Prioritize state health

Governor Hutchinson, I am extremely concerned about the exponential spread of covid-19 in Arkansas, and the fact that your administration has not taken increased public health measures to protect Arkansans. I am aware that your “winter” covid-19 task force started meeting this week, and hope that this will lead to further action.

The current situation reminds me of an oft-cited quote from a Rita Mae Brown novel: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Your messaging and that of the Arkansas Department of Health has used words like “disappointing” and “concerning” to describe the pandemic in Arkansas, and you urge over and over that people follow the public health guidelines. You are doing the same thing over and over again, but the different results you are getting are many more cases rather than fewer, more hospitalizations and more deaths.

I understand that you do not want to “shut down the economy,” but why have you not returned to measures employed in the spring—closing restaurants to dine-in customers, closing bars, health clubs and salons, further restricting in-person gatherings, and shifting to virtual instruction—when the cases are so much worse? Clearly, there is not enough attention to the “mask mandate,” so why not start enforcing it?

I appreciate your leadership in this difficult year, and I appreciate that none of the choices you face, and we face as Arkansans, are good, but I strongly believe that we have to prioritize the health and well-being of the state’s citizens even if there is a shortterm economic cost.

RICK OWEN Little Rock