Many questions about lockdown unanswered
Can someone please tell me why the island is in shutdown mode?
Why are we required to wear masks?
Why we need to exercise social distancing?
Why there are limits to how many people can be in a store?
Why do signs say “stay safe, stay home?”
Why do radio announcements encourage us to “rat” on anyone not following these guidelines?
Why do tourists have to quarantine for 14 days after arriving on the island?
No one has yet to give me a reasonable answer to any of these questions except for “it’s the rules.” Well, that’s not good enough for me. Are any of these mandates constitutional? No.
It’s too warm for a virus to survive. There haven’t been any active cases on the island for weeks. And even if there were, what would it matter? It’s a virus, and we have lived with viruses since the beginning of mankind. Yes, some are more dangerous than others. But we’ve never shut down the world because of it.
Is the new precedent going to be that all travelers have to undergo a rigorous medical examination before they can go anywhere? Or be vaccinated? Many people are opposed to vaccinations. Does that mean they will not be able to travel?
People are acting like the “government” knows what’s best for them. What is best for me is to go back to work. Our elected officials are supposed to serve us, not lord over us. Remember that, Kaua‘i, when you go to the polls.
Janet Eisenbach, Kilauea
Wearing masks not necessary now
There is currently zero COVID-19 on Kaua‘i at this time. Tourists and returning residents are being strictly quarantined, and any visitor breaking quarantine is arrested and escorted to the airport.
Why, then, must we all continue to wear masks?
Surely, the moment an infected visitor or returning resident is discovered, The Garden Island will make such a fact a headline story and everyone can put their masks back on.
Persons with compromised immune systems certainly should contiue to remain in their homes, as well as poeple they live with. Likewise, those quarantined must remainin in lodgings. However, those of us without those restrictions should not be locked down, but should maintain social distancing.
It’s called freedom.
Sincerely.
Dorthy Kulik, Lihu‘e
Dorthy and Janet: stop acting like petulant children and try thinking of someone other than yourselves — especially you, Janet. Your melodramatic harangue on subjects of which you are woefully ignorant does nothing more than illustrate how an egotistical attitude can lead to an illusory superiority complex.
Steven it is you and everyone of your mindset that are the selfish ones !! if you are fearful stay home !!!!
I’m sure you are a good person in there somewhere but don’t you understand ?? You have been brainwashed !!
Get off that sanctimonious high horse and stop spouting unconstitutional platitudes.
You have the right to choose to be a sheep.
but neither you o anyone or any magistrate or pettty governor or police officer who decides not to uphold the constitution has ANY right to try to take away THE RIGHTS OF A FREE PEOPLE GIVEN TO THEM BY GOD !!!
Janet and Dorthy…it is called DEATH!
Dear Janet,
The wearing of a mask when clearly none is useful is political signalling. Like having a “resistance” bumper sticker. Think of it as a religion. Not wearing one makes you a heretic, or “virus denier.”
Dear Dorothy,
Kauai did such a good job preventing this virus from spreading that we may have very little community resistance/immunity. Hard to say, unless you could reliably test the entire island population to see how many people have antibodies that indicate they had in fact (at some point) contracted the virus, but were never officially diagnosed.
This virus will reappear, and there will be fatalities – mostly frail and bedridden elders such as these poor individuals being “stored” in shoddy nursing homes (can I say that? It’s how I view most nursing homes for the non-rich) just like pre-existing flu viruses do every year. Apparently this virus is also hard on obese and diabetic people. No shortage of those in the US and on Kauai.
So, unless Kauai is going to go through these two-three month lock downs every time someone gets diagnosed with this virus, we better learn to live with it. And I don’t think any society can afford to live in perpetual lock downs for all the reasons most of us can imagine.
Wow these are some dumb letters today. Trump for Prison 2020.
YES. Steve summed it up. All the information about why these measures are needed is available at State, Federal and WHO websites! Look at **that** information instead of repeating misinformation collected who-knows-where. Whining about not being told “why” speaks of personal laziness or willful ignorance, not that the information isn’t being presented. The enormity of the impact this virus is having and could have hasn’t been possible since the Middle Ages. Controlling this virus that we are profoundly unprepared for is NOT about personal inconvenience. It is about the survival of millions of people that each of us, personally, do not know. People who don’t care about that can easily just stay home instead of being “pressured” to accept the efforts to keep ALL of us uninfected. It’s not about “freedom” when freedom = selfishness.
I am with Dorthy Kulik. Can the masks, and let’s see if we get a new case.
Meanwhile, please ask those in charge when we can realistically expect the quarantine to be lifted. If we do not expect to open this summer, it may be time for many local businesses which rely on tourism to start planning for bankruptcy…
Two for two today. Two complaints about Kauai, from two light skinned transplanted individuals…
Great racist comment!
Thanks for adding some racism to the discussion. It’s always helpful.
Continuing on with the Shutdown of Free Speech and civil rights (no school for the keiki…, etc.?).
All these medical proclamations by 2 of the least medically knowledgeable people the Governor and our Mayor is a less than optimal approach to this virus, even if it it coming from their medical advisors which demonstrates the less than optimal medical knowledge by the very professionals we trust and respect.
Scores of doctors on island and only 2 seem to have contributed only a speck of good advice, makes one think that the docs are being hooded as well as masked. LaBedz and Evslin could have or should have told us more unless their voiceless colleagues have put these 2 on Voice Shutdown.
We get better Health advice from laymen and women. We are told to use water to wash our hands frequently, but not told to drink more water, as in 1/2 your body weight in ounces, like a 200 pound person should be drinking 100 ounces of water a day, as in eight 12 ounce glasses a day or twelve 8 oz. glasses of water per day.
If you are dehydrated, when your immune system is trying to push its defensive cells (like antibiotics, and those other things like IgA, IgG, IgM, aglutins, precipitators, neutralizers, opsins, lysins, and macrophages, etc., et. al.) through your blood stream to search out and destroy the virus, but when you are dehydrated, not drinking enough water, it’s like trying to get ambulances WITHOUT sirens or flashing lights to Lihue in a typical visitor and local packed with cars and trucks Kapa’a lockdown afternoon traffic on the Kuhio Hwy.
Whereas, drinking plenty water is like instantly adding 4 more lanes in each direction so that the ambulances (meaning your immune defensive cells) can get rapidly to every part of your body ASAP to encounter and render the virus impotent at the time of entry to your body…that’s called exposure.
You want your immune systems cells on guard at exposure time, but the immune system is a process and it takes time to encounter, identify, and make the defense cells to ZAP the viruses. That is the immune response.
The immune response makes billions of defensive cells, and the enormous amounts of left over defensive cells in your body and blood stream after the viruses are eliminated are your immunity.
No drug can do that, only your interior on automatic immune system Can do that. And what coordinates your body’s immune system to function properly is your Nervous System. A healthy Nervous System is Protected by your skull and spine…so protect them as well.
And as to first line of virus defense, the real heroes of Health are your mucus membranes located in your nose, and your entire gums, mouth, throat, etc., That is lining your oral and nasal cavities.
Your mucus membranes lining your oral and nasal cavity, when “saturated” with water from within, that is water delivered to the mucus membranes from your blood vascular system, are what prevents prevente of limite infection by virus into your body, by the mucus membranes themselves and their counterparts preventing virus and other unwelcome things entry into your inner body.
Further well watered blood vessels deliver your immune system’s defensive cells to your mucus membranes further protecting and preventing your body being overwhelmed by any virus…you wear a mask, and socially distance, but your most important first line of defense during your whole life comes from within.
You can mask and distance all you want, but without adequate health and function of your immune system’s ability to deliver the “goods” to your mucus membranes at the entry points of your body…like oral and nasal cavity orifices, you’re weak and ready to be invaded. Your immune system, by the way, sends defensive cells to all parts of Your body and a healthy body Itself contributes to a well functioning immune system.
Besides one of the symptoms of CoVid19 virus infection is a dry cough. A dry cough means you are also Dehydrated…Dehydrated…to all you first graders, means your body parts are thirsty, and your immune system is compromised, and you need water for your immune system to work optimally and makes your first line of defense work properly.
Wash your hands frequently…? It’s way more important to drink clean water than to wash your hands, especially if you are locked down in your own home, where you are already immune to what’s in the house.
Doctors study disease, as in which pill for every ill, or what vaccine for different disease scenes. Knowing normal function and telling others about Health is what Health Physicians are all about. Hats off to LaBedz and Evslin.
Drinking soda of any kind, or juices, or alcoholic beverages is not drinking water. Water needs drinking by itself, especially between meals. So carry a bottle of water, avoid plastic bottles, and use stainless steel interior in thermoses.
A TOAST: Salud, to your Health.
Why aren’t the doctors saying these things.
Junk food, Fast food, snacks, sodas, sugars, chemicals in food, alcohol, tobacco, drugs are not HEALTHY.
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS and over the counter medications relieve signs and symptoms of disease, but apparently do not restore long term Normal function and Health, and thus why you need to take drugs for so long, because you are not getting Healthy in the long run.
Live natural food feeds your immune system in the long run.
Junk food, etc., feeds disease, but everyone knows that…or should…!
Medical professionals worldwide are saying trhe same things about what amounts to personal biosecurity. While your advice about maintaining a healthier lifestyle is generally OK, you are not a doctor or an epidemiologist. Comments to the effect that staying hydrated is more important than handwashing make no sense: staying hydrated is not a ***substitute *** for handwashing. Healthcare is not about doctors ‘favoring’ treatment by medication and prevention by vaccination to the **exclusion** of a holistic approach which includes a healthy lifestyle. Overgeneralizing doesn’t help anybody.
( I have a dry cough every time I clean out the barn! with or without a mask LOL! Regardless of how much water I’m drinking… I’m not proposing that everybody with a dry cough either has COVID, or has been cleaning a barn.)
Well Janet, space does not allow me the room to list the answers to all of your questions, but in a nutshell, we dodged a huge bullet. Look at New York and you will understand why. Since we were so lucky and the impact of the virus was not felt here (you know, your older friends and relatives dying) many people do not “get” why our Mayor is being so cautious. But he needs to be, because people from the mainland are already sneaking in here (I’ve seen them) and the possibility of Kauai becoming a hot spot remains. We will get to where we were, but only after securing the island against the virus, which includes a plan for visitors and returning residents in order to prevent the spread of the virus here. So please wear your mask and bear with it for the sake of any keiki and kupuna you may come across in your travels.
The reason: Coronavirus. And why is wearing a mask so burdensome? No shirts, no shoes, no mask, no service. I can live with that a little longer.
Janet: the only reason you write this silly letter that is full of nonsensical questions is because you have a rental that you are trying to desperately hook tourists into. You just want the flow of the mainlanders back so you can fleece your pockets! Be real with us!
“Our elected officials are supposed to serve us, not lord over us. Remember that, Kaua‘i, when you go to the polls.”
Great point Janet, and YES anyone with common sense >>>
*WILL remember how our Mayor shut down Kaua’i before O’ahu, Maui, and the BI.
*WILL remember we had fewer cases than the other Islands because of his early actions.
*WILL remember that he made National news because of his great leadership.
*WILL remember how he kept in touch with Kaua’i residents twice daily via social media.
*WILL remember that our hospitals & staff weren’t overwhelmed because of his preventative actions.
As for your claim “It’s too warm for a virus to survive”. You might want to get up to speed: 5/19/20: “Warmer or more humid climates do not slow the spread of the coronavirus, according to a study published by researchers from the Princeton University. Researchers have noted that countries in the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere like Brazil, Ecuador and Australia — where the virus began spreading during the summer season — saw a rapid spread of the infection. This indicates that warmer conditions will do little to halt the pandemic.”
Dorthy: “Why, then, must we all continue to wear masks?” “It’s called freedom.”
Is temporarily wearing a mask really such a hardship, or is it because someone told you to?
Going out on a limb here and assuming the 329,112 who have died (as of today) wouldn’t think so, nor would the 45,765 currently in critical condition. And, I also don’t think the millions who fought for the ‘freedom’ you reference would equate wearing some cotton on your face, while in public, as a hardship either.
It’s amazing how some people have learned NOTHING during this time. Their attitude is like trump’s “Like the flu” of months ago. This virus is exponentially more infectious than any before it. That’s why fighting it is done with methods that seem new to most. They are not new. The virus is also infectious from people without any symptoms. When South Korea (which uses tracking) opened Bars and Clubs, they determined that one 29 year old male infected 85 others in one night of clubbing. What do you think those 85 people without symptoms for at least 6 days did then?
“Can you imagine if we didn’t stay home how many would have died?”
One doesn’t need to imagine. Simply compare the infection rate in “essential” workers to those deemed “non-essential”. One group went out. One group stayed in. Though, even the group that stayed in, went out! So, in reality, nobody stayed home! Look up death rates for both groups. I think you will find in both groups, if you are under 65yo with no co-morbidities your risk of death is for all intents and purposes zero. Or did you mean specifically Kauai? Because the answer is still zero. If you aren’t old and in poor health, your risk is zero, people. Zero. Zero. Zero. Get over your irrational fear. There is more to life than living in fear of death.
“Why, then, must we all continue to wear masks?”
An island resident flew from New York to Kauai in March of 2020 while symptomatic with Covid-19. Yes, stood in line for TSA, stood in line to board the plane, sat next to people on the plane, likely several planes, likely said ‘Thank you!’ to the pilot and crew on her way out, who knows where she stopped on the island before getting medical attention, all while ‘shedding’ virus to the people around her. Likely nobody was wearing masks, The number of people she infected, while symptomatic, while being most likely to infect the people around her, was zero. No masks, yet no transmission. Hmmm. At least, no one she came into contact with developed symptoms and took a test to see if they had the virus. If you don’t believe me…
https://www.thegardenisland.com/2020/03/20/hawaii-news/third-case-of-covid-19-confirmed/
So I think we can rule out that the reason “behind the masks” is medical related. It never was medical related because medically, a mask does more harm than good to a healthy person. Some will say, “But we have to assume we are all infected and capable of infecting others! Put on your bleeping mask!” (Usually the maskers are less logical and more crass than I just was). There are no conclusive studies that asymptomatic transmission occurs with this virus. I’d be happy to retract that if someone wants to supply the evidence. And, no, Fauci or Birx saying asymptomatic transmission occurs isn’t evidence.
Janet, I feel your frustration. I actually prefer the Obama-Biden approach to pandemics. He would say, “Make no mistake, nobody is more concerned about defeating this virus with a laser-like focus than me and my administration.” And then go golfing.
These letters are incredibly disturbing. How many times do people need to be told that wearing a mask is not primarily for YOUR protection–it is for the protection of everyone AROUND YOU in case you are an asymptomatic carrier of the virus. Unless you are getting rapid-tested every day, you would not know if you were asymptomatic, thus you could be spreading the virus at any time and not realize it. Complaining about wearing a mask shows the entire community that you simply do not care about other people–why is this not getting through to you? How does your “right” to not wear a mask TRUMP everyone else’s right to not be infected by you and possibly lose their life?
Social distancing by itself is not sufficient–droplets can travel farther than 6 feet given enough time. The distance, coupled with how long you are within that distance from an infected person and what that person is doing that might be causing them to shed virus (sitting quietly is not the same as talking, yelling, or singing), is what determines the risk. But medical experts can’t put out guidelines taking these factors into account that Joe Q Public would actually understand, so they simplify it to 6 feet and wear a mask.
But you can’t even do that!
Frankly, if we can’t trust you to wear a mask, I have no confidence in you maintaining appropriate social distancing, either. You are simply a potential health hazard. I guess we should all thank you people for outing yourselves in the newspaper in this way. I would say someone should make a note of all of the people who have a problem with this, but they immortalize their disdain for the lives of other people in the letters and comments every day.