Editor:
Eighty-year-olds in Humboldt who want a COVID-19 test are out of luck, I hear — unless they already have COVID symptoms (“In the Lab,” Dec. 3). And even then they’ll wait three days or more for results. Test materials are scarce. Then I read that a college basketball team is being tested eight or nine times a week! (What are the pros — and the NFL — getting?) This seems an upside down set of priorities, akin to keeping bars and restaurants open while closing schools.
This inversion of values makes me suspicious of the fine words about distributing the vaccines. Shots go first to the frontline health workers, then promptly to the vulnerable old folks. If you believe that, you can believe that the earth is flat and Donald Trump won the election. Your old grandma wants to get vaccinated? Tell her to take her place at the end of the line. Behind all those 7-foot basketball players.
John Petersen, McKinleyville
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In the Lab
This article appears in The Last Howlers.
And if you’re “lucky”, get your test, and find out you’re “positive” you can join other Humboldt County residents comprising the largest medical debt per capita in the state and a cot at Redwood Acres for a “quick” recovery.
Medicare is half privatized now. Once you’ve exhausted your appeals with the private Supplemental insurers, you are qualified to appeal to Medicare’a “Maximus” corporation with 120 days to respond! If you’re not dead by then, you’re certainly sicker.
Funny how this isn’t headline news. It’s not the Medicare my parents enjoyed.