‘Protect the keiki’
Regarding Colleen Otani’s opinion about vaccination (Your Views, June 27) that she has seen “absolutely no benefits from having done so”: Perhaps she might consider that her risk of contracting COVID-19 is greatly diminished, and if she did become infected, the symptoms would be less severe and chances of dying from the virus almost nil.
And kudos to Dr. Lynda Dolan, whose editorial comments the same day, in support of vaccination, stated that adolescents are now 25% of all reported COVID cases. This addresses Ms. Otani’s complaint that vaccinated persons should not have to curtail activities because community members under 12 years of age have not been vaccinated.
If we truly care about the children in our community, all of us should be willing to handle some inconvenience and delayed gratification in order to protect the keiki.
Ricia Shema
Volcano
Regarding monkeys
Kenneth Beilstein (Your Views, June 25) doesn’t see why it is morally wrong to keep intelligent and sensitive beings in chains and “pay” them only in daily food, and so he is a fine example of why slavery existed for so long and still exists: “They don’t matter.”
The chains are so the monkeys don’t run away from a life of forced, boring labor.
Carl Oguss
Hilo
Hydrogen vehicles
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles only need “peak power batteries,” which are much smaller than those required by fully electric cars.
The news media could do a better job of keeping us informed of new technologies on the horizon or already here.
Hydrogen fuel cell buses are being tested on the Big Island, while the state already has committed to this technology for future transportation.
Hawaii is fortunate to have a super abundance of solar energy, and anyone who has ever charged a solar device soon realizes how little of it we actually use.
Using batteries to store this energy is inefficient and costly, and those who profit from it will always hinder the development of more efficient and less costly methods.
Diane Lum-King
Honomu