Letter to the editor: We must contain coronavirus

Jay Londino’s letter “Shutting down not way to deal with virus” (April 23, TribLIVE) offers no clue as to what is the answer. He states that we “cannot shut down our country every time there is a virus outbreak.” Well sir, we don’t.

In my 69 years I have never seen anything like this. This is very different from other viruses because it is deadly and highly contagious, and we have no vaccine or treatment for it. If we don’t contain this virus, the damage to our economy and country will only be worse, and the terrible economic breakdown Londino predicts indeed will occur. Or worse — we’ll all be dead. Opening the country now is like discontinuing antibiotics just because symptoms are subsiding.

It worries me that in this country there are so many people who set themselves up as experts, starting at the top and passing it down through his propaganda “news” channel. I see no credentials next to Londino’s name. Is he a doctor? Does he think he knows more than the people who study pandemics?

Trump and his misguided followers seem to want us to believe that this is nothing and will disappear “by a miracle.” We trivialize this at our peril, like climate change.

This differs from other world emergencies. In a war we are pitted against each other, but in a pandemic we all can work together to fight the common enemy. And that means listening to experts who know what they are talking about. Even in war we listen to military experts.

Al Duerig

Salem