Reply to Mr. Whites comment
The important point in Mr. White’s comment is that he does not present a solution. The state government has entered a dead end and they do not have a sensible way forward. There is not path forward in Mr. White’s letter, he is just arguing for a path further into a dead end. He talks about Trump, The Bible, and how we should obey authorities. There is no science presented that argues that this epidemic is much different than normal epidemics. The point of all the information collected is that the New York case number is just the people who self-report an illness. In a turbulent time with many facts up in the air they simply took a worstcase assumption and then tried to confiscate your rights. The governor made a mistake, partially based on wrong science. Just reverse the error now. The states that have not ordered a general shutdown are doing well. This is likely because the vulnerable population and the working population do not overlap very much. The key is to keep the virus out of nursing and retirement homes. The remainder of the population should work and practice appropriate precautions. The difference with our state is an authoritarian governor who ignores normal health practices and attacks our rights. The worst part of the closure is the effect on health care services. Throughout the county medical offices are closed. The hospital is open, but empty. All of these providers must be running a large financial deficit and some will never reopen. In a small city such as Los Alamos we can already barely keep our medical providers in business and every provider we lose is very hard to replace. In fact, the lack of regular timely medical services likely harms public health more than the virus. The net effect of the governor’s order is probably to decrease public health.
David Reagor (candidate for county council)
Reagor4Council@gmail.com
Reagor4Council 