Dear Editor,
One of my dearest writer friends in life passed away early in the pandemic. She lived in an upscale senior community that provides care on every level. I wonder which worker or health provider may have carried Covid to her locked room? Everyone was restricted to remain in their apartment or room. Might it have been the dishwasher or cook, doctor, nurse, or house cleaner? All it took was one individual who let down their mask before vaccines were available.
During the night I couldn’t stop thinking about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and wondering how its laws might protect us from our worst enemy—which is our selves. When is one’s freedom to not take precautions protecting fellow citizens an infringement on their rights? Is not the endangerment of compatriots and community (whether reckless or wanton) a crime against humanity?
It seems an abuse of civil rights when an individual puts others at risk in pursuit of their personal freedom, regardless of ignorance or lack of bad intention. Does not our right to life, health, and protection trump someone’s preference in this case?
Why have so many lives been lost to Covid and continue to be lost now to the Delta variant in spite of vaccines that are shown to protect us—due to lack of concern for the whole—the whole family, workplace, society, and world?
I doth protest the loss of my friend, danger to my grandchildren, and feeling unsafe wherever the unvaccinated are. I doth protest the state of Florida— the state where we live over half the year—where nearly half are still unvaccinated, not counting visitors from near and far. Florida’s Delta count is the highest in the nation.
I doth protest—I am afraid to return.
Thanks to my dad who built his dream lodge high in the Green Mountains of Vermont, I live here every summer and fall. I feel safe and secure in the safest state from Covid and the Delta variant where 86.3% of the population has been vaccinated. But even up here, with the states’ highest vaccination rate, people take precautions and remain aware. It’s enough to convince me to brave winter weather and abandon the Sunshine State that abandoned us all.
What will it take to wake people up to the reality of a worldwide pandemic and the role their (in)actions play? A lack of concern, hesitation, unawareness, and blatant refusal have cost and continue to cost precious lives—including the lives of health care workers who sacrifice all to save us from ourselves.
How many more lives will be lost?
Marguerite Jill Dye,
Killington and Florida
