’s your turn, step up and get your vaccine.
- Jenny Ecord, Wichita, Kansas
New but different
I agree with Michael Ryan that conservatism needs a new voice after Rush Limbaugh. (Feb. 18, 11A, “Conservatism needs a new voice after Limbaugh”) However, I pray that it will be a voice that can speak the truth in love.
In my opinion, Limbaugh certainly blazed a trail, but it was a dangerous path that often landed in overstated hyperbole, falsehoods, innuendo, hate and racism. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was recently sued for libel, but the courts threw out the case, stating that any reasonable person should understand that he’s not a news reporter, but is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary” for the purpose of putting on an entertaining commentary show.
Limbaugh created that platform. That form of so-called “entertainment” is dangerous when it is presented and worse, believed, as if it’s news.
I believe in the First Amendment, but let’s also hold media personalities accountable for what they represent as facts.
- Randy Harman, Kansas City
For the teachers
Once again, lowly-paid teachers are being abused by six-digit-income administrators and principals in the Blue Valley school district. Teachers, who are front-line workers, want to be back in the classrooms, pre-K to high school, but they want vaccinations first so they don’t get infected or infect anyone else.
But Blue Valley has no organized vaccine program other than for teachers to fill out a survey, and then it’s luck of the draw. Administrators and elected board members just hear the demands of some parents (voters) to get the little monsters out of the house.
As one Johnson County parent told a local TV station, “I’m not concerned about anybody dying because they’re teaching in school”. You don’t care, huh?
The Kansas National Education Association has dropped the ball. Take a lesson from Chicago and represent your constituents – teachers – the workers we say we love to love but really don’t care about when its inconvenient. Demand all teachers can get the two shots before classes start.
- Douglas J. Patterson, Leawood
No, the other way
After watching the Super Bowl it became apparent that no one told the Chiefs that “run it back” did not mean from the line of scrimmage.
- Kyle Black, Overland Park
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Letters: KC readers discuss COVID-19 vaccines, Limbaugh’s legacy and Kansas teachers."