Put Beaufort County daily coronavirus statistics on front page to stir action | Letters
This is a challenge to your newspaper.
Information is the key to a safe community. When you know that a disease is increasing in your community, you will listen to public health experts who tell you to stay at home. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance causes lives to be lost.
Publish daily in a prominent place on the front page the statistics of the coronavirus on Beaufort County. Show how many total cases, and how many deaths. Citizens who are concerned can track the increases, or perhaps you can add that service. We will see the impact increase, but we can also see the impact reduce as we stay in place and self-quarantine.
These statistics will also give our governor a basis for shutting down tourism. Shutting down is drastic but it is essential to get this disease under control. The faster we shut down, the faster we will be able to open up.
This disease is real. We must act, not ignore.
Barbara B. Ernico
Hilton Head Island
Town of Hilton Head Island leadership needed now
I am a permanent resident of Hilton Head Island and I am very concerned about the lack of a proactive strategy by the town to do all it can to protect its citizens from the spread of this virus.
It is time to take a tough stance by taking measures to prevent people from coming here who have no real reason to be here.
The country has been asked by our Washington leaders to stay home. Yet, we know people are coming here to escape areas of high concentration of the COVID-19 coronavirus, as seen by the large number of license plates from those respective states.
Others are here, I surmise, just to get away as they are off work and/or their kids are out of school.
We do not know the true number of people on the island who are infected, but we do know that there is a real concern about our medical facilities being overwhelmed.
It is time to close our “borders” and restrict entry as we should not be a “sanctuary” island.
The town should also work with the county to ask the federal government to close the airport. A state of emergency has been declared by the president and therefore existing statutes and compliance procedures for airport closures can be waived for the protection of citizens.
We need hard core leadership now and not bureaucratic excuses for failing to take action.
Daniel Cleyrat
Hilton Head Island
Time for nation to come together
Since the COVID-19 crisis has begun, I have been reading letters to the editor attacking President Donald Trump and his handling of this crisis. It is obvious to me that the majority of these are driven by a hatred of this president.
The virus crisis simply presents another opportunity to criticize. And it serves no purpose.
It’s time to step back. Put aside your feelings about Trump and get behind him and his team of experts. If you can’t be supportive, then at least be quiet. You’ll have plenty of time after this is over. (And it will be over.)
This is the time for the country to come together and act together to defeat this.
This is not a pro-Trump letter. This is a pro-America letter.
Thomas Bate
Bluffton
How to submit a letter
Send letters to the editor by email to letters@islandpacket.com or letters@beaufortgazette.com.
Or you may submit a letter online.
Letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer and include your first and last names, street address and daytime telephone number so we can verify the letter before publication.
You are limited to one letter per 30 days.
Letters may be edited for length, style, grammar, taste and libel. All letters submitted become the property of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 9:41 AM.