Recalcitrant teachers, school staff need to mask up
To the unmasked teachers and administrators who decided to take a stand at the many open houses this week: Noted. Families who have put community first for close to a year and a half now got the message. Students who opted for virtual classes, not just for themselves but also to protect you, got the message. The teacher next door got the message.
And let’s be clear — the message we got was not “here’s someone who believes in ‘my body, my choice.’”
We heard a refusal to put forth the most basic effort to protect the students in your care. We heard that you don’t believe in science and don’t really understand how it evolves. We were reminded, after months of self-sacrifice, that you won’t look out for us until forced to. And it’s not a message that we will forget.
SARAH BAKER, ROSWELL
Let’s set aside virus arguments to end COVID-19 nightmare
Shakespeare wrote, “To be or not to be? That is the question -- Whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take to arms against a sea of trouble, and by opposing, end them?”
The last months have proven that arguing over how the virus started, or why so many are unwilling to accept reality, or how to convince the recalcitrant to wear masks and be vaccinated, or about the politicians who seek to satisfy their bases or egos, represents a distraction from ending the COVID-19 nightmare.
The science is crystal clear, and the writing is on the wall: unless we set aside our petty squabbles about ethics and piecemeal actions and act decisively and immediately to mandate and provide universal vaccinations here, and work with the rest of the world to do likewise, a vaccine-resistant variant will emerge somewhere, and our opportunity will have passed.
STEVEN SORSCHER, M.D., WINSTON-SALEM, NC
