Letters to the editor for April 16
Listen to the public health experts
I sit in awe today after hearing more detail of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on New York hospitals. Having grown up on Long Island, it has a personal connection for me. Having spent my career in health care administration (23 years in Olympia), the stories of the hospital in Queens, close to where I grew up, feel too close to home.
The health-care staff working in our community and particularly at our local hospitals need to be recognized for their courage and commitment to caring for us and preparing for the patient surge that still may be coming to our community.
If you are at all concerned about this, you have an opportunity to help, an obligation to help. As our health-care system is stretched, please follow the recommendations and direction of our public health leaders.
This is not a political issue. We need to heed the direction of the public health experts now and rely on the professionals in our health-care system to care for us when and if we need care. If you are a health-care professional, thank you. If you know a health-care professional, take time to thank them and take every opportunity to help them and their families.
Gun sales are ‘shooting up’
The Trump administration has added gun shops, gun makers and shooting ranges to the federal list of essential workforces along with doctors, police officers, health workers and so forth.
You think maybe the NRA had something to do with that?
After all, toilet tissue wars are breaking out all through the nation, therefore more and more people need more guns and ammunition.
It’s no wonder “gun sales are shooting up.”
Face masks save lives (if worn)
We hear a lot about face masks; Very few people wear them.
Based on my experience as a pulmonary physician, a tuberculosis control officer, and a human being, I conclude that no mask works unless it is worn.
The big problem today is the shortage of masks. Other problems are confusion about use guidelines, confusion about types of masks, and our reluctance to wear masks.
Our goal as a community is to reduce the spread of disease, while managing our lives and livelihoods. It is too late to avoid the initial deluge of cases, but we have a chance to limit the secondary spread of cases in a couple of months when we emerge from our sanctuaries and go back to work and shopping.
To do this safely, we all need to have clean masks and wear them. Any mask provides some benefit, mainly by reducing the spread of “droplets” — that is, spit and mucus. Droplets come from speech and even quiet breathing, as well as coughing and sneezing. Droplets carry viruses to other people. Droplets land on surfaces and hands.
If we need to, we can make our own masks easily, and reduce the spread of droplets. Surgeons have done this for over a century. We can ask (tell, nudge, shame and coerce) people who are in contact with other people to wear a mask. We don’t need to have another round of social isolation in the fall.