Have lawmakers seen our schools lately?
Re “D.C. residents, lawmakers chafe at Capitol fencing” (Feb. 28): Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, said “It’s kind of like working in a minimum-security prison right now.” Perhaps all those complaining should go to a public school and try to get on campus. Allen Stanko
Alpine
The sentiments surrounding the reaction of California and the United States to this pandemic can be stated simply: a bit of pride and a large amount of disappointment.
Locking down California early on in the pandemic was a critically important move that helped keep the virus from spreading throughout California early on. Yet we all know that that success story did not last long. Eventually the “lockdowns” had to end, but that did not immediately come with the vitally necessary testing and contact tracing systems that are needed to help society continue operating safely outside of a lockdown. For a multitude of reasons — bureaucracy, incompetence and just complete apathy — our testing systems were delayed, and our contact tracing systems were never able to meet the needs of the community.
What this pandemic showed is how vulnerable countries like ours are when it comes to this kind of event. What required grand-scale organization and collaboration devolved into completely disorganized responses from state to state, county to county. Our nation never had a true, complete lockdown. For better or worse, the federal government does not have this immediate power, nor would it be wellreceived.
Our discordant system allowed this virus to flourish, making us one of the worst countries in the world in terms of carnage from this virus. More than 530,000 people died. Still, people spout nonsense about the pandemic and protest basic sanitary measures because of identity politics. Not to mention our prior president continuously downplaying the gravity of this situation with false statements and complete indifference to leading in such a dire time.
The writing was on the walls for such a pathetic response to a pandemic. And when something like this happens again, there is much to indicate that large swaths of our country are no more willing to prepare and come together than we were before this
pandemic, as states around the country dissolve their safety measures as if the pandemic were over.
California is no success story either. The disaster of the overflowing of COVID-19 patients in our hospitals this winter is a tragedy. We can only hope that enough of us will get vaccinated to slow it all down and allow life to start going back to normal.