Politics inflaming the delta variant

To the Editor:

With 660,000 Americans dead, we're last in the world confronting COVID. America has 5% of the world's population but 15%of the deaths — 430,000 Americans have died — unnecessarily, because enough of us refused masks and now refuse vaccines.

We're even putting our children at risk. There are now 250,000 pediatric cases in America. It's worth noting that for every four deaths, three are Republicans.

In June we had very few cases and deaths, but we squandered the upper hand because many chose politics over our nation. They ignored our pandemic experts, embracing internet misinformation, and believed any political pundit who questioned reality. And now, the delta variant has taken over the field.

Desantis, governor of Florida, and Texas's governor, Abbott, are competing for Trump's base for their presidential runs. They're repeating what these believers want to hear: no masks — even for school children. They question the value of vaccines, supporting unproved alternative “medications” which the American Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention condemn.

At the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting on Sept. 7, Supervisors Haff and Kirk played that fiddle to local conspiracy theorists by questioning our nation's most respected pandemic experts. Meanwhile, the county health director tried to explain the realities. But Kirk and Haff believe they're qualified to question the CDC. Maybe, they should go over to the hospital and give the doctors a hand.

This petty rebellion against government means another 100,000 Americans are likely to die. If they died from a terrorist attack, we would be outraged. But they're dying from our unwillingness to work together for the good of everyone.

Unfortunately, 94 local citizens have died and therefore were unable to attend the board meeting to tell us what happened to them.

Robert Carabas

Sonora