Readers Write: COVID-19 response, democracy versus autocracy, political double standards

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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As a licensed clinical nurse specialist who earned my graduate degree in nursing instead of law, it would be foolish of me to expound publicly about the law or legal matters. Kevin Roche, in his March 27 counterpoint about Minnesota’s pandemic response, writes without adequate medical understanding, perhaps because his graduate degrees are in law and business administration, not a health care field (“Counterpoint: A perspective different from Jan Malcolm’s on Minnesota’s COVID-19 response”). His rant deriding the attempts of Minnesota authorities to keep us alive during the COVID pandemic is cringeworthy in its biased and poorly-reasoned assumptions.

To name just one of many, he is simply wrong to state that “respiratory-virus vaccines have notoriously weak effectiveness.” Measles, mumps and rubella are all caused by respiratory viruses, which rarely sicken vaccinated people but are sometimes fatal without that safeguard. The way vaccines work is by getting revaccinated periodically through one’s life. Flu vaccines received yearly will usually cut your chance of getting influenza (another respiratory virus) by about half, and are very protective against critical illness or death. That is how COVID vaccines work too, but I must remind Roche that they were not available for the general population until after the pandemic had already killed around 350,000 Americans.

Only thanks to masking, social distancing and vaccinations was Minnesota’s final death toll from five years of COVID kept to about 16,700 instead of the early projections of 50,000. In 2020 nobody knew if these measures would save lives, but we had to try. I lost my co-grandma to this awful virus in early 2020; it’s permanent for me and the grandchild we both loved. Should Minnesota not have been afraid of a virus that has so far killed more than 7 million people worldwide? Roche’s counterpoint is full of unscientific statements and accusations, a partisan tirade typical of someone who aims to provoke discord rather than improve public health.

Christine Lewis, Minneapolis

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What is often missed, and what Roche failed to acknowledge in his opinion piece, is what was happening in the hospitals during the worst days of the COVID pandemic. Schools and businesses were closed to lessen the number of cases so hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed beyond their ability to care for not only COVID patients, but for all. Elective surgeries had already been canceled. Entire units had been repurposed to care for COVID cases and, in fact, an entire hospital, Bethesda, in St. Paul was converted to care only for COVID patients. Yet, case counts continued to rise and threaten capacity, and ventilators were in short supply. There was suffering on all counts during the worst of the pandemic, but at the time, no treatment known to be effective, and no vaccine to lessen its spread.

It’s easy to look in the rearview mirror and place blame on those who had to make hard decisions to protect our public health care system from collapse. But, ask any nurse or physician who had to work in the ICU or the COVID units during this time, and I’m sure they would agree that Malcolm and the folks who made those decisions knew what they were about. It would be really nice if they stopped being beat up for it.

Patricia Arneson, Wayzata

The writer is a retired registered nurse.

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Where does Roche get the information that the U.S. “never engaged in mandated widespread lockdowns or school closures, social distancing, masking or other measures forced upon the public”? The first link I clicked on regarding this turned up a report from the National Library of Medicine describing how exactly these measures were employed in the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. Also, please cite source of “almost every Minnesotan was ultimately infected.” The population of Minnesota is about 5.8 million. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, as of March 27, there have been a bit fewer than 2 million cases. This includes reinfections, so the number of individuals infected is lower. That is nowhere near “nearly every Minnesotan.” Perhaps Roche doesn’t believe these respected sources of information, or perhaps he didn’t choose to look at them. In any case, his “information” is patently false.

Deborah Jewett, Minneapolis

We spent 13 years seminary teaching in Africa, living much of that time either next door to or under a dictatorship, ample time to observe how these autocracies emerged from failed attempts at egalitarian governments. Before the 2016 elections, we had moved back to the U.S. and watched with dread a candidate posing as a super savior from “them” (meaning whatever you don’t like about your country right now) bashing the press, bashing the courts — standard moves for would-be dictators. It didn’t help my anxiety that I happened to be reading Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America.” The parallels frightened me. Back then I was predicting that President Donald Trump’s first action, if he won, would be to repeal the 22nd Amendment, a doable step toward the president-for-life status beloved by autocrats. I was wrong about that; the stars, or his ducks, didn’t align for him in his first term. But the front-page March 26 headline, about executive action to “overhaul nation’s elections,” tells me my prediction looks right this time around (“Trump pushes big voting changes”). He’s on his way toward fulfilling an election promise that we’d never have to vote again. 22nd Amendment, and America, watch out!

Mary C. Preus, Minneapolis

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Remember how Trump said that we wouldn’t need elections anymore if he won last November? His executive action to “overhaul nation’s elections” is the start. If we want to know how this ends, check out “Lukashenko is sworn in to his 7th term” on Page A3 of the same day’s paper, which describes how he ran virtually unopposed, the arrests and beatings of protesters and the forced closing and outlawing of independent media and nongovernmental organizations. This is the road we are already on and will stay on if our legislative and judicial branches continue to voluntarily cede power and oversight to the executive branch. My fellow citizens must be seeing this. The midterm elections can’t come soon enough.

Laura Fingerson, Minneapolis

Where was all the angst, from the media and letter writers, four years ago when then-President Joe Biden’s intelligence and defense appointees made numerous mistakes that led to the deaths of 13 American service people and more than 170 Afghan civilians and left thousands of Americans and allies stranded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan? [Opinion editor’s note: See “A tragic, shameful mess,” Readers Write, Aug. 17, 2021.] The media ignored the massive failure and Biden’s administration called the terrible fiasco an “extraordinary success.”

Now the Trump administration made a communication error (which it acknowledged and vowed to correct), during the execution of a mission that was 100% successful and in which no service people were killed or even injured. The media and Democrats have a breakdown and go into full embracement of “Trump derangement syndrome.” (FYI, according to a friend of mine who is a retired general, the text did not contain war planning information and was simply a status update that contained no classified information.)

I appreciate the transparency of this administration and the willingness to admit mistakes and take responsibility. Many Americans apparently feel the same way as Trump’s approval ratings are the highest they have ever been, and more registered voters see the U.S. as heading in the right direction than at any point since early 2004. I also appreciate the continued left-wing bias of legacy media. The majority of Americans realize this bias and understand that the media is giving them opinion-based discourse and not factual information. Conservatives will continue to win elections because of this bias.

Bob Tumilson, Apple Valley