Medical problems are best solved by medical guidance and practices; medical problems are seldom solved by political posturing. Political posturing does not heal; it creates deeper hurts and social damages.
Watching news stories, reading Trib stories and letters to the editors, or driving by some local schools allows us to witness the growing rifts that result from making a medical problem into a political issue — the gains are few and the losses many.
I understand the fervor of those who rail against the governor’s mandate; I respect their right to express such views. But I have a few concerns about how they are going about their expressing — disrupting school board business meetings differs from carrying a sign or poster in a peaceful demonstration. Calling public officials cowards or (from the anonymity of a crowd) flat out threatening that “there will be blood” takes the whole business in an unsavory, nonproductive direction.
In the story “Hempfield parents ask school board members to join their fight against mask mandate” (Sept. 13, TribLIVE), one student was quoted as saying he did not want to be told what to do, an endgame position. Last year, when schools reopened in a hybrid model, there were few objections to wearing masks because masks and vaccines were the medical solutions that started to diminish the surge and bring down infection numbers.
Today is really not that different — we are in a resurge, driven by variants. The identifiable solutions are vaccination, wearing of masks indoors and cooperation in uniting against covid and not berating and being angry with others.
Collin T. Wansor
Hempfield