To the Editor:
We now have enough information about COVID-19 to take responsibility for our own individual actions.
Realty is that each of us has the power to make our own choices. Wear a mask or don’t. Wash our hands frequently or don’t. Social distance or don’t. Choose to take responsibility for ourselves and others or don’t.
Each of us has a choice. We can choose today to step aside and let someone with a greater need go first. We can choose today to wear a mask, social distance and trust in whatever faith we live by.
We can also choose to use our political power, social status, financial power, physical power … to push our way to the head of the line. We can try to justify our actions. “I am necessary for the economic health of our country; maintaining national security; for international relationships. Natural selection dictates that we protect the strongest for the good of the species.” The virus won’t judge.
Today, those of us healthy enough to enjoy an active retirement in The Villages, can choose to step aside and patiently wait for a vaccine while protecting ourselves and others with masks, social distancing, hand washing and staying home.
We can use the power we have to demand the leaders we have elected step up and take responsibility. Demand action – not another photo op.
We can be an example for the rest of the Florida, if not the nation. We can vaccinate the 130,000 residents of The Villages in an orderly way without crashing phone lines or leaving the elderly in cars for hours only to be turned away.
Register residents by birthdates – the oldest first. With all of our technology, it should be easy to notify each group by year and month when appointments can be made.
Use the The Villages Polo Fields to have people drive up and register. Give a set number of people Group A, B, C, D … and call the groups randomly by lottery when the vaccines are available. No rush to register.
Use the recreation centers as we do for polling. Use a lottery to determine which polling place goes first. If we can manage to have 130,000 people vote, we can manage to vaccinate them without the chaos. If our elected officials can’t do the job, we have a choice – remember and elect new ones.
The Villages have time – unkept promises. We have virtually no vaccines. Let’s take advantage of this to solve the problem.
COVID-19 like polio, Ebola, whooping cough … and hundreds of viruses and bacteria will survive, mutate and attack unsuspecting hosts leaving behind many with life-long disabilities or dead. COVID-19 has brought the young and old, the healthy and the sick, the poor and the wealthy, the politician and the homeless together in death.
Viruses are not unlike racism, social injustice, classism or sexism.
They all have the ability to bring out the best in us or the worst. We have a choice.
LaVonne Joyce
Village of Bonnybrook
