In Saturday’s Emporia Gazette State Representative Ron Highland offered a piece titled: Putting COVID-19 in perspective.
I do not know Mr. Highland, but I’ve been told he may be the most intelligent person in the Kansas Legislature and the scientific facts he shared about the virus indicated that might be true.
Today I’m sharing different interpretations to several of Mr. Highland’s “perspectives.”
Ron Highland lists numbers to point out that COVID-19 deaths in Kansas are significantly less than annual deaths from Abortions, Heart Disease and Cancer.
Highland’s intent here confuses me. Is he suggesting we should be less concerned about COVID deaths because their number of deaths is significantly less than deaths from other diseases?
Nearly 1600 Kansans have died from Covid this year compared to ZERO in 2019! That number means something!
The fact that far fewer Kansans died from COVID than Heart Disease or Cancer is of little solace to people having lost loved ones.
Second, Representative Highland takes on “unintended consequences following government interventions” about which he says “I will be generous and say it was well intended.”
I am in agreement with his prospective that the shut downs, stay at home orders, other restrictions and closing schools were poorly handled and caused much irrefutable damage.
What Highland didn’t say was the main thing America lacked was a strong and well defined national plan. Hind sight is, of course 20-20 leaving no doubt America should have done better, but U.S. leadership was too erratic and our state leadership became politically challenged creating a patchwork response that has proven to be woefully ineffective.
Mr. Highland suggested “local government, those closest to the people should have the ultimate responsibility to impose restrictions during a disease outbreak.”
I respectfully disagree. I love my County Commissioners, but I’m guessing they would agree they were unprepared for many decisions in this area.
As for the good old USA – the following numbers are the best indicator to illustrate a very poor and not defendable national response.
About 300 million people live in the United States equaling about 4% of the world’s population, BUT, America’s nearly 270,000 COVID deaths and over 13 million cases of COVID-19 are 19% of the world’s total.
Those numbers are hard evidence that America’s and Kansas’ response has been beyond lousy! A perspective it appears Representative Highland and I do not share.
I’m Steve Sauder
