We can do better

Flathead County more than doubles our positive COVID cases in less than a month. We have the honor of being No. 2 in the state. Our health department is desperate for some help and how do our county leaders respond?

County Commissioners: Nope, masking is a personal choice. Board of Health: No way, can’t even discuss it (due to some bizarre rule about it only taking two members to remove an item from the agenda).

County Attorney: Not (you know Mr. Ahner, it’s not about who caused an outbreak, it’s about who is repeatedly ignoring a statewide masking mandate!.

County Sheriff: Notta.

So State DPHHS has to step in — but no, wait... our District Court judges jointly decide to give repeated masking mandate offenders three weeks to respond to a temporary injunction request. Just enough time to incur another 1,500 or 2,000 cases.

Has everyone forgotten this is a public health emergency? Other counties are taking action. Why aren’t we?

Come on Flathead. We can do much better even without any county leadership! Mask up (cover both your mouth and nose), socially distance, and limit your interactions to small groups. It’s so simple to do and will help us beat this virus and allow our businesses and schools to remain open.

—Kip Smith, Kalispell

Health board should reconsider

I just read the piece in the Inter Lake about the Flathead County Health Board’s decision to not do anything to mitigate the surge of Covid cases here in the Flathead. Really?

This decision was made in spite of input from Kalispell Regional that they are already near capacity for Covid patients. It flies in the face of the county health officer who stated they are “drowning” in cases, now requiring more than three days to do the contact isolation they try to do in 24 hours.

Dr. Bukacek quoted a mortality rate of .2% and explained that “is a 2 in 10,000 mortality rate.” (My math suggests .2% is actually 2 in 1,000 but why quibble with a 10-fold underestimate?) A more reliable number based on local reality from KRMC CEO Craig Lambrecht noted mortality rates of .5-1%, up to 5 times greater than Dr Bukacek’s assumption. To achieve these relatively good outcomes is requiring 7% of Covid cases to be admitted to the hospital. With rapidly rising cases our hospital will soon be overwhelmed and need to make very tough decisions as to who does or doesn’t get hospitalized.

I would like to suggest that the health board reconvene and reconsider their decision. To avoid a simple repeat decision framed by possibly faulty data, they should be required to spend an hour before the meeting touring the Covid care units at KRMC. Maybe if they saw first hand what Covid looks like to the patients and dedicated and over stressed staff, they might come to a different conclusion.

—Dr. Ken McFadden, Whitefish

Constitutional rights

These COVID restrictions have violated my Constitutional rights for long enough. There is no evidence the increased numbers are nothing more than what occurs with a typical seasonal flu. The health board should not pass any further restrictions and allow us to have a normal holiday season.

—Brenda Hambrick, Lakeside

Playing games

The recent City/County Health Board meeting only illustrates how, in the middle of a Covid explosion in the valley, board members do absolutely nothing but play games with their published agenda. The problem with Covid is, once it gets going it’s like a freight train, pretty hard to stop. Every effort is required to stop the Covid wildfire in our valley and the valley needs responsible leadership from this board.

The health department needs the board support and citizens need to know our lives are valued by these board members.

Dr. Bukacek’s Friday night rallies alone should disqualify her from this board. She has a conflict of interest. Just one lawsuit will be costly for our county. These board members need to follow their board mission statement for the health of the community.

—Francis Khor, Kalispell

Choose to care

If there is a core value for us as Americans, it is our rights and freedoms. They were hard fought for and are cherished.

However, in recent days the understanding of freedom has morphed into the idea of personal autonomy: the idea that we are in personal bubbles that only affect ourselves and do not affect others. In this view, the first objective is defending my own freedom and constantly being on guard lest it be stepped on.

I’m a Christian. And a lot of people who have this autonomy-centered view of freedom are Christians too. So, I want to appeal to my fellow believers: please remember what the Bible teaches us about freedom.

Paul wrote to the church in Galatia: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (5:13-14).

Freedom is a gift, but it is also a responsibility. It is not for me alone, but it is for serving others, for serving my community.

When it comes to the issue of masks, the first thing to ask ourselves is not “How does this affect my personal autonomy?” but rather “How can I love and serve my neighbor?” That takes guts! It is not “my body, my choice,” rather it is “my choices affect other bodies, not just my own” (which is less catchy, but more true!).

As Christians, let’s be leaders in laying down self and choosing to care for our neighbors right now, regardless of whether the government mandates it or not. Christ laid down his life for us; can we put on a little piece of cloth for the sake of love?

—Rebecca Miller, Bigfork