Reopen parks
I urge Hawaii County to reopen parks for people to use, as long as they maintain recommended social distancing protocol.
I lead a qigong exercise class in Lili‘uokalani Gardens for nine professionals who understand the value of exercise outdoors to improve our physical and mental health and boost our immune system strength, while also practicing social distancing protocols.
I understand I might be encouraging common sense civil disobedience, but I am hopeful Hawaii County will soon reopen the parks.
Griffith Frost
Hilo
Build compounds
Pursuant to the safety of our incarcerated community members, an article in Friday’s Star-Advertiser is advocating early release of some prisoners and safe reduction of prisoner-to-prisoner contact to allow “social distancing.”
Give me a moment to completely diverge from the subject and draw an analogy: Bernie Sanders lauds the ability of China’s autocratic system to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty quickly. But people, understandably, cannot seem to uncouple that positive in their minds from the abuses piled on the Tibetans and Uighurs.
Similarly, ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County (Ariz.) blatantly and inexcusably abused the civil rights of minorities using profiled traffic stops, etc., but his tent city jails, even though abusive in some respects, effectively and cheaply isolated prisoners from each other in a manner that we could use right here and now.
Chain-link fence compounds with razor wire at the top, and a tent in the middle of each one, supervised by a guard tower or two, would quickly and inexpensively do the job of safely isolating the population from coronavirus risk. And such could be built in 10 days by the idled construction workers, much as a functional field hospital can be quickly built by the Armed Forces. There is plenty of rural state and/or county-owned land for such on all islands.
Camping is a permitted activity by special use permit on most agriculturally zoned land, which permission could easily be expedited.
Richard Stancliff
Honolulu
Killing the economy
The United Nations says 9.1 million people die from starvation each year. Another 3.575 million die from unclean drinking water, and 1.25 million people die from automobile accidents each year.
By contrast, so far, the coronavirus has killed 36,000 people worldwide.
Incredible mass death is ever present in this world, but for the most part, most of us ignore or don’t see it. While we focus on trying to hoard toilet paper, death marches on.
In short, we make balanced decisions on life and death. We might not recognize it, but we accept a certain amount of risk in life.
We might say “safety first,” but we really mean “kind of safe” — but not as safe as it would really cost in terms of convenience, resources and time.
Are we going to restrict use of cars? Demand lower speed limits? Donate more to food and clean water charities? Demand our leaders devote more resources to starvation prevention?
When we kill the world economy, the poor, the starving and thirsty will suffer, because they depend on resources that come from healthy economies (welfare, charity, foreign aid, etc.). But, if the world goes into recession, depleted resources are directed elsewhere.
So while some will say that we should prioritize health and safety over the economy, there has to be a balanced judgment, because money saves lives.
Killing the economy kills people.
Leighton Loo
Mililani, Oahu