EDITORIAL
WHEN WILL WE LISTEN
AND LEARN?
Well, here we go again.
New York City wants to put a “pause” to
businesses and schools (read: shut them down)
beginning this week in nine areas of Brooklyn
and Queens that have seen a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this plan Sunday as
part of an ongoing effort to prevent these clusters from
growing into the kind of widespread outbreak that devastated
the city back in March and April. He acknowledged
that it’s going to hurt businesses in these areas
that struggled through the pandemic, but that the city
had no other choice but to take this measure.
Why? For the same reason tens of thousands of new
COVID-19 cases are reported in America seven months
later.
For the same reason more than 200,000 Americans
have needlessly died of this illness.
For the same reason that President Trump himself
became infected, and is now hospitalized.
A refusal to listen.
COVID-19 is difficult to detect and treat, but it’s remarkably
easy to protect yourself from it. Wear masks.
Avoid large gatherings. Practice social distancing.
Wash hands. Stay home if you feel unwell.
This mantra has been drilled into us for months — it
works. We know it works.
Yet many of us don’t care to follow it — not just in the
nine hot spots, but all over this city.
We keep hearing about city agencies working to educate
people on mask-wearing and handing them out.
Governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed that recently, considering
this crisis began here more than seven months
ago.H
e’s right. Someone would’ve had to have lived under
a rock the last seven months not to know. Everyone
knows what we’re supposed to do to stop COVID-19 —
and the problem is largely due to selfishness and misinformation.
And that not only sickens and kills, it undermines
our communities in other ways.
Allowing COVID-19 to spread will provoke another
shutdown that will kill many of the businesses that survived
the first pause. It will set back an entire generation
of children already struggling to recover from the
spring school shutdown.
Our ability to contain COVID-19 is directly tied to
our commitment to contain it. And that means we must
change from thinking of ourselves to thinking of others.
You want normalcy? Listen to the advice, follow it,
and we will get there.
HOW TO REACH US
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.14 COM | OCT. 9-OCT. 15, 2020
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Everyone knows what we’re supposed to do to stop COVID-19, but it’s up to us to do what needs to be done.
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