COVID-19? Don't Listen To Me
April 26, 2020
Folks, don't listen to me. I'm just a business owner and former truck driver who happened to get elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2014. Seriously - just about anyone who works hard enough and has a few organizational and public-speaking skills could manage that.
I want you instead to listen to someone in the medical community. I received a copy of the letter below - unsolicited - from an accomplished doctor who practices in my district. He happens to say most of the things I've been saying, and some that I haven't, all along during this COVID-19 crisis.
Although I have posted it here as images, I urge you to download the secured PDF version so you can check out all the references and footnotes for yourself.
In his letter to Governor Tom Wolf, Dr. Joel Yeager discusses the following points of order:
- pre-disaster emergency potential COVID-19 cases
- presumed mortality rates
- social distancing and flattening the curve
- wearing of masks and a presumption of infection for asymptomatic individuals
- impacts on our rights and liberties
- impacts on our economic future
- impacts of cancelling elective surgeries and putting off other regular healthcare
- impacts on mental and spiritual health
- destruction of farm commodities at the supply end of the food chain
Significant quotes from Dr. Yeager's letter are as follows:
"In an era of evidence-based medicine, I cannot find such evidence to recommend to my patients for the universal wearing of masks. I believe they foster a paranoia (when masked people see unmasked people, for example) as well as an illusion of control."
"I can certainly appreciate the complexity of making appropriate decisions for the good of the Common- wealth. However, I submit that your mandated restrictions across the Commonwealth are dramatically harming the overall health of its citizens. Government does not grant its citizens their "unalienable rights." They are rather "endowed by their Creator" as so eloquently stated in the Declaration of Independence. It is time for the Commonwealth to return to its citizens the respect that its citizens afforded the Commonwealth. It is time that policy be driven by science and not ideology. It is time for healthy citizens to be returned to normal life."
So again, don't listen to me. Although I have a little common sense and a better understanding than most about what drives the political community to action, I am not a member of the medical community. But Dr. Joel Yeager is a member of that community, and I believe his words carry weight. Download the secured PDF version and decide for yourself.
Stay safe, be well, and try not to view everything through the lenses of political thought or your own personal opinion.
Click on an image to enlarge.
