From: Cynthia McMillin, Columbus; Karen Jones, Columbus; Jane Westermeier, Carmel; Betsy Siegmann, Columbus.
We were deeply disturbed by the July 9 letter writer who callously referred to the current pandemic as "the chicken little virus." Families all over the world are grieving because of the suffering and death this disease has caused. It should hardly be dismissed so flippantly.
Suppose the U.S. had endured a series of horrific terrorist attacks for the past six months, during which 135,000-plus Americans had died. Further, imagine a president who blithely dismissed 99% of those attacks as harmless. We would be terrified by the attacks and outraged by the dismissal.
Most Americans remember the days and months following 9/11—the fear, the determination to do anything and everything to keep ourselves and everyone we cared about safe. The virus ravaging our country has been far more deadly than our most deadly terrorist attack.
In the face of this new and complicated virus, we must choose the experts we trust. We will never be persuaded by a vaguely referenced study. Nor can we rely on herd immunity; Sweden tried that and it hasn’t gone well. And we won’t trust politicians of either party; the disease doesn’t care whether we’re Republicans or Democrats.
We will continue to listen to the epidemiologists who have spent decades studying disease, to the exhausted doctors and nurses putting their own lives on the line trying to save others, to patients who have suffered and recovered, and to grief-stricken families who have lost loved ones. Their message is simple: Take this disease seriously and do everything in your power to keep yourself and your community safe.
