Wear your mask to protect other people
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has mandated that everyone wear a face mask when out in public if unable to social distance.
When I walk, I always have a mask with me. I only put it on when I am too close to people.
But I am in the very small minority. Most people walking do not carry masks. So I am protecting you, but you are not giving me the same courtesy. We just walked in Saratoga Spa Park, and both my husband and I had masks.
There were many people out and about, yet I only saw about a few other people with masks.
I know that masks can be uncomfortable, but you only need to wear them when you get too close to someone. Please think of others and carry your mask and use it when necessary.
If everyone follows the guidelines of mask wearing and social distancing, we will be able to open up our cities more rapidly.
Ellen Carpenter
Schenectady
Senior citizens also depend on libraries
Kudos to Carter Dibble for his May 4 comments (“Don’t let covid take away our libraries”) regarding libraries. I’m sure he spoke for many children.
On behalf of the senior community, I would like to second his remarks. For many seniors, reading is a primary activity.
Inability to access books now makes a bad situation even worse.
The folks in Winter Haven, Fla., found a way to maintain library services. I’m sure we can do the same.
Hopefully, the powers that be will revisit this issue and establish procedures that will maintain library services, in some form, for those who depend on reading books as a main source of leisure activity.
Marc Duquette
Glenville
Make effort to learn about mental health
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Our mental well-being is an essential part of our overall wellness.
Mental health exists on a continuum and ranges anywhere from mental wellness to mental illness, where an individual falls on this continuum varies depending on a variety of factors.
Considering mental health from this perspective, we may wonder why it is such a difficult topic to discuss?
The reason is that there is a great deal of stigma attached to mental health. Stigma is defined as “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality or person.”
The truth is that no matter where an individual falls on the continuum of mental health, s/he has strengths, talents, interests and abilities.
Whether a person is mentally healthy or mentally ill, they have feelings, hopes and dreams.
As a society, our discussions regarding mental health need to change from “us versus them” to “we” because we all have mental health, we are affected by the health of others, and true healing is fostered by a compassionate and understanding community.
The Mental Health Association in Fulton and Montgomery Counties (MHAFM) is a non-profit organization that works to end the stigma against mental illness and promotes mental health wellness in Fulton and Montgomery counties.
MHAFM achieves this through education, advocacy, community-based partnership/programming, and by connecting individuals and families to help.
For more information about the programs and services offered by MHAFM, please call (518) 762-5332, visit www.mentalhealthassociation.org, or follow us on Facebook.
Nancy Deumaga
Johnstown
The writer is a community educator with Mental Health Association FMC.
Staying closed also comes with pain
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s logic (based on feeling and fear, not science) assumes that the continued lockdown causes zero deaths.
Studies in London report admissions for chemotherapy have fallen 45-66% and cancer diagnosis referrals are down 70-89%.
The American Academy of Pediatrics finds childhood vaccines dropped by at least 40% since the shutdown.
Boston Medical Center shows pediatric volume down approximately 80%, which absolutely will lead to pertussis and measles outbreaks in a couple months.
Calls to the Disaster Distress Helpline have increased 891% vs. March 2019. Can our governor possibly believe these won’t increase deaths and suicides?
He says the faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost but the more lives lost.
There is no way he knows if that’s true because he has never shown a model that projects the deaths due to staying closed.
And lest you think this is just greed talking, who is screaming the loudest about lack of money? New York state, Albany County, Schenectady County and your local school districts all predict major cuts and massive tax increases.
Be sure to remember that when your tax bills come in the mail.
It is insulting to dismiss reopening as mean and selfish but describe the oppressive disruption of our lives and jobs as pure and lacking any impact, including significant numbers of dead.
Reopen New York now.
Edward Nieters
Burnt Hills
Grateful for info and fun activities in paper
I want to thank The Daily Gazette for all the extra inserts in the paper to help us pass the day, and for the kids’ pages that also gets them interested in the newspaper, the coronavirus information, the full page information and the daily reports.
I am an at-home person and it is very helpful, and I look forward to the daily paper. I am staying at home because of my age. I have groceries delivered from Glenville.
It has been a great worry off my mind to know I have food. Thank you again for all your help. You have a thinking staff.
Shirley Miller
Scotia
Unfortunate events are Cuomo’s fault
Why, when our local news anchors tell us how many state, county, and town employees have been furloughed, do they say that it’s “due to covid-19”?
Why, when they tell us how many businesses have been shut down and may never recover, do they say that it’s “due to covid-19”?
Why, when they tell us how many New Yorkers have had to file for unemployment, and when they show us all of the empty shelves in the markets, do they say that it’s “due to covid-19”?
Whether it is right or wrong to keep everyone home, all of these unfortunate events are not due to covid-19. They are due to Gov. Cuomo’s Draconian mandates.
David Maloney
Niskayuna
May be legit ways to disinfect the lungs
I am responding to Paul Deierlein’s May 2 letter (“Doubting Trump’s medical qualifications.”) Having no medical qualifications President Trump is relying on “experts” to further his knowledge, not only of covid but also of current scientific studies that might be promising to prevent/cure infectious diseases.
Not being a medical professional, he used the term “injecting disinfectant.” The method was wrong, but the concept isn’t.
Recently I developed a habit of listening to a news commentator who has a segment entitled “Medical Cabinet,” medical professionals on the front line of treating covid patients. On May 1, her guest was a physician focusing on scientific research.
His subject: pneumonia, which kills an average of 50,000 patients per year in the United States. Unlike a vaccine, which once injected our immunity system has to adapt to, he wanted our natural innate immune system to respond immediately. He has been successful. Using an inhaler, medication is inhaled. The epithealial cells respond to the medication, producing supraoxide and hydrogen peroxide to disinfect the lungs. Clinical trials begin in the next few weeks and if successful this treatment will be available by the end of this year.
Fran Underhill, BSN
Scotia
Media, Dems learned from Kavanaugh
I’m not positive about this, but I ‘m pretty sure that when a conservative sees or reads about Joe Biden, he immediately starts thinking of words like ‘sexual predator, should be locked up, no one bothers to look into his goings on, no good lousy Bill Clinton wannabe….’ etc.
’m pretty sure they say that and more about Biden.
And I’m pretty sure that conservative is furious with mainstream media and Democrats for not investigating or pressing him as to the truth in this.
But in the conservatives’ haste to convict the media and Democrats, they failed to read where mainstream media said that they have learned their lesson through the embarrassment they suffered from jumping to conclusions and convictions about Kavanaugh when he was being nominated for the Supreme Court.
The Democratic Party chimed in and said they were ashamed of themselves for how they treated Kavanaugh. Both said that they would never do that again and that’s why Joe Biden isn’t being publicly convicted by any of them.
They have learned their lesson.
So, if I’m correct in my thinking, then maybe anyone that feels that way, can take a lesson from mainstream media and the Democrats.
G. V Marmuscak
Schenectady
Americans have been playing it safe
In 1968, America was ravaged by the Hong Kong Flu, killing over 100,000. The response wasn’t to shut down businesses and schools or demand our citizens wear masks in public. Heck, the iconic concert Woodstock, with 600,000 fans crammed together, happened amid that crisis. Why is our response to COVID-19, a catastrophe similar in scope, so draconian?
Back then, our population was much more resilient.
Kids weren’t being raised by helicopter parents. There was a belief that with life comes with a degree of risk. Today, we have given enormous power to experts with no clue about the complexities of the economy. The policies informed by these experts are destroying untold lives.
Academia has been a major influence of this tyranny.
Safe spaces have flourished on college campuses, where students are shielded from differing opinions and language, they may deem offensive.
This notion has been exported to the general population to the point where “safe” trumps all other considerations. The adult question to ask is, “What does it cost?”
Instead, the media focuses on hourly tallies of the virus deaths while our liberties and freedoms are being eroded.
Cultural critic, Heather McDonald coined an apt term for this authoritarian impulse: Safetyism. It’s become the new religion and is more ubiquitous than the virus itself.
William Aiken
Schenectady
Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion
