I have been reading the online comments on my letter regarding the COVID-19 virus and that it is spreading again. Too many souls are neglecting to get boosted with the updated Omicron vaccine (and the flu vaccine). Those who commented negatively to my plea for responsibility have buried their heads in the dirt. Their opinions are easily refutable.
For example, one reader states that if you get COVID, you have a 99.9% chance of surviving. This is obviously false. The Centers for Disease Control reported there are 109,622,000 cases in the U.S., and 1,088,981 deaths. This looks very close to a 1% death rate, not 0.1%. He is only off by a factor of 10. Some argue COVID deaths are exaggerated: People are dying with COVID, not of COVID. Let me explain the difference. If you get COVID and are run over by a car, that is dying WITH COVID. If you get COVID and have asthma and die because you cannot breathe, that is dying OF COVID. Feel confident the CDC-reported deaths are OF COVID. Another contributor claims the “COVID theater of the last three years is a farce.” He claims lockdowns only delay the inevitable; social distancing, school lockdowns and masking are ineffective; vaccine and booster efficacy is overstated; mortality statistics are unreliable.
Lockdowns were necessary when we had no vaccines and COVID was filling hospitals. Social distancing helped avoid airborne transmission of the virus. School lockdowns and masking were needed to keep teachers and staff healthy enough to work. Vaccines were never said to be 100% effective in avoiding infection or death, but clearly do work well, and are safe. If mistakes were made in the early days of COVID, it was because the virus was new and largely unknown in how it is transmitted. Now we know. Honest mistakes are not lies.
Thomas Oatway
Valencia
