Letters to the editor: COVID-19, asphalt testing, guns in schools

COVID-19 testing

I am urging state and district health departments to proactively reach out to nursing homes, assisted livings, and group living settings to make sure that coronavirus tests are administered as early as possible. Any error should be in the direction of more testing rather than less. Seniors are our most vulnerable citizens; the places they live become the epicenter of contagion quickly, witness Washington state. Testing should be the priority over shutting out family visitors in a quarantine. Families are their main defense against substandard care. Failure to test quickly and adequately doesn’t seem to be local or state officials’ fault, but as the proper big numbers of tests become available, I hope Idaho will jump out ahead, and use the sense of community and helping that is strong in Idaho to get this done. Though I live in the Bronx, New York, our family is mostly all in Idaho and Oregon, and my mother lives in a care facility in Idaho. I am glad she is in an area where family are, and people care, since I cannot be there myself. Government, do your part for the public safety and health of our senior Idahoans. Test for the coronavirus.

Nina Carlow, Bronx, New York

Guns in schools

I am a mother of two young children in elementary school and am concerned about the proposed bill SB1384 that would allow teachers and other employees to carry guns on school grounds. This legislation is being sold as a way to keep school communities safe, but in reality would do just the opposite. Armed teachers pose a risk to law enforcement, students and the school community because the more guns that are in the equation, the more volatility and risk there is of someone getting hurt. Armed civilians complicate law enforcement response to active shooter incidents because it is more difficult to discern who the good guys versus bad guys are when everyone is shooting. Currently, each school district can make their own decision on whether or how to allow guns on school campuses. I am in favor of letting schools maintain their local control for what works best in their community, and not have a statewide law that overrules each district’s wishes. SB1384 would force all public elementary, middle and high schools to allow any employee with an enhanced concealed carry permit to carry a loaded handgun in a school, without permission from a school board. Not acceptable.

Jessica Ripple, Boise

COVID-19

By March 11 several critical insights have become clear to the world:

1) Some countries and provinces are prepared and willing to take the hard but necessary measures to prevent become overwhelmed by COVID-19, while others are not. Countries in Asia that learned from SARS appear less affected by COVID-19. The 1918 flu epidemic patterns also showed the importance of isolation, aka “social distancing” — the quicker it is used, the better.

2) Areas and governments that are ill-prepared and do not take rapid, early and preemptory control measures will suffer either directly or indirectly because the exponential growth of the virus (medical system can become overwhelmed and non COVID-19 patient needs will less likely to be met).

3) Waiting for infection cases or deaths to occur before enacting measures is waiting too long, again as the exponential rate of infections are showing us.

4) The spread of the disease is much greater than the number of reported cases or deaths. COVID-19 must already be in Idaho given the cases now reported in Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Canada. We have an opportunity in Idaho that states like Washington missed.

Matt Germino, Boise

Asphalt testing

The recent Statesman report that “Companies that are responsible for checking the quality of Idaho’s road materials have altered the results of their asphalt tests thousands of times…” shouldn’t have come as a surprise. What the Idaho Transportation Department has done (to use a cliché) is put the fox in charge of the henhouse.

During my summers while an undergraduate, I worked for the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (since absorbed into the Federal Highway Administration) on federal road construction projects around Idaho. BPR did its own road design, its own surveying and it did its own checks on the contractor’s road material. At the time the Idaho Transportation Department performed similar tasks on Idaho roads.

In my career, I have worked on high-technology programs in which there were independent quality checks.

The Idaho Transportation Department should hire its own quality assurance/control inspectors. That function should not be delegated to the contractors. Roads are a government responsibility and the work shouldn’t be privatized.

As Ronald Reagan famously said: Trust but verify. (In Russian, for you Trump supporters, that translates as Doveryai, no proveryai.)

Gary L. Bennett, Boise