Regarding ‘educate yourselves’ about COVID-19

Any letter written to the E-R that starts off with the following questionable claim: “Considering virtually everything our public health officials have imposed on our once-free society has been either wrong or catastrophically wrong” (‘Educate yourselves’ 6/26) is certainly going to crash and burn soon thereafter.

The Ten Great Public Health Achievements of the last century: Substantial declines of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, Tobacco Control (implementation of evidence-based policies and interventions), improved Maternal and Infant Health, protective policies and significant progress in Motor Vehicle and Occupational Safety, Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Cancer Prevention, Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and improvements in Public Health Preparedness and Response.

With regard to the pandemic, the letter writer is demonstrably anti-vaccine, anti-mask, anti-lockdowns, anti-mandates and seemingly a denier of the seriousness of COVID-19 (despite one million COVID deaths in the United States). He encourages ‘educating ourselves’ with ‘all information currently available’ and talks about ‘incontrovertible facts’ without referring to any reliable scientific sources. He correctly says vaccination of children is ‘a life-changing decision’ and I would agree.

I’m going to assume that writer is not medically trained and it concerns me immensely that he believes he is qualified to dictate that parents risk the health and safety of their children by ignoring official public health guidelines.

I will provide parents reliable advice on this critical issue: Don’t rely on YouTube postings and a layman’s directive, pick up your phone and ask your child’s pediatrician what they recommend for your child. — Mark S. Gailey, Chico