We must keep sounding the truth about virus
The continuing editorials and top of the front-page notices of the grim statistics in Georgia seem to make little difference. It is hard to understand why anyone would want to be a member of the “Friends of COVID” group, but there it is.
It is certainly not a question of “freedom” because freedom does not mean license.
I do not have the “right” or the “liberty” or the “freedom” to endanger my fellow human being. What has happened to us? It is not enough to lament the current situation in Georgia or the Southeast or areas where the Friends of COVID appear to sway. We have to keep sounding the truth about this virus.
I do not want even to think about the next variant, but at the rate we are going -- with the delta variant upending the hope we began to feel with the arrival of a vaccine -- it is looking as if I am going to have to.
ALIDA C. SILVERMAN, ATLANTA
Social influences, not mandates, will do more to sway unvaccinated
Re: “State needs to do more to fight COVID-19″ (Editorial, Sept. 26). The governor’s stance on mask and vaccine mandates is prudent. A vaccine mandate from the state may decrease our vaccination rates. Mandates elicit a response wherein people line up along the left and right of the issue, and those polarized against the mandated measure will refuse it on political grounds. We have seen this elsewhere.
Additionally, accurate information about the vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants to read it. The CDC, the health department, every major pharmacy brand, and every major newspaper have published accurate vaccine and mask information that’s accessible to the public. Masks are cheap. The vaccine is free and available in every county. Social influence from family, friends, local businesses, and employers have done more to get the unwilling to get vaccinated than anything else, as I have witnessed in my family, among which I was the first to get vaccinated.
ROBERT MCDANIEL, TYRONE
