I know I must speak for many in the community when I exclaim: “Thank you, Noozhawk staff and reporters!”
During this unprecedented national crisis, you have kept us informed. The journalism is exceptional and bang-on mindful of what is now required to inform the citizenry. This is responsible news reporting. I appreciate your vital role in the coronavirus response.
Bless you, and well done.
Celeste Barber
Santa Barbara
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Why bankrupt most small businesses, ruin the economy and eliminate people’s savings when we could quarantine all people with compromised respiratory history, compromised autoimmune systems and people over the age of 65 while life goes on for the majority of working people and businesses.
The state and federal governments would need to support this much smaller population financially and with delivery of supplies.
The government is risking the ruin of all people’s lives and social chaos if the financial system fails.
John Warner
Santa Barbara
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Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen is to be commended for questioning the economic consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns over the coronavirus in his March 20 column, “In All-Consuming Coronavirus Crisis, We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This.” I agree.
Not to minimize the dangers from COVID-19, but how is the country going to fight that battle while the economy is in free fall? It hasn’t even been two weeks since the crisis exploded but many, many Santa Barbara County small businesses are already looking at bankruptcy, laying off employees and suspending operations, including at my work.
I don’t know how we recover from this, but a $1,000 check from the government isn’t going to make up for my lost wages and I, for one, don’t want to sit around “sheltering in place.”
D. Reynolds
Santa Barbara
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Commentators and politicians presume a disastrous, fatal virus, but this Chinese “flu” is not inevitably fatal by any means. It’s not ebola, in which vital organs cease to function and you die. For most people who get the flu, it is unpleasant but not disastrous.
Far better than isolation would be to allow social interaction so people develop natural immunity over time, particularly children.
In other words, let life return to normal.
Frank Hotchkiss
Savannah, Georgia
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Noozhawk columnist Randy Alcorn is a disgusting and despicable individual, especially with his March 15 commentary, “Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Greater Threats Than Pandemic.” Please get rid of him.
Chris Anderson
Lompoc
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