Editor’s note: This letter is in response to “Can we be done now?”, published Jan. 26, and “Elfers — stop writing about Trump”, published Feb. 4.
First off, Mr. McCoy’s claim that hospitals are not overrun by COVID cases — I’m not sure where he has been living for the last two years, but there’s been an almost constant barrage of hospitals citing instances of having to delay treatment of other patients because there is no room for them due to COVID.
Caregivers are burning out and getting sick because of the constant stress of dealing with hospital overflows.
His claim that hospitals get more money for COVID patients is true, however, I couldn’t find evidence of anywhere near the $37,000 that he claims to be the case; additionally, I found no evidence of fraudulent claims being made by hospitals to boost their income.
And to his statement that we should probably treat COVID as a severe influenza season: The 2009 H1N1 influenza virus was a severe influenza season. The United States alone had 61 million cases. Out of that, there were fewer than 13,000 deaths — that’s what a severe influenza season looks like. Certainly not this, where we are rapidly approaching a million deaths.
His last point of letting individuals decide whether to take any precautions or not: people ignoring safety measures suggested by health care professionals is the main reason this pandemic has continued raging on. There’s little doubt we would’ve been on the downside of this crisis long ago if all of the “What about my freedom?” people thought of their community rather than themselves.
Second, Jon, I’m pretty sure Rich Elfers doesn’t hate anybody, you seem to be upset with him because he just reports the facts about Trump (who is still promoting the lie about the stolen election, which makes it something to write about).
Those “leftie” protests that sometimes turn violent are not attempts to overthrow our duly elected government, which the violent protest in our Capitol clearly was, but attempts to call attention to societal inequalities.
Finally, you frame Obama as the worst president; let’s take a look at that claim. Nixon resigned because of the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover up. Reagan faced no consequences for the Iran/Contra affair, busted the air traffic controllers union which started corporations doing the same thing (which has been devastating to our country’s’ work force) and started “Trickle Down Economics”, which has only resulted in the rich getting insanely richer and the stagnation of wages for our work force. Bush I substantially raised the national debt, just like every other Republican president since Eisenhower. Bush II started two unfunded wars and threw our country into the worst recession since the Great Depression.
So, Jon, if you could provide details of why you consider “Obama” the worst president ever, I’m sure we would all love to read them, but you have always been short on facts and long on opinion, so I won’t hold my breath.
Oh, and I guess you haven’t noticed but the paper has two guest columnists who share your skewed view of our world. Just sayin’.
Larry Benson
Enumclaw
