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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Vaccinate before it’s too late

Editor:

A doctor from Alabama posted one of the most heartbreaking statements I’ve encountered in this heartbreaking pandemic. Talking about the increasing number of 20-year-olds in her COVID-19 ward, Dr. Brytney Cobia said, “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

The CDC released the most recent data and 99.5% of COVID-19 deaths, 93% of the hospitalizations and 95% of those who tested positive were unvaccinated.

As of the time I’m writing this, the average number of daily deaths in Arizona is nine people, 675 people are hospitalized and we are averaging 1,200 new infections daily (up from a low of 450 in June).

Doing the math, this means that today, nine unvaccinated people will die, zero vaccinated will die; 630 people in the COVID-19 wards are unvaccinated; 47 have been vaccinated; 1,140 people who will test positive for COVID-19 are unvaccinated; 60 are vaccinated.

The vaccines are astoundingly safe and effective. They are free and easy to get. COVID-19 is deadly, hospitalization is really expensive, and just getting infected with the virus will seriously disrupt your life.

Go get vaccinated today. They are all taking walk-ins. Do not delay another day. The Delta variant is already responsible for over 80% of the infections in the United States. Delta is much more transmissible than previous variants, and it is looking like it makes you sicker faster.

Please do not be one of those young patients Dr. Cobia is treating in Alabama, who are begging for the vaccine from their hospital bed, only to be told “it’s too late.”

Angela Cotera Avondale

More vaccines needed

Editor:

As families prepare to send their kids back to in-person classes, there might be one essential item parents still need to add to the back-to-school list — immunizations.

Immunizations are shots that children and adults take to protect themselves and others against serious illnesses. Staying up to date on immunizations helps keep communities safe from an outbreak of a life-threatening disease.

Unfortunately, millions of people fell behind their vaccination schedule during the last year, as they could not physically visit the doctor or put off well checks during the worst of the pandemic. While telehealth appointments are extremely valuable, it is still important to make time to see your doctor in person to make sure you and your family are up to date on these vaccinations.

Do you know the last time you or your children received their booster tetanus shot? Or if you and your loved ones are still protected against hepatitis? It is important to keep up to date with these vaccines to receive the best protection against deadly viruses.

If you are still unsure why vaccinations are so necessary, consider the 1.5 million people who die from vaccine-preventable diseases every year. According to the World Health Organization, around 86% of children around the world are vaccinated. These vaccinated people prevent anywhere from 2 to 3 million people from dying each year. If 90% to 95% of children were immunized against preventable diseases, millions of lives could be saved.

Keeping up to date with your and your family’s vaccinations helps the population as a whole maintain herd immunity — a phenomenon that the world is attempting to reach to be protected against COVID-19. With teachers and kids heading back to the classrooms this fall, it has never been more important to take stock of your health and receive proper care.

After more than a year of physically distant learning, teachers are cautiously excited to return to the classroom. Yet parents remain anxious about what to expect in the new school year. Among the many challenges the pandemic brought on to families with school-age children, coming home with exposure to a potentially life-threatening disease should be the least of your worries this upcoming year. Do your part by checking in with your doctor to confirm you and your family are protected.

If you are unsure of your vaccine history, you can request a copy of your immunization records from your primary care doctor. Upon pulling up your records, they may have you schedule an appointment for a vaccine or booster shot. If you do not have a primary care physician or are unsure of your previous health history, there are many health care resources, like Jewish Family & Children’s Service, that are open and ready to connect you to the right kind of care.

Melissa Baker Robert Ouimette Jennifer Young

Jewish Family & Children’s Service Site Directors at its integrated health care centers

PETERS’ OPINION — King Features

A bit of history response

Editor:

This letter by Les Armstrong has many errors. The name of M19 is not derived from Malcolm X and Ho Chin Minh. The bombing of the Senate offices damage was around $250,000 in 1983 dollars and occurred after the Senate adjourned late at night. Facts matter, and that attack cannot be cast as equal to what occurred on Jan. 6. Democrats are not communists. Let’s talk about getting along and not vilifying those with whom you politically disagree.

Joy Lovell Goodyear

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WEST VALLEY VIEW NEWS | AUGUST 4, 2021

The erosion of trust threatens all of us

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ

West Valley View Columnist

A1972 poll named television anchor Walter Cronkite “the most trusted man in America.” The designation stuck until Cronkite passed away in 2009, and it was featured prominently in his many obituaries.

Given that Cronkite retired from CBS when I was 15, I can’t say he was my North Star. But of this much I’m certain: If Cronkite had the misfortune of being an anchorman in 2021, his trust scores would rank down there with congressmen, priests and used car salesmen. I can say this with certainty because nowadays no one trusts anyone.

Which is a damn shame.

When I was a kid, Dr. Goldberg was our family physician. He made house calls toting his enormous black valise, and he dispensed prescriptions and wisdom, neither of which we questioned.

If Dr. Goldberg said get a vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, we got a shot. If he said give your son Naldecon four times a day for a cough, that’s what my mom did — because Goldberg was a doctor, he had parchment diplomas on the wall and we trusted him.

Now? Half of America could be bleeding out on the sidewalk and they’d insist on knowing who the paramedics voted for in 2020 before accepting life-saving medical treatment.

Get a COVID-19 vaccine because a dozen scientific studies say they work? Ha! Wear a mask because the Delta variant is undoing our progress fighting the pandemic? What are you, some kind of sheep who listens to scientists?

Actually, I am a sheep like that, as are most Americans.

Gallup does an annual poll of trust in American institutions. This year for the first time they asked respondents how much they trust science.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents — 64% — reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in science. Another 24% had some trust. Only 12% had “very little” trust or “none at all.”

Only two institutions were deemed more trustworthy than science: Small business at 70% and the military at 69%.

The big losers? Congress, with only 12% of those polled claiming significant trust in that clownish body. Meanwhile, TV news — sorry Uncle Walter — was trusted by 16% of respondents. “Big Business” also had the trust of 16% of those polled.

Surprisingly, 51% of Americans say they have a great deal or quite a lot of trust in the police, even after the vicious onslaught directed at cops over the past few years. That’s down a dozen points in the last 15 years, but it’s still more trust we have in the presidency (38%), public schools (32%) and newspapers (21%).

This erosion of trust plays a role in dividing us and rendering communities unable to solve problems large or small.

The city that doesn’t trust its leaders, schools and people of faith is a city that struggles to solve its problems and to prevent those problems from recurring.

The individual who doesn’t trust a doctor, schoolteacher, minister, anchorman, CEO or senator is someone with few ways to calculate what’s true, what works, what’s dangerous and what to avoid.

Back in the day, Walter Cronkite ended each nightly newscast with his signature line: “And that’s the way it is.” Cronkite could say that, and it drew no laughter, because people trusted him.

Today? The way it is has little to do with actual facts and everything to do with who’s saying it, who’s listening and who else is saying the exact opposite.

Trust me when I tell you, a country that trusts no one is one that eventually loses everyone.

David Leibowitz has called the Valley home since 1995. Contact david@leibowitzsolo.com

Reflecting on Mike Enzi’s successful career

BY J.D. HAYWORTH

West Valley View Columnist

Mike Enzi was never too big for his britches, nor too small for his shoes.

Instead, he was just the right fit for the people of Wyoming, whom he served in the U.S. Senate for nearly a quarter of a century.

Enzi, who died Monday, July 26, at age 77 from injuries sustained in a bicycle accident, was not your typical senator. He didn’t seek out celebrated columnists to offer the lofty comments of the self important, nor make himself “must-see TV” on the networks’ Sunday news interview shows.

Unlike so many of his colleagues, he didn’t look in the mirror and see a future president.

His path to the “World’s Most Exclusive Club” was not paved by wealth, and certainly not by a famous last name.

Mike was an Eagle Scout, and he took the Scout motto “be prepared” seriously.

That’s why his initial time in Washington came not as a senator but as a student. Enzi earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from George Washington University in 1966, 30 years before he was elected to the Senate. He followed that with an MBA from the University of Denver, where he concentrated on the study of retail marketing.

Then, it was back to Wyoming for Enzi, who put the marketing he had learned to good use by courting and winning the hand of the former Diana Buckley in 1969. That same year, the retail component of his education came to the fore, as he expanded the small business started by his dad.

Mike and Diana opened NZ Shoes in the central Wyoming town of Gillette in July of ’69, one month after their marriage. They would eventually open additional locations in Sheridan and in Miles City, Montana.

For both the Enzi Family and the place they called home, one word described the 1970s: growth. Mike and Diane welcomed two daughters and a son, while Gillette doubled in population. The abundance of coal in the Powder River Basin fueled the transition of the town into a small city.

Mike’s transition into politics was prompted by Sen. Alan Simpson, the man he would one day succeed in Washington. After hearing Enzi deliver a speech on community leadership at the Wyoming Jaycees Convention, Simpson told Mike he should lead by example and run for elective office.

“That town you live in, Gillette, needs a mayor,” Simpson said pointedly.

After discussing it with Diana, Mike mounted a mayoral campaign, winning the office in 1974 at age 29. He served two terms, and years later recounted in an interview that the inexperience of youth was actually an asset.

“The advantage of young people is that they don’t know what can’t be done. They just go ahead and do it,” Enzi remembered.

After eight years as mayor, Mike took a break from public life to concentrate on family and business. He returned to politics in the late ’80s, representing Gillette and Campbell County first in the state House, then in the state Senate during the early ’90s.

Alan Simpson retired from the U.S. Senate in 1996; Enzi succeeded him. Mike’s closest race came in the GOP primary, where he edged future colleague John Barrasso by less than three percentage points; the general election was a comparative breeze, as Enzi won with 54% of the votes cast.

The people of Wyoming liked Mike,

13 U.S. needs to spend post-pandemic era improving

BY DEVIN DEL PALACIO

Tolleson Union High School District President

Thankfully, the worst of COVID-19 seems to be behind us. About 66% of adults have had at least one vaccine shot, and new cases are at levels that we haven’t seen this low since the pandemic hit the first few regions in March 2020. Our economy is rebounding, too. CNN-Moody’s “Back-to-Normal” index has the economy at 93% of its March 2020 output, up from 74% at the end of 2020.

Despite our progress, the systemic divisions COVID-19 laid bare haven’t gone anywhere. You’ve heard all these stats before: America is the wealthiest country in the world, but one of the few without paid family leave, threatening years of progress for women in the labor force. Without real action on climate change, extreme weather will continue to have a disparate impact on poor communities, rural areas and communities of color. Even though the United States has the best internet in the world at the best value, 19 million Americans still don’t have access to broadband — either because the infrastructure doesn’t exist for communities to connect to or because they can’t afford it.

Healing those divisions equitably is what is at the heart of the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal and the many iterations of it currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill. The Biden administration and many Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress understand that for America to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we need to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild in a way that everyone shares in the prosperity, especially those that have been historically left behind.

Nowhere is that clearer when it comes to broadband internet. America’s internet helped power the country through the pandemic as we shifted to remote everything — work, health care, religious ceremonies and even social engagements. Millions of Americans who were not connected to broadband struggled to keep jobs or find jobs to replace the ones they lost, educate their kids when schools shut down, or deal with routine medical issues as doctors’ offices moved online. The problem is only going to get worse as more and more of our lives shift online, unless we fix it quickly.

To close the digital divide and bring everyone online as fast as possible, Congress should prioritize expanding existing broadband infrastructure to communities without any access and allow investment in all available technologies to do it — fiber, 5G wireless and cable.

Broadband connectivity is a particular problem in rural communities where folks are 10 times more likely to lack access to broadband infrastructure. That’s because it’s costly to build new infrastructure in truly remote areas,

Hayworth...continued from page 12

as they returned him to the Senate in three subsequent elections with more than 70% of the vote.

What made Mike Enzi so effective? As a legislator, it was the “80-20 Rule.” He discovered that about 20% of issues were so partisan that no legislative remedy could be found. But that left 80% of the issues that could be addressed and eventually remedied.

A problem solver at heart, Sen. Enzi was at first surprised, then gratified by the casework he and his staff performed for constituents.

He put it this way in an interview earlier this year: “I went to legislate, and then I found out that probably our most important work is casework, where people are having a problem with the federal government. Often it can be solved, because there’s not a lot of common sense in the federal government.”

The good Lord blessed Mike Enzi with common sense in uncommon quantities.

Wyoming was blessed to have a shoe-salesman-turned-senator.

Rest in peace, Mike.

J.D. Hayworth represented Arizona in the U.S. House from 1995-2007. He authored and sponsored the Enforcement First Act, legislation that would have mandated enforcement of Federal Immigration Law in the 109th Congress. so despite nearly $2 trillion in private investment from internet service providers over the last 25 years, too many rural communities still lack access. In short, building in rural areas is costly and takes time. That’s why we need to prioritize utilizing limited federal dollars to target unconnected communities with all available technologies.

The other initiative we can take that will close the digital divide quickly is for Congress to fund a permanent broadband benefit to help low-income families afford service which groups as varied as the National Urban League, the Grange and the League of United Latin American Citizens have been lobbying for.

Even though most internet service providers voluntarily offer entry-level plans to qualifying households for $10 to $20 per month, 34% of low-income families had trouble paying for their broadband during the pandemic. We know a broadband benefit would bring folks online quickly because it’s hap-

pening right now. The December 2020 COVID-19 relief bill included a provision to help qualifying households pay for broadband service, and nearly 3 million people have already claimed the benefit. The problem is that this benefit will expire, leaving folks without broadband again. Much like the federal government funds school lunches, helps provide affordable housing and health coverage to low-income folks, the government has a role to play ensuring broadband — another essential service — is available to every American, and thus makes real progress closing the digital divide. Our country needs to seize this opportunity coming out of a crisis to rebuild equitably and to meet the challenges of the coming decades. If we’re going to do it, the millions of Americans without access to broadband need us to build back better right now — not in 20 years. Our communities can’t afford to wait.

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