Kudos to vaccination team
Kudos to the Gritman COVID vaccination team. What a great experience we had while receiving our shots. The organization and coordination of the group was amazing. The number of people they were able to service in a short time was incredible, all the while making everyone feel comfortable. There may be problems in other parts of the country with these procedures but our local hospital had obviously spent a great deal of time planning their operation and it was evident. Thank you Gritman and everyone involved. Our community is so fortunate to have you. We’ll be back for our second vaccination later this month.
Howard and Jan Peavy
Moscow
The big hoax
Wow. A presidential candidate who, I believe, has dementia has been elected. This country has depreciated so much. People are more concerned with manners and protecting the political party interests than protecting the Constitution and rights that make this country unique and great.
I believe Biden is cardboard cutout window dressing for a cabal that has run the Biden campaign and now the presidency. All along, the permanent government employees and law enforcement branches’ top level administrators have resisted the Trump administration’s attempts to run his presidency.
Why would Biden agree to being a stooge for this ruse on the American people? Probably due to his family’s long and deep financial illegal activity with special interests — China in particular. Politicians are the problem. Unfortunately, many congressional politicians are so invested in donations and personal financial gain at the country’s expense. Term limits will help remove this cancer in America.
After the cabal gets all the policy changes to align with Obama’s blueprint to “fundamentally change this country,” Biden will resign due to claimed recent dementia. The country will then have a president that had only 2 percent Democrat party support in the primary. President Harris will continue to push the cabal’s agenda. Any attempt to challenge the policies will be met with charges of racism and sexism.
In the end, these policies will create ballooning debt, government regulations, and an increase in taxes on the middle class. The open borders policy will assure millions of new Democrat voters to help secure future election victories, but will increase unemployment, social and financial problems. The foreign policies will benefit our adversaries and reduce U.S. competitiveness in the world and propel the U.S. down a road of historical decline. Our children and grandchildren will have our enormous debt to finance resulting in a lower standard of living.
Dan Worsham
Moscow
Simpson’s bold framework
Rep. Mike Simpson has developed a bold framework for “reimagining the Northwest energy landscape and recovering critically endangered salmon.” It calls for removing the four Lower Snake River dams. One knee-jerking politician called Simpson a “traitor,” demanded his resignation, and shrieked the plan will “destroy Idaho!” He didn’t read it. Give Simpson’s Energy and Salmon Concept the reading it deserves.
Benefits the dams provide can be replaced. $17 billion has been spent on Columbia Basin fish mitigation. Yet more salmon species are listed as threatened or endangered today than in 1980, including all of Idaho’s wild salmon species. The salmon cannot be replaced
One problem is too many obstacles along their up-to-900-mile swim from ocean to spawning bed. Salmon need a smolt-to-adult return ratio (SAR) of 4 percent to achieve recovery. With eight dams to go through (four on the Columbia, four on the Snake), Idaho’s wild salmon SAR is .84 percent. This is a road to extinction.
Another problem is warm water. The Lower Snake, once free-flowing and cold, is now a string of reservoirs and dams. Only 16-20 percent of migrating Snake Basin juvenile salmon reach the ocean, which is increasingly warm and acidic. Forget about snowpack cooling the rivers. Average annual snowpack in north Idaho is expected to drop 72 percent by the 2090s.
Fossil-fuel-based energy must be replaced with renewable, sustainable energy. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR763) is a great place to start. Supported by economists and politicians across the political spectrum, it will quickly reduce carbon emissions and encourage efficiency and new energy technologies. There is no more “status quo.” We need to act quickly and urge our members of Congress to support the Simpson plan and other legislation that addresses the climate crisis.
Diana Armstrong
Moscow
Vaccination process laudable
Hats off to Gritman for conducting a Covid Vaccine Clinic at the UI Student Recreation Center. It was efficient, well organized, and the friendly staff were so professional. I had an 11 a.m. appointment and was greeted immediately, given the paperwork to fill out which was short and simple. As soon as I was done with that, a staffer collected it and took me to the next station. They scanned my insurance card, and escorted me to a nurse who administered the vaccine painlessly. I had to wait 15 minutes to make sure there were no side effects and I was out. Again, kudos Gritman.
Roger Hayes
Moscow
Earlier treatment
Two New York City emergency room, Richard Levitan and Nicholas Caputo, were interviewed (Amanpor & Co, Jan. 25, YouTube). They say that while increasing numbers of people are being admitted with COVID-19, the number of deaths in their hospitals is not increasing because treatment has improved. Still, they wish that people would come in sooner.
Since April, they have been working on early detection and treatment. They have learned that pulse oximeters show trouble before people feel it. Patients say, “But I feel fine! I don’t need to hospitalize.” And that’s exactly the trouble with COVID-19.
If you wait until it’s hard to breath because a large part of the lungs are damaged, then bad outcomes are common. But if you hospitalize when only a tiny part of your lungs are damaged, you have a significantly better chance.
People are at higher risk if they have been exposed or tested positive or have been released from a hospital. They should get a pulse oximeter (under $100), and self monitor twice daily. If oxygen drops, they should hospitalize immediately.
People who come in early are treated on a floor bed, not an ICU bed, and are released in 3-4 days. Just like former President Trump.
Treatment: steroids, oxygen, a proning cushion to make patients more comfortable so they can breath, dexamethasone and remdesivir.
You might call around to discover which hospitals will honor this experience-based knowledge, this approach and these medicines.
Levitan said a patient came in with advanced symptoms. She had tested positive, and was told to self-isolate. Levitan called the testing center, and asked why they didn’t advise her to monitor her oxygen. A person said, “I’ve been reading your stuff, Rich, but the CDC doesn’t recommend it yet.” Is your provider open to this?
Wiley Hollingsworth
Pullman
The real ‘cancel culture’
In his Feb. 17 column, Dale Courtney decried the “cancel culture” of the left. In doing this, he joined other right-wing pundits and politicians such as the Republican governor of South Dakota who denounced the efforts to remove monuments to Confederate leaders while speaking at the Mt. Rushmore National Monument.
The irony of this is unbearable. This monument to U.S. presidents was built on land sacred to the Sioux.
It is a prime example of the dominant culture’s centuries-old attempt to cancel Native American culture.
I agree with Mr. Courtney that it is important to protect free speech. It is at least as important to acknowledge our historic and ongoing participation in efforts to white-out, to wipe out the cultures of Native American, Black, Latino and Asian-American people.
This is the real “cancelculture.”
Walter Hesford
Moscow
