The News Courier encourages feedback from our readers through letters to the editor.

Letters to the editor should be no more than 400 words and include name, address and telephone number for verification. Submissions that do not meet requirements are subject to editing. Writers are limited to one published letter every 30 days. Send letters to P.O. Box 670, Athens, AL 35613 or email to lora@athensnews-courier.com. The deadlines are noon on Mondays and Wednesdays. 

Do your part to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic

Dear Editor:

Do my fellow citizens who choose not to take precautions against COVID-19 not care about the community? They stop at red lights to avoid hurting themselves and others. If there’s a tornado, they help their neighbors rebuild. Then why is it so hard for everyone to wear a mask and social distance to help other people stay well – just until we can get the threat of this highly contagious virus under control?

When I do my necessary shopping, I see many people who are not wearing masks and who don’t keep their distance – and who are disagreeable when someone asks them to do so. It seems they are disregarding the seriousness of this pandemic that has taken so many lives, and they’re thinking only of themselves.

COVID-19 doesn’t care about your politics, your age, your race or your religion. It just wants to have a party in your lungs – and the lungs of your elderly grandmother, and your friend whose immune system is compromised by cancer treatment, and the perfectly healthy stranger in front of you in line at Lowe’s.

We don’t know who among us might unknowingly be carrying the virus. So we all need to take precautions not to infect others or to be infected ourselves. If you’re mindful of your community, you will think not only of your right to do as you please, but also of my right to expect you not endanger my health.

We’ve been very fortunate in North Alabama thus far. Just because we don’t live in New York, where authorities have had to deal with 20,000 bodies in two months, doesn’t mean we’re immune. Just because we don’t live in Montgomery, where the hospitals are now full to capacity as the number of COVID-19 infections rises in Alabama, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything we can to maintain our good fortune.

We can make this better if we all work together. Please wear a mask, step back 6 feet, wash your hands and stay out of the public as much as you can. These actions may be inconvenient and you may not like it – but you wouldn’t like to be on a respirator or to bury a loved one without the comfort of a funeral, either.

Lives will be saved, businesses will reopen, and life will get back to normal much more quickly if we buckle down now and eradicate this deadly virus. Please do your part.

Sincerely,

Clara Keyes

Athens