Thank you, Matt Kelley, for your work, dedication
How would you feel if someone showed up at your place of work and loudly and publicly criticized your performance? Someone who had never worked in your field, had never been trained in your
practices, had never studied your trade, had never used your tools? Someone who called you names, accused you of shoddy work and claimed to know better than you despite having no experience, authority or expertise?
Thank you, Matt Kelley, for your dedication to our community. Thank you for persevering through sheer exhaustion and unwarranted personal attacks. Thank you for standing up for our first responders, our health care workers, our essential employees and those on the front lines.
Thank you for protecting our most vulnerable citizens. Thank you for using your training and skills to look out for everyone in this community, even those who would bully and intimidate you and your family.
Our city and county are incredibly lucky that you are willing to share your knowledge and expertise to keep us healthy and safe. We are grateful.
Kristin Taylor
Bozeman
Country should follow the science, wear our masks
If you are confused about how we should be handling this virus, look at Norway and Sweden. They share a 1,000- mile border, the same ethnicity, and have equivalent socio-economic and health care systems. Norway decided to follow the science. Sweden left it up to the individual.
Results (as of Nov. 27): Deaths:
Norway, population 5.3 million, has 316 deaths or 59.6 deaths per million Sweden, population 10.2 million, has 6620 deaths or 649.1 deaths per million Therefore Sweden’s death rate is 10.8
times greater than Norway’s
Economy:
Norway, third quarter GDP down 0.2% year over year Sweden, third quarter GDP down 2.5% year over year Therefore Sweden’s economy has fared worse than Norway’s.
Freedom:
According to a Wall Street Journal article, Finland and Norway have avoided COVID-19 lockdown, but have kept the virus at bay.
So why would anyone want to continue on a path that produced almost 11 times more deaths but produced no economic gain? This makes no sense.
The decisions that governments make, and the action their people take, matter. If the USA were doing as well as Norway, we would have a death toll of 19,560, but instead we have 266,966. Our death rate (813.4 deaths per million) is 13.64 times larger than Norway’s. What we do as individuals makes a difference.
To all of you who are wrapping yourself in the flag – the ones who say that being asked to wear a mask in public and curtailing your social life for a year is a violation of your civil liberty:
We fly our flag proudly, but waving a flag isn’t what makes one a patriot. It’s the willingness to sacrifice for your country that does.
So, please, everyone, follow the science. Wear a mask.
Carol Dismore
Bozeman
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Letters to the Editor 12/8/20