COVID-19 PANDEMIC JOURNAL #9 OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE RHODE ISLAND HEALTH DEPT
Title
COVID-19 PANDEMIC JOURNAL #9 OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE RHODE ISLAND HEALTH DEPT
Description
This letter to the RI Governor and the RI Health Dept., while quite personal, reflects many of the current realities and concerns related to the Corona pandemic, primarily the situation for seniors. Of the 900 Corona deaths in Rhode Island to date, nearly 850 of them were seniors over the age of 60. That's ninety-three percent of the deaths from Covid-19!
Creator
Lfj Gill
Language
English
Text
COVID-19 PANDEMIC JOURNAL #9
OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE RHODE ISLAND HEALTH DEPT
I would appreciate receiving specific answers to the following concerns, as I have both written and called about the issue of senior housing and health care workers coming into the buildings and the apartments. Thus far, although I continue to listen to the governor and the doctor at every briefing, I have heard no mention about this specific concern. I am a senior with underlying medical conditions. I am increasingly concerned, as everyone in this apartment complex is over 60, most in their 70s and 80s, many with underlying conditions.
I do appreciate the intensely committed efforts of the governor and her team, and of Dr. Alexander-Scott and the Health Department’s team, in dealing with this deadly virus and with the public. They have been patient, informative, honest, and thoroughly professional in addressing the people of RI, while doing all they can to serve all sectors of the population—kids and school, nursing homes and assisted living, employers, employees, etc.
However, not to voice my concerns at this point would be negligent on my part, even though I would rather simply be doing my own work.
In addition to my above concern re senior housing, I have another critical concern: the increasing noncompliance of others which is literally threatening my life—along with the lives of many, many others.
Per your recent briefing, Governor, your “anger” is not going to deter the types of people who don’t give a damn. Neither is mine. The only thing that reaches these selfish types is enforcement, unfortunately. They are also not the type to be sitting here listening to you saying, “follow the rules,” or saying anything else, frankly. They are listening only to themselves. Unfortunately also, I fully realize you have had to work in the context of Trump’s shameful lack of leadership and reckless approach to the pandemic, which continues even as the cases and deaths are now surging.
I, too, am angry, furious—increasingly so, on the few occasions I venture out for food and supplies.When I can, I use pick-up services, but can’t always. Every time I go into a retail store, I run into the few I-could-care-less people waltzing into the store with no mask on or in hand, stores with clear signs saying masks must be worn. And then there are the much more numerous instances of people with face coverings leaving their noses uncovered, some even half off their mouths—a Job Lot employee told me recently he sees “about twenty a day” of these nose-exposed types. PLEASE hammer home the right way to wear a mask and the reason for doing it.
In a local Stop and Shop last week I spoke to the day manager about a young woman with her young son who were tooling around the store with no mask on either of them—not only potentially exposing others but also teaching her boy the kind of disrespect she herself was displaying. The manager said that her “understanding from the governor” is that she can “suggest, but not withhold services” to anyone for not wearing a mask.
WHAT?!? No business would dream of allowing shirtless or shoeless customers into their stores—and being without a shirt or shoes does not pose a deadly threat. But to ask noncompliant people to leave the store in the face of a deadly pandemic is, what—not politically correct?
I saw the recent photo of at least nine police officers congregating closely together at the Columbus statue site, laughing and smiling, not one with a face covering. Wow. If even the police are going to practice (and model) noncompliance—who will we get to do any enforcement, when and if you put some teeth into the “mandates” or “rules”?
Whether people bother to understand what this virus is and how it sickens and kills or not, they will readily understand a FINE for exposing others to their “droplets” by entering into stores and facilities without proper protection for everyone there.
At age 74, with an underlying condition, I stay at home in my apartment as much as possible, but I do not feel safe even here in my home. Here, there are several residents who do not wear face coverings, who regularly sit quite close to one another in the common areas (e.g., the smoking area outside, the lobby-and-mail-box area, and the corridors everyone must use to get to the mail, the trash chute, and the laundry rooms) such that others who have to get to these common areas must pass right in front of them. Management knows this, and has supplied masks to everyone, but “has no jurisdiction” over the noncompliant.
Moreover, there are workers who come in and out of the building, including close-contact home health aides and homemakers, many of whom service several different such housing complexes every week. They assist individual elders in their apartments with showers, dressing, making meals, cleaning, etc. They might serve as many as five different elderly, frail persons in five different senior housing complexes per week. As well, people routinely go to the hospital from here and return, providing yet another possible means of carrying the virus into the building. In turn, the workers themselves are at risk.
What am I asking for? Law and enforcement. This is a deadly virus, not a political football. Change the discourse. Less talk about “the rules”—which only pits the obdurate against you—“Who is she to tell me what to do?”—more talk about the realities of the sickness and deaths in isolation, and that the only thing that works is to prevent the virus getting from one person to another. Face coverings, distancing and avoiding crowds has been shown beyond doubt to effectively stop the spread, as you have been saying. Now this point needs to be driven home, both in the discourse and in accompanying law (not “encouragement,” not “suggestions”), and fortified with enforcement and stiff fine. We are dealing with life and death, not some social-political issue!
Ask the noncompliant—“Are you going to wait until your mother or father dies in front of you (at a distance, when you cannot hold their hand or say goodbye)? Or until you yourself go through the illness, before you take it seriously?”
Many will decide, “YES, I am going to wait, and in the process endanger everyone else,” and are already clearly doing so. Therefore, to not have a law in place to protect the rest of us is irresponsible on the part of our government—not just the governor but the State Government as a whole (given that there is no hope of the Federal government doing what it should be doing)—especially at this point, when the WHO, CDC, and the rest of the health experts are shouting that the virus is surging—not “fading” but surging!— around the world. What in God’s name does it take?
As a citizen, whose life is very definitely threatened by this pandemic—along with thousands of other elders—I hold my government accountable for failing to protect me and my neighbors with all the resources at their command. I can’t help but wonder why the case figure for my rural town has remained the same for many weeks now—whether that is because insufficient testing has been/is being done here—in this and other rural areas as well—or whether it is a true picture and we are just sitting ducks here waiting for the virus to make its way to the countryside.
Thank you for your consideration in these concerns. And thank you for your continuing hard work in a most inhospitable situation.
Sincerely,
etc.
OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE RHODE ISLAND HEALTH DEPT
I would appreciate receiving specific answers to the following concerns, as I have both written and called about the issue of senior housing and health care workers coming into the buildings and the apartments. Thus far, although I continue to listen to the governor and the doctor at every briefing, I have heard no mention about this specific concern. I am a senior with underlying medical conditions. I am increasingly concerned, as everyone in this apartment complex is over 60, most in their 70s and 80s, many with underlying conditions.
I do appreciate the intensely committed efforts of the governor and her team, and of Dr. Alexander-Scott and the Health Department’s team, in dealing with this deadly virus and with the public. They have been patient, informative, honest, and thoroughly professional in addressing the people of RI, while doing all they can to serve all sectors of the population—kids and school, nursing homes and assisted living, employers, employees, etc.
However, not to voice my concerns at this point would be negligent on my part, even though I would rather simply be doing my own work.
In addition to my above concern re senior housing, I have another critical concern: the increasing noncompliance of others which is literally threatening my life—along with the lives of many, many others.
Per your recent briefing, Governor, your “anger” is not going to deter the types of people who don’t give a damn. Neither is mine. The only thing that reaches these selfish types is enforcement, unfortunately. They are also not the type to be sitting here listening to you saying, “follow the rules,” or saying anything else, frankly. They are listening only to themselves. Unfortunately also, I fully realize you have had to work in the context of Trump’s shameful lack of leadership and reckless approach to the pandemic, which continues even as the cases and deaths are now surging.
I, too, am angry, furious—increasingly so, on the few occasions I venture out for food and supplies.When I can, I use pick-up services, but can’t always. Every time I go into a retail store, I run into the few I-could-care-less people waltzing into the store with no mask on or in hand, stores with clear signs saying masks must be worn. And then there are the much more numerous instances of people with face coverings leaving their noses uncovered, some even half off their mouths—a Job Lot employee told me recently he sees “about twenty a day” of these nose-exposed types. PLEASE hammer home the right way to wear a mask and the reason for doing it.
In a local Stop and Shop last week I spoke to the day manager about a young woman with her young son who were tooling around the store with no mask on either of them—not only potentially exposing others but also teaching her boy the kind of disrespect she herself was displaying. The manager said that her “understanding from the governor” is that she can “suggest, but not withhold services” to anyone for not wearing a mask.
WHAT?!? No business would dream of allowing shirtless or shoeless customers into their stores—and being without a shirt or shoes does not pose a deadly threat. But to ask noncompliant people to leave the store in the face of a deadly pandemic is, what—not politically correct?
I saw the recent photo of at least nine police officers congregating closely together at the Columbus statue site, laughing and smiling, not one with a face covering. Wow. If even the police are going to practice (and model) noncompliance—who will we get to do any enforcement, when and if you put some teeth into the “mandates” or “rules”?
Whether people bother to understand what this virus is and how it sickens and kills or not, they will readily understand a FINE for exposing others to their “droplets” by entering into stores and facilities without proper protection for everyone there.
At age 74, with an underlying condition, I stay at home in my apartment as much as possible, but I do not feel safe even here in my home. Here, there are several residents who do not wear face coverings, who regularly sit quite close to one another in the common areas (e.g., the smoking area outside, the lobby-and-mail-box area, and the corridors everyone must use to get to the mail, the trash chute, and the laundry rooms) such that others who have to get to these common areas must pass right in front of them. Management knows this, and has supplied masks to everyone, but “has no jurisdiction” over the noncompliant.
Moreover, there are workers who come in and out of the building, including close-contact home health aides and homemakers, many of whom service several different such housing complexes every week. They assist individual elders in their apartments with showers, dressing, making meals, cleaning, etc. They might serve as many as five different elderly, frail persons in five different senior housing complexes per week. As well, people routinely go to the hospital from here and return, providing yet another possible means of carrying the virus into the building. In turn, the workers themselves are at risk.
What am I asking for? Law and enforcement. This is a deadly virus, not a political football. Change the discourse. Less talk about “the rules”—which only pits the obdurate against you—“Who is she to tell me what to do?”—more talk about the realities of the sickness and deaths in isolation, and that the only thing that works is to prevent the virus getting from one person to another. Face coverings, distancing and avoiding crowds has been shown beyond doubt to effectively stop the spread, as you have been saying. Now this point needs to be driven home, both in the discourse and in accompanying law (not “encouragement,” not “suggestions”), and fortified with enforcement and stiff fine. We are dealing with life and death, not some social-political issue!
Ask the noncompliant—“Are you going to wait until your mother or father dies in front of you (at a distance, when you cannot hold their hand or say goodbye)? Or until you yourself go through the illness, before you take it seriously?”
Many will decide, “YES, I am going to wait, and in the process endanger everyone else,” and are already clearly doing so. Therefore, to not have a law in place to protect the rest of us is irresponsible on the part of our government—not just the governor but the State Government as a whole (given that there is no hope of the Federal government doing what it should be doing)—especially at this point, when the WHO, CDC, and the rest of the health experts are shouting that the virus is surging—not “fading” but surging!— around the world. What in God’s name does it take?
As a citizen, whose life is very definitely threatened by this pandemic—along with thousands of other elders—I hold my government accountable for failing to protect me and my neighbors with all the resources at their command. I can’t help but wonder why the case figure for my rural town has remained the same for many weeks now—whether that is because insufficient testing has been/is being done here—in this and other rural areas as well—or whether it is a true picture and we are just sitting ducks here waiting for the virus to make its way to the countryside.
Thank you for your consideration in these concerns. And thank you for your continuing hard work in a most inhospitable situation.
Sincerely,
etc.
Date
June 25, 2020
Location
RI
Collection
Citation
Lfj Gill, “COVID-19 PANDEMIC JOURNAL #9 OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE RHODE ISLAND HEALTH DEPT,” Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive, accessed July 7, 2024, https://ricovidarchive.org/index.php/items/show/1048.
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