‘Achievable goal’
Hawaii Island has no active cases of COVID-19 reported at this time. This does not mean there are no active cases, though, so be patient.
Here in the islands, we have the luxury of controlling who comes into our state, and this gives us the opportunity to completely rid our state of the virus. Once this is done, we can go back to business as usual sans masks and social distancing. A COVID-19-free state would be a multibillion-dollar asset.
In a COVID-19-free state, we could open our schools and universities and have all businesses at full capacity. We can once again have live concerts and the Merrie Monarch Festival. We could have more interisland travel.
If we implement supervised quarantining for all out-of-state arrivals, we can have our tourist industry operating at a premium.
If we open up too early for economic reasons, we will only have more outbreaks that will impede economic recovery. If we are patient, we can affect our economy much faster.
A COVID-19-free Hawaii is an achievable goal that will yield many times the return of investment.
Jody Fulford
Hilo
Distancing works
Specifically to Vicki Vierra from Keaau (Your Views, May 13): Social distancing is why kids with measles, chicken pox, mumps and head lice are sent home from school until they are cured.
It’s why pregnant women avoid kids with spots, in case they have German measles, in order to protect their unborn baby.
It’s why people in the Middle Ages didn’t take Black Plague victims into their homes to nurse them.
It’s why people fled to a country home when any contagious disease swept through a city.
Turn off Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Think for yourself.
Sue Bennett
Hilo
Revising capitalism
There is nothing fundamental to capitalism which requires that it exploit any of us or do permanent damage to our planet, but now it is doing both.
Disruption of world trade and corporate globalization by this coronavirus epidemic had begun a forced move-out of the current version of capitalism, which for a few hundred years has depended upon colonialism and neo-colonialism. Can capitalism become egalitarian and achieve universal parity with the same ratio of work vs. reward for all participants?
If not, what system could? Does it exist? Is it practiced anywhere? Has it ever been practiced anywhere (as implied in the book “The Chalice and the Blade”)?
Does it/did it allow/inspire free flow of societal and spiritual evolution?
Is a complete humanitarian revision of capitalism — or failing that, the invention or reinvention and implementation of a better system — now to be our quest, our hero’s journey?
Russell J. Down
Pahala