COVID: Deal with it, Idaho

I live in the Seattle area, reckoned with my “rights vs. responsibilities,” and stayed home in the spring, summer, and early autumn of 2020. I reduced my social life dramatically, masked and sometimes gloved up to try to contain COVID’s spread. Western Washington wakens to the news that Coeur d’Alene will send its COVID patients to Seattle area hospitals for treatment.

Why? Because hospitals there are over-flowing with critical care need. And why might that be? Perhaps because loyal Red-State Idahoans, following Trump and Co. down the COVID rabbit hole, determined that it was a “hoax.” Or, medical advice be damned, that it was “no worse than the flu.” Or, that mask-wearing and other sensible preventive measures to control its spread wasn’t “manly” or it “violated your rights.”

These past months I have been treated to a reckless president and his crowd displaying tawdry, churlish in-your-face defiance as they boldly and brazenly ignored clear and repeated warnings that COVID was coming and it was severe. They mocked me and my neighbors’ decisions to curtail our lives until better treatment and a vaccine are available while repeatedly ignoring competent medical advice about how to curtail its spread. They — some of them — are from Coeur d’Alene.

The reward for our own diligence is to now have our medical system besieged with the inevitable reckoning of such recklessly arrogant behavior. This is your personal responsibility moment, Idaho. See to your own.

RANDAL McCHESNEY

Bellevue, Wash.