Reader calls out fellow reader on COVID response

Once again Eric Cortez misses the mark (Letters to the editor, Nov. 28). Joe Biden was not saying that Donald Trump was responsible for the COVID-19 deaths because he was president at the time.

He was referring to Trump’s words and actions that contributed to those deaths. Prior to the outbreak, President Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response unit. At the outset of the pandemic, he knew of the lethality of the virus, but chose to lie to the American public, downplaying its severity. (A fact that he admitted before denying he said it). He further repeatedly interfered with the efforts by the CDC to accurately inform the public about mitigation efforts. At the time when social distancing, mask-wearing, and handwashing were the only ways to slow transmission of the disease, he was holding tightly packed mass rallies while pooh-poohing the efficacy of masks. To his credit, he did put the weight of the Federal Government into creation of vaccines against the virus. He did not, however, develop a plan for getting the population vaccinated, or effectively promote vaccination. He received his vaccination in private, unannounced, while all of the other living ex-presidents publicly received their vaccinations.

President Biden, on the other hand, developed an aggressive program to get the American population vaccinated and allowed the disease control specialists to do their jobs and lead the public-education effort. Since the availability of effective vaccines, the vast majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths have been among the unvaccinated, an outcome that cannot be blamed on our current president.

— Lewis Boddie, Rio Dell