Make coronavirus news coverage a top local priority | Letters

Now that the coronavirus outbreak has spread to the U.S., I’d like to rely upon our trusted, local newspapers, The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, for up-to-date information on what South Carolina is doing to prepare, and where to go for help and care in Beaufort County, not if but when it spreads here.

Please make the coronavirus pandemic a priority for local reporting of pertinent facts. For example, the preventive measures individuals can take, the symptoms, where to go locally for testing, protective gear and where to get it, and who to contact for more information, like the World Health Organization website and other reliable resources.

To do this, you’ll need additional revenue. This could be a great advertising campaign opportunity for supplemental pages, coverage of community efforts, etc., going forward.

Being prepared and staying informed is very important to me. I want to feel safe and connected living here.

Susan Baukhages

Bluffton

Don’t use the coronavirus to make a cheap political point

The constant anti-Trump rhetoric over the past three years has been harmful to our nation, but this past week the hateful message reached a new low.

When a public health concern threatens the U.S. and much of the world, it is time for all civil Americans to first pray, then band together and show how we are the only world leader (once again) with the skills, the commitment and the imagination to solve this issue for the benefit of all mankind.

Instead, some of our national leaders and much of the media felt it more important to foster fear and panic among the citizenry and discredit President Donald Trump and our public health leaders to score a cheap political point. This is shameful behavior but, unfortunately, few were surprised.

In late January, the president declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and banned entry of all non-U.S. citizens traveling from China and required a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all U.S. citizens. That was a bold and preemptive move for any nation. Politicians and the media declared him over-reactive and a racist. The same group claimed the administration had cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health. Easy fact check … funding by Congress has increased for both agencies.

The truth can be in plain sight, but today it doesn’t seem to matter. America will weather this crisis and better prepare for the next one despite the sizable resistance pulling in the opposite direction.

Brian Thoreson

Moss Creek

Questionable indignation on SC primary voting

In a letter published here recently, the writer decried the thought of Republicans possibly voting in the Democratic primary and proving to be cheaters who would sabotage the process. Republicans were also accused of gerrymandering voting districts and stealing two presidential elections when the Democrat candidate received a majority of votes but lost in the Electoral College.

So, am I to assume that Democrats have never voted in a Republican primary or gerrymandered a district? If a Republican received a majority of the popular vote but the Democrat won the Electoral College vote would the Democratic candidate concede?

I believe that the writer should know that if a popular vote decided the presidency that only California, New York, Florida, and two or three other states would decide the outcome. How would “flyover country” feel about that?

When Republican President George W. Bush gained a Senate and House led by Republicans, this writer indicated that one party rule of the executive branch (nominating the judicial branch) and legislative branch, could be the end of the republic. I waited to see the same outrage when President Barack Obama enjoyed the same.

Lawrence V. Francese

Beaufort

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