To the Editor:
I’d like to respond to the letter of Dr. Robert J. McCallum in last week’s PCC.
Dr. McCallum is a physician, I presume, which is why he says that “we desperately need to be guided by the best science.” He insists that protesters should stop protesting because of their “support for actions which are harming and killing many millions of Americans.”
Scientific fact: as of today, 1,484,285 cases of COVID 19 have occurred in the USA. Not “millions.” Scientific fact: 88,507 have died. Where are the “tens of millions” that Dr. McCallum tells us that I and other patriotic Americas are supposedly sacrificing so that we can get a “manicure, go bowling or go buy a gun,” which is (according to Dr. McCallum) our motivation in demonstrating to open the country.
Dr. McCallum assumes (unscientifically, because he has no scientific proof) that “right-wing provocateurs are clearly behind these demonstrations.” He doesn’t know that. He can’t prove that.
I am afraid that Dr. McCallum and many others have been terrified by the misinformation spread by fake news media which has failed to inform them of the facts: that the current science says that COVID 19 is a disease that 95 percent or more of the population has nothing to fear.
CDC’s own statistics tell us the “crude death rate for all causes” is currently running below average! cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm Annualized rate is about 2,677,800
Is it possible that shutting down the economy has resulted in saving people’s lives because they are not going out? Maybe. However has suicide increased? Drug addiction? Alcoholism? Domestic violence and child abuse? What about all the many small businesses which have been destroyed along with the life savings their owners? How many jobs will never come back? I don’t know the answers. But I do have faith in my fellow Americans to find solutions. They don’t need a “Big Brother nanny state” telling them what they can and cannot do. I lived nearly 40 years overseas. Some of them under dictatorships. I appreciate the value of freedom.
In my opinion, it was poor judgment to publish this letter from a very ill person whose disease clouded his judgment. The letter does not bring us together and does not shed additional light on our current situation.
Dr. Regis Hanna
Milford, Pa.