Foolishness can kill

Gary Potter mocks the “horrors” of two Jackson County COVID-19 patients. Math is an essential life skill, not a lie of the “fake news.” nor a conspiracy of the “liberal elite.”

Allow me to educate him. Left unchecked, COVID-19 infections demonstrate exponential growth. Exponential growth always starts slowly, but doesn’t remain so. Over the last

10 days, the growth of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has grown by 31% per day.

On March 28, Jackson County had seven cases versus the two he mentioned at the time of his letter. This is how exponential growth works. A little high school math shows that, if cases continue to grow at 31% per day, our seven cases will be 46 in a week, 306 in

two weeks, and 2,031 in three weeks.

There are less than 100 ventilators in Jackson County. We need to slow the spread of disease (also called flattening the curve) so that we don’t overwhelm our health care system. Hopefully we will do so and will not see those devastating numbers.

Please listen to the public health authorities who have spent their entire adult lives studying these issues. Lives are at stake. Foolishness can literally kill.

Steven Cannon, M.D.

Medford

Shun them

Sometimes, amid the confusion, moments of clarity arise. Regrettably, the coronavirus pandemic provides us with one such moment.

Trump and his cult followers reject science and try to convince Americans that all is well. He maintains that what the medical experts tell us is wrong. His method is “spin and sell”; never direct and honest. On March 15 he said “Relax, we’re doing great. This all will pass”. We are confronted daily by the evidence that science denial is the path to disaster.

When we look at the small but vocal minority who argue climate science consensus is a myth, we find the same array of individuals. These include birthers, Holocaust deniers, Nazi apologists, chemtrail advocates, flat-Earthers and all manner of conspiracy hoax lunatics who reject science but simultaneously cling to any cockamamie nonsense that comes along and appeals to their weird, contrarian world view.

Those, like Trump, who reject medical science place our nation at immediate risk. Those rejecting climate science place our planet at risk and compromise life for our children and grandchildren. Shun them!

Trisha Vigil

Medford

Be good for nothing

Many of us know people who are hit hard financially by COVID-19.

Here are some things you might consider doing: Pay your hair stylist for the haircut you are not getting; pay your housekeeper for not cleaning your house; tip your favorite bartender or server for not serving you; buy gift certificates from your local restaurants, bars and retail outlets that you will not use until next Christmas. You can do all of this without leaving your home. Be good for nothing!

Jerry Kenefick

Ashland