EDITOR:
Vision: Platte County Health Department will be at the forefront in leading, collaborating, and succeeding in making Platte County the healthiest county in Missouri.
Mission: The mission of Platte County Health Department is to ensure conditions that promote and protect health and equity, prevent disease, and improve the quality, safety, and length of life of all who live, work, and play in Platte County.
As of July 10, 2020, Platte County has a total of 294 positive coronavirus tests, 20 hospitalizations and six deaths. In a population of over 100,000 that is .294% of the population with positive tests and .006% deaths. Death statistics are way below influenza or auto accidents. Yet the Platte County Health Department (PCHD) seems to want to accelerate the panic using these numbers as justification for masks or a possible new lockdown?
Based on those statistics and who we know is most at risk, PCHD should be protecting those that are in the ‘at risk’ groups and let the rest of us live our lives. In fact, I would like to know why increased positive tests are an issue when deaths are not following. Would this not indicate that we are moving toward ‘herd immunity’? And possibly that the virus is weakening in strength.
Since coronavirus began, the PCHD has had only one plan and that is to lock down, restrict and control the population. In effect causing panic and conditions that result in less positive health outcomes for the citizens of Platte County. If they truly want to ‘ensure conditions that promote and protect health and equity, prevent disease, and improve the quality’ for Platte Countians, I believe they should spend some time educating the population instead of causing panic, anxiety and attempting to control.
Shutdowns are known to increase suicide, depression, anxiety, obesity and have other negative health outcomes. But that seems to be ignored. Our ‘health” department might inform the population what they could do to improve their health and their immune system and therefore their ability to fight all types of viruses/illnesses.
Does the Health Department have recommendations of actions that individuals can take to improve their own personal health, such as exercise, diet, smoking cessation, lifestyle changes. Are they actively advertising the underlying conditions that are known to be critical to a persons’ ability to recover from Coronavirus. Are they monitoring those most at risk? Does the health department inform the public about therapeutics that are available to the doctors to fight Coronavirus? No word on any of this from our health department.
Now PCHD wants everyone to wear a mask all day every day if they are in public space. Where is it proven that masks prevent infection or improve my health. In fact, a (cloth) mask prevents my exposure to a variety of substances in the air which normally my immune system would fight. Result, masks may actually work to weaken my ability to fight off infection and cloth masks may be harmful. (NCBI study of cloth masks: This is a randomized study (gold standard) on the effects of cloth masks. Concluding “this study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks… moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks, and poor filtration may result in an increased risk of infection.” It is not clear that medical masks helped. Maybe the most stunning number – 97% of cloth masks admitted viral particles www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/)
Another CDC study on Face Masks in Community Settings “Face masks should not be shared. They should be worn only once and then safely discarded. Face masks should be changed when damaged, soiled, or wet. They cannot be worn while eating or drinking, and may impair communication. If not worn properly, the use of a face mask could increase the risk of influenza transmission due to contamination of the face mask or to creating a false sense of protection, leading to neglect of respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene (64).”
The CDC website has data that delineates the deaths by age group. For example, students ages 1-24 are 96 times more likely to die from non covid causes than Covid. Adults ages 25-54 are 15 times more likely to die from non-Covid causes than Covid. Why would you not let people know that so they are not in a panic all the time.https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age- and-S/9bhg-hcku)
The “health department” should be more interested in honest health information and stop with trying to keep the public in a panic.
–Jacque Cox
Platte County