To the Editor

I want to commend Governor Reynolds for doing a good job dealing with the Covid-19 virus. I think she has done very well in maintaining her priorities of both the citizens and the economy. She has stood against pressures from political opponents and special interest groups and made her decisions based on the latest and best information available using common sense and logic.

In my opinion the news media likes to dramatize the information they report. This dramatization creates more concern and fear than is necessary. I would like to hear the optimistic side as well. As of this writing 30,259 cases have been confirmed, 24,242 recovered and sadly 719 deaths. With Iowa’s population of 3.17 million people this is .95% (less than 1%) confirmed cases, .022% deaths (less than ¼ of a percent). In comparing confirmed cases to deaths it is 2.3%,

Any death is tragic and for some groups of the population, the risks are greater and scarier. Let’s not lose perspective and cause harm from over reacting but take measures to protect the most vulnerable while allowing life to go on as much as possible.

Many people including myself avoided medical care out of fear of going to the clinic when the Covid-19 first broke out. This was economically bad for medical providers and we need to keep them available to us. A lot of the responsibility lies in the citizens using good common sense. We can have tight regulations imposed on us and still have problems without everyone doing their part. I prefer to be given the opportunity to make informed sensible decisions that are best for my family. We have had pandemics before and will have them again. The world population is growing and intercontinental travel is expanding. This creates the environment for pandemics. Hopefully we have learned from this and we make good use of what has been learned to head off future pandemics and at least manage them better. We are learning to live with this and had better because it isn’t going away very soon.

Paul Huisman

Webster City