Letter to the Editor: As U.S. Government Stumbles, Scientists Work on Solutions to Covid-19

Dear Editor,

My school is shut down right now due the coronavirus. For the most part, I enjoy learning. I’m going to miss listening to my history teacher’s lectures and my math teacher’s terrible jokes. What am I going to do for these next three months?

News sources report that in the last few weeks, South Korea has been testing 12,000 patients or more a day for the virus. This number is the total amount of patients the U.S. has managed to test over weeks. While the global morality rate is 3 percent, the mortality rate in South Korea is a mere 0.7 percent.

In comparison, President Trump disbanded the White House’s pandemic office, leaving our nation’s residents, especially the elderly, to fend against a deadly disease.

As a country that leads the world in science and technology, I question why our government couldn’t have done more. I question why our government wasn’t able to protect those who are vulnerable.

The coronavirus doesn’t just affect the elderly. The virus touches all aspects of American life and culture. I am lucky that my parents have the resources to wait out the coronavirus, but the truth is, I worry. I worry about the underprivileged kids at my school who rely on school lunches to eat. I worry about the arena workers at the Staples Center who are out of jobs because the NBA has suspended all of its games. I worry about the restaurant owners in Chinatown who struggle to make enough money just to see the next day. What has the government done for them?

My parents are scientists, both of whom work for companies that are working on the issue: my father’s company has been developing a rapid-results kit to test coronavirus and my mother’s company is developing drugs to prevent the spread of coronavirus or to treat it. I watch them at their computers every night, working tirelessly to find solutions.

While the government has failed in its control of the coronavirus, America’s scientific community is coming together to find solutions, and communities are accepting social distancing and other measures to reduce the spread.

As citizens, it is our duty to help those who are indirectly affected by the virus. It is our duty to remind ourselves that we will overcome this.

Sincerely,

JESSICA MA

San Jose, CA

7 Comments

  1. > My school is shut down right now due the coronavirus.

    > In comparison, President Trump disbanded the White House’s pandemic office, leaving our nation’s residents, especially the elderly, to fend against a deadly disease.

    Public school educators should be rounded up and put in internment camps for the bogus, dishonest, politicized twaddle they are spoon feeding to children.

    CHILD ABUSE!

  2. “South Korea has been testing 12,000 patients or more a day for the virus. This number is the total amount of patients the U.S. has managed to test over weeks.”

    You lost me here, Jessica. Headlines say the U. S. has passed 600,000 Covid-19 cases with more than 3 million tests. Maybe your mom and dad can explain why, with world-class universities and industry, not many more than 12,000 tests have been performed in Santa Clara County.

  3. Dear Guest,
    Just curious, What do you think the government was going to do to control the virus?
    Shut down travel from the infected areas?
    Shut down celebration of Chinese New Year?
    Shut down Schools and Collages?
    Shut down all sports?
    Shut down Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Presidents Day, Easter ?
    Forced every one to get a Flu Shot every year?
    Teach every one to wash their hands after using the bath room and arresting them if they don’t.
    Remove play grounds and close all parks?
    Close Movie theaters, public, buses, trains, airplanes?
    Do all this all the time as you can never know when one of these out brake will start?
    Please tell us what your idea’s will save from the next 911, Pear Harbor, 1918 epidemic.
    Please tell us.

  4. Wow, the little monsters our public school unions are creating…

    Guess what, government creates more problems than it solves. CDC and FDA have always slowed novel tests and treatment, Queen Nancy enjoying ice cream while sitting on critical paycheck protections bills, Adam Schiff still looking for Russia, Russia, Russia evidence. They are all clowns, both sides, and if your teacher tells you otherwise, they are lying.

    These program’s dollats will mostly go to large corporations anyway. The reason South Koreans do it better is because it is for South Koreans only. Diversity is not a strength when building social capital, just listen to the city council. Even progressive researchers have found this.

    Start by doing right by yourself, then your family, then your neighbors, than your church. Viruses come and go, the federal government always suck, laws always have unintended consequences. If everyone just did that we will get through it.

  5. Dear Jessica,
    Thank you for your Guest column. I am heartened that the less fortunate are in your thoughts.

    However I think you are missing/misinformed about several key points in your article and I would recommend you do some more research. Research what really happened at the Pandemic Office. Research the current number of tests being given in our Country and State. Look into what our Federal, State and Local governments did to slow the spread. Research the numbers. Look at the U.S. Mortality rate. Look into how the deaths are being counted and who is included and excluded from that number. Look at our State numbers. Look at any less fortunate countries (aka 3rd world) and see what their numbers are like. Ask yourself questions, “why does Vietnam, a country bordering China, have ZERO deaths?”. Watch the countries who chose not to shelter in place and ask yourself why their numbers are what they are.

    I think it’s wonderful that you have written this column. I encourage you to write more. But don’t just write based on feelings and assumptions, include facts and figures that support your positions. It’s often said that comedy that is grounded in truth is the funniest because everyone intuitively relates. The same can be said of good articles.

    Good Luck Jessica!

  6. Ms. Ma:

    I commend you for penning a heartfelt letter, and it’s refreshing to learn of a young person who sees value in a history class.

    Disturbing events are unfolding before our eyes, ones that will adversely shape your future and this nation’s future. Therefore, I encourage you to query your history teacher or an American government/civics teacher about how the 1st, 2nd, and 5th amendments have been abrogated by state government officials in California and around the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By the way, if your teachers are unaware that the 5th amendment pertains to much more than self-incrimination, you are in dire need of better teachers.

    I also want to extend my gratitude to your parents for working tirelessly on trying to mitigate COVID-19.
    Unfortunately, not all members of the scientific, medical, and statistical communities deserve the praise that your mother and father do.

    Faulty COVID-19 models have sent this country into an unwarranted panic, gutting our economy like a samurai’s
    seppuku knife.

    Dr. Birx, who I am sure you have become aware of, has issued an edict that any death remotely connected to COVID-19 should be reported as a COVID-19 death, even if no COVID-19 test was ever administered. This playing fast and loose with cause of death ststistics to bolster COVID-19 death stats is bad science and bad medicine. The aforementioned protocol has also been encouraged by the National Vital Statistics System, and that warrants an investigation.

    All the best to you and your family.

    Sincerely,

    Michael Patrick O’Connor

  7. You need to escape your bubble of naïveté, Jessica. Shelter in place is government speak for house arrest. Read Orwell’s “1984” during your house arrest or watch the movie on Netflix. On January 21, 2020 and again on February 27, 2020, Dr. Fauci stated that COVID 19 was nothing to worry about. That was the last accurate thing he said. For reasons as yet unknown, he did a complete reversal in March. Guided by so-called experts whose predictions are based on flawed models, all the self-styled experts and the politicians, particularly Cuomo and Newsom, have made vastly overstated predictions of COVID deaths since early March. Dr. Birx is trying very hard to get the numbers up by ordering all doctors to classify every death that has even the most tenuous connection to COVID to be classified as a COVID death in order to prop up all the Chicken Little predictions. We are now being told that the US will get back to a new normal only after a COVID vaccine is created and tested. Jessica, did you know that the current seasonal flu vaccines are only 45% effective. So, our constitution and Economy will remain in tatters until a 45% effective vaccine arrives in late 2021? Fauci hasn’t been correct since February 27, and he’s on TV daily spewing nonsense like immunity cards and never shaking hands again. Why hasn’t President Trump fired him? After all, he rightly disbanded the “panicdemic” office. Cuomo screamed for more masks and hospital beds to handle a crush that never came. Cuomo loudly predicted 200,000 deaths in NY based on who-knows-what. The official number is slightly under 15,000; but we can’t trust that number due to Dr. Birx’s edict. Stick with science, Jessica. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than having your mind turned into mush by snowflake liberal arts professors.

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