Is the cure worse than the disease?
To the editor:
Remember when Trump said “we can’t let the cure be worse than the disease.”? Since that time, Trump has taken every step to ensure that the cure is indeed worse than the disease. He has disregarded, disrespected, or denigrated every method the public health experts have said are effective tools against the virus’ spread, encouraged his supporters to defy these methods also, spread misinformation, false cures and dangerous conspiracies, and whipped some of his base up into a frenzy of individual freedom rights where nothing short of risking their health and lives and that of others satisfies them. So, now, the crisis continues to worsen, COVID cases hit new levels, the death tolls mount and rollbacks to reopening economy have become necessary.
No one told Americans to behave so recklessly. During this pandemic, no other nation on earth has associated personal freedom with the right to endanger the lives of others. Americans who accept that we cannot drive drunk, smoke in restaurants or carry loaded weapons on planes because of the danger it poses to others do not seem able to extend that reasoning to following simple CDC guidelines while our fellow countrymen suffer and die. But, with the role modeling of our president and many of our governors, too many persist in the anti-science, personal rights stance that has made our pandemic response the worst in the industrialized world.
A worse outcome is impossible to imagine.
Susan McGuire
Pine Island