MASKS: Medical unity missing

On Thursday the CdA Press reported that Kootenai Health is in “a transition to crisis standards of care.” Yet the same day, despite our hospital’s dire situation, I was appalled to visit a large medical clinic in Coeur d’Alene where not a single staff member was wearing a mask.

Before you visit your medical, dental, veterinary or other provider, call their office to be sure that all staff are required to be vaccinated AND wear masks. Kootenai Health should do the same.

Being vaccinated, alone isn’t enough. Vaccination will prevent you from getting seriously ill, but you can still transmit COVID to the rest of us, even if you are asymptomatic. This makes all children, who are too young to be vaccinated, innocent victims of our negligence.

This crisis is an unforced error. Being vaccinated and masking would have completely prevented the situation we now find ourselves in.

How many more of us need to die before people open their eyes?

JUSTIN STORMOGIPSON, MD

Newman Lake, Wash.