Putting others at risk
Measles is very infectious. If an infected person walks into an auditorium with 100 people, 90 of those people will be infected.
The measles vaccine is only 97% effective, so several of those people, even if vaccinated, will still become ill.
One out of a thousand of those infected people or children will die. More will have permanent brain damage from measles-related encephalitis.
The highest numbers of unvaccinated students in Hawaii are in some of our most expensive private and charter schools. The chance of your child being infected by measles is hundreds or thousands of times higher, if they attend one of these schools.
You might want to consider which schools you send your children to, based upon published Hawaii school student vaccination data (Tribune-Herald, March 31).
Joel Aycock
Keaau
Carbon sequestration
Gov. David Ige has pledged that the state will absorb more carbon, by 2045, than it produces. The world has its eyes on Hawaii to see how this environmental sanity can be accomplished.
The “Hawaii Greenhouse Emissions Report for 2015” projects that in 2045, Hawaii will produce five times more global-warming carbon dioxide than the state’s forests can remove.
Carbon sequestration is paramount. This is the perfect segue to the Hawaii County’s 2% Land Fund. This fund, created by citizens, would protect natural resources, watersheds, open space, park lands and cultural sites from pavement, housing tracts, and commercial and industrial growth.
I strongly support to have the county set aside 2% of property taxes each year to have a guaranteed source of funding to obtain matching funds to acquire property.
In 2012. this charter amendment was put on the ballot at the full 2%, not 1%. It was approved by 63% of the voters. Regenerating our forests and protecting our open space would positively address Gov. Ige’s goal of increasing carbon sequestration.
Gary Harrold
Hilo