Letters to the editor for May 15
Response must be global
“COVID-19 has preyed upon our interconnectedness” is a statement from an April 14 AP report about Washington, Oregon and California’s governors announcing they’ll work together to form a coronavirus response pact.
As we regionally respond to the tragedy of this pandemic, we know it’s also threatening communities facing poverty all around the world.
As Congress prepares for the next stage of its coronavirus response, it should include support for lower-income countries to deal with the immediate crisis and to strengthen their healthcare systems in the long run.
Our government already supports international organizations that do this well, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well U.S. programs focused on global health and education. We should build on these efforts.
Thankfully, Washington leadership in Olympia along with representation in D.C. recognizes this is a global pandemic, requiring both essential local response as well as long-term global response. Senators Murray and Cantwell; Reps. Heck, Kilmer and Herrera-Beutler are doing what they can. Our gratitude to them. And yet we’d like to spread this perspective with others across the country. Perhaps you have friends or relatives with whom you might share this interconnectedness concern?
Nuclear war would be much deadlier than coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic is seriously disrupting our world. President Trump escalated the disruptions and increased the deaths by denying the reality, preventing the government from planning for pandemics, and suppressing the knowledge of scientists and doctors.
A nuclear war would be much more disruptive and cause millions or billions of deaths.
Trump made nuclear war much more likely because Trump has been destroying treaties that were reducing the dangers, such as the Iran Nuclear Deal and the INF Treaty, which Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987.
Trump and both parties in Congress are funding reckless new nuclear weapons that are designed to be more likely to be used and are provoking an unrestrained nuclear arms race.
Washing our hands and using disinfectants would not protect us from nuclear holocaust and radiation. Entire cities would be reduced to radioactive ash.
Nuclear war could kick so much ash into the atmosphere that it would blot out the sun and cause “nuclear winter” preventing sunlight from reaching earth for several years, so no plants would grow while we freeze to death.
A nuclear war would be thousands of times worse than coronavirus. The world is asking strong actions to stop this pandemic. We must also take strong actions to abolish nuclear weapons.
Inform yourselves. Urge Congress to pass the Back from the Brink package. Work with the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which you can reach at 360-491-9093.