Your Views for August 22

Decreasing the odds

The hope and dream of a COVID-19 vaccine became reality, but because it was developed “too quickly” (it wasn’t), not “tested enough” (it was) or people “don’t trust science” (!), there are those who refuse this breakthrough treatment, endangering themselves by refusing to lessen their chance of severe disease.

Since vaccinated people can still harbor and spread the virus even though they may be asymptomatic, the vaccine is pretty cheap insurance to help avoid hospitalization.

Medical advice (and common sense) shows that mask-wearing helps protect against transmission, keeping rampant spread from happening, which would obviously also avoid straining our hospitals as well as endangering our more vulnerable neighbors.

However, it seems to me that this COVID strain is here to stay, and we’ll be adjusting our lifestyle to cope with it for years to come, especially with the anti-vax/mask nonsense helping the spread.

Closing down travel, beaches, businesses and events isn’t the answer, and is certainly unsustainable. Its spread is pretty much inevitable, but we can at least decrease the odds of needing critical medical care.

We’re all fighting the same enemy and only intelligent, applied measures, practiced by every member of the community, can help us get the upper hand in this pandemic. It’s just too bad common sense, consideration and cooperation seem in such short supply these days.

Mary Serion

Ainaloa

Pretravel testing

Mayor Mitch Roth’s suggestion to Gov. Ige to resume pretravel testing with negative test results within 72 hours of travel to Hawaii makes perfect sense.

The COVID-19 numbers correlate almost exactly to the lifting of the tests, with only a valid proof of vaccination in the U.S.

The testing requirement was lifted on July 8. In the week ending July 3, the weekly cases on Hawaii Island were at 41, with an adjusted rate per 100,000 residents of 2.9 cases per day. On the week ending July 10, the weekly rate was 59, with an average of 4.2 per day. Here’s where the pretravel testing restriction ended.

In the following week ending July 17, the weekly rate went up to 99, with a daily average of 7.1. The following week, ending July 24, the cases almost doubled to 193 a week, with a daily average of 13.7.

The following week it grew to 398 and a daily average of 28.3. The week ending Aug. 7, it almost doubled again to 621 and a daily average of 44.1. The week ending Aug. 14 it was up to 739, with a daily average of 52.2 per 100,000.

Currently, we have vaccinated people on crowded flights to Hawaii — all potential carriers of the more deadly Delta variant.

Thanks, Mitch, for reaching out.

Steve Hirakami

Kalapana

The ‘control group’

Dear unvaccinated: If you think you are avoiding being part of this pandemic experiment … you are not.

There are two groups here. The first group are the vaccinated. The second group are the unvaccinated.

There is a name for this second group. We call you the “control group.”

The control group is very important. By seeing how many in the control group end up in the hospital, or dying, we can determine how effective the vaccines are.

Thank you for your commitment to science!

However, the data is in. We know how effective the vaccines are (very).

Go get your vaccine now! The experiment is over. The data is in.

David Cook

Keaau