John Montanari: Two examples

Two items in the Gazette’s Dec. 11 edition exemplified how COVID is making us, or driving us, crazy.

One was a letter, signed by several Amherst residents, that scolded the Gazette for publishing a guest column that our Amherst friends disagreed with, then went on to blame the unvaccinated for the spread of the new omicron variant. Never mind the chilling echoes of historical instances of such censorship and of blaming segments of the population for the spread of disease.

This letter bespeaks an alarmism that is causing segments of the nation and world to seemingly become addicted to endless extreme and unproductive measures to curb the spread of the virus.

There are places in America and Europe where people are gathering, in close proximity and unmasked, in schools, bars, restaurants, concert venues and even large indoor stadiums, and the world is not ending. Pointing to these places and their supposedly evil and ignorant citizens as the enemy is not only scientifically unjustified, it also helps to tear our already fractured country even further apart.

This virus is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, with more emerging variants that there are letters in the Greek alphabet. Once you’re vaccinated (as am I) and have access to the increasing number of therapeutics, your risk of serious illness or death is minimal, as small or smaller than other risks we live with every day. This is the conclusion I draw from the expert advice of such authorities as Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff and Marty Makary, all of whom speak with far more independence and reason than our vaunted public health bureaucrats, whose credibility is shrinking day by day.

The other item was the article titled “Local hoopsters ready to play,” specifically, the accompanying photo. Do you mean to tell me that these schoolchildren, who are practically invulnerable when it comes to COVID, are required to play basketball in masks? This is nuts.

Someday, soon I hope, there will be a reckoning for how panicked and control-addicted health authorities and political leaders have treated our kids during the pandemic.

John Montanari

Shutesbury